Tenant insights
The survey revealed that 60.4% of tenants feel settled in their current homes, and 64% feel quite or very secure, with just 8.7% considering moving out of the rental market.
However, 27.5% reported insecurity in their housing situations and over half said the private rented sector had deteriorated in the time they had been renting, with just 6.2% feeling that it has improved. Affordability remains a dominant concern, with 68.1% of tenants spending between 31% and 70% of their income on rent, and 10% spending more than 71%. Flats (44%) and houses (40.9%) are the most popular type of rental property, but 7.6% live in a house share, 2.3% rent a room in an HMO and 2.1% are students.
Cost (40.9%), location (27.8%), and condition (22%) emerged as the most important factors for tenants when choosing a property. Additionally, 73.7% of tenants reported satisfaction with the quality of their rental properties, reflecting positive experiences for many despite broader challenges.
The survey highlighted the desire for stability, with 64.5% of tenants having only rented their current property or one other. Main reasons for moving included work-related relocation (16.7%), rent increases (13.4%), eviction (12.7%), and poor property conditions (12.5%).
Half of tenants aspire to own property but feel this is unattainable, with 58.1% citing affordability as the primary barrier, while 29.2% responded that they are renting for now but plan to buy, and 17.1% indicated that they are happy renting and have no aspiration to buy their own property.
The vast majority of tenants (92.7%) said they are not currently in arrears due to the cost of living crisis, although 17.8% of landlords reported that their tenants are in arrears for this reason. Most tenants (72.4%) have not struggled with rent payments, but of those who have, tenants reported that 17.8% of landlords have not been flexible with rent payments, although 9.8% have offered some flexibility when needed. However, 94.5% of agents reported that they had been flexible with tenants’ rent payments where required. For landlords rental arrears is not a major concern, with only 2.8% citing this as the biggest challenge they face.
The survey also revealed that 65.2% of landlords are responsive to tenants’ needs, and that tenants using an agent are mostly happy with the service provided, but a minority (17.1%) rated their letting agent’s service as poor. A significant majority of landlords and agents (98%) rated their relationship with their tenants as satisfactory or very good.
While 38.7% of all survey respondents would rate technology in the rental market to be behind other areas of everyday life, most tenants, landlords and agents prefer to communicate online by email, text or WhatsApp, with 34.4% preferring to communicate face to face or with a phone call.
