Rent hikes across the UK in 2015

Rental rates rose across the country in 2015, but hikes were evenly spread - with tenants from Brighton to Bristol paying up to 18% more that they were in 2014!

A report from Homelet has detailed the raises, and it seems tenants paid the price across the UK. Brighton and Bristol showed the highest rises of 18% - Edinburgh and Newcastle came in second with hikes of 16% in 2015.

Outside of London, rents averaged £739, compared to £704 in 2014, whilst tenants in the capital were paying on average £1,523 up from £1,410 in 2014.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) believe that rents will continue to rise in 2016, due to the legislation changes that landlords face this year.

This prediction, which was made at the end of 2015, takes into account new legislation such as Right to Rent checks, the scrapping of the wear and tear allowance, the introduction of the 3% stamp duty on buy-to-let investments and the reduction of the mortgage interest relief, all of which has resulting in a hike in compliance and maintenance costs for landlords.

A survey released by the Residential Lettings Association suggests that the legislation changes will continue to have an impact on the private lettings market, with 10% of surveyed landlords looking to leave the market in 2016 and 33% saying that they are no longer likely to invest in buy-to-let. Should this happen, it is possible that rents will continue to climb as rental stock declines.