No sign of rents having gone up as result of tenancy fee ban, claim

There is no sign of rents having increased as a result of the tenancy fees ban, it has been claimed.

The Deposit Protection Service says that average rents reached £777 during the third quarter of last year, but then decreased marginally to £773 in the final quarter.

The DPS also says that the proportion of incomes that tenants now spend on renting has gone down.

It fell from 32.64% in 2016 to 30.64% last year.

The DPS says that renting affordability has increased, due to a 2.69% increase in average salary over the same period.

It also says that there has been a £77 decrease in average rent deposits, from £905 to £828, since the introduction of the deposit cap last June.

Matt Trevett, managing director of DPS, said: “Although rents have risen over the past decade, other changes since 2016 have helped ensure renting has become on average more affordable.

“Predictions that rents would rise in response to the introduction of the tenant fees ban and deposit cap do not seem to have materialised, with many landlords seemingly declining to increase rents since last summer.”

The DPS says that average rents rose by 20% between 2010 and 2019 but by only 1% between 2016 and 2019.

London continues to be the most expensive rental region in the UK, with average monthly rents standing at £1,345 in Q4 2019 – over two and a half times the amount (£518) paid in the UK’s cheapest region, the north-east, during the same period.

Excluding London, average monthly rent during the last quarter of 2019 stood at £672, says the DPS.