The Times ordered a survey from Hometrack to determine just how much the rents have risen in 2008 (to April). The outcome for 2-bed flats and houses – 14% rise in rents for London. Just last week Foxtons announced that the rents have gone up 10-20% for the properties they handle.

Is this talking rents up? The commentators in Times sure seem to think so:

- I live in desirable part of London and have not seen rents rise for 3 years. Nor have friends/ colleagues. So, is the survey honest?

- This is intolerable.
If it isn’t bad enough the little guy having to pay for the big guys greed, now you are trying to ‘talk’ rents up.
In my area, there have been NO rent increases, and there is a stack of properties to chose from. I look forward to house prices dropping 50-60%, along with rents.

You have to realize, that the Hometrack survey was for the overall trends for 2-beds in London. Now, it’s a big city, and you’ll have to look at the exact type and location to determine if the price rise affects you. If your landlord takes action after reading the article – do check the statistics from LondonPropertyWatch (choose “historical prices” from the menu) graphs for offering prices in your postcode area – the trends are different depending on location and type of the rental. Here are some examples:

Alright – on average London 2-bedrooms really have gone up.

Stratford E15 2-beds, around where the Olympics 2012 will be held, have seen rise in prices.

Chelsea SW3 prices for 2-beds have gone down…

…yet 3-beds have gone up.

2-beds in Central London W1 have gone down as well.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under For Tenant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.