Rents for young at new high as landlords pass on costs

Younger tenants in Britain have seen their rents rise by a collective £3.5bn to hit a record high in the past year as landlords pass on their mortgage costs, a new survey suggests.

- ANDY GREGORY

Under-45s are now paying 66 per cent of all rent in Britain, amounting to a record £56.2bn in 2024, according to estate agents Hamptons. Mortgage costs soared as the Bank of England pushed up interest rates in response to the inflation crisis. Rent increases then peaked in December 2023, with an annual rise of 10.2 per cent, the report found, before falling back to 2 per cent.

With the volatility seeing even more young people priced out of buying a home, the number of under-45s renting properties soared by nearly 150,000 last year to hit 3.4 million – the fastest surge in a decade.

That surge in the number of younger renters also came as the government’s longstanding Help to Buy scheme was wound up in March 2023. It had been used by nearly a third of first-time buyers over the previous decade.