Rents Continue To Grind Upwards

It’s now a year since the Office for National Statistics overhauled their experimental rent index and it’s fair to say they feel pretty well bedded in. But while the fact of the index is cause for celebration, what it shows is anything but. In the last five years rents across England have outstripped general inflation and earnings growth – and in the capital they’re almost 20% higher than they were at the start of 2011. The ONS’s rent index doesn’t turn up eye-grabbing double digit rent rises or falls. It tends to move slowly up and down. This is mostly because it doesn’t track changes in market rents (i.e. what I would have to pay if I were to go and look for a new rent home today) but to track changes in average paid rents. Read more on the Shelter blog.