The average rent in Great Britain increased by 11.5% in May to £1,152 on an annual basis, the latest data from Hamptons Lettings Index shows.
The increase marked the first time that rental growth hit double digits since the Hamptons index started in 2012 with growth surpassing the previous record rate set earlier this year in April of 9.8%.
Data showed that for the last 11 months, it has been cheaper to buy a home in Great Britain than rent.
In May, it was £40 per month cheaper to service a mortgage with a 10% deposit than it was to rent the same home, while in November 2021 it was £160 cheaper to buy than rent.
However, if the Bank of England’s 0.25% base rate rise last week is fully passed on to mortgage rates, Hamptons says it will reverse this trend and make renting a home £1 per month cheaper than buying on a monthly basis.
For someone with a 10% deposit, data shows the rate rise will add a further £41 to their average monthly mortgage repayment, taking it from £1,112 to £1,153.
This represents a marked reversal to pandemic times between mid-2020 to mid-2021 when lenders raised mortgage rates for buyers with 5% or 10% deposits meaning it was considerably cheaper to rent than buy.
During this period, the Bank of England base rate remained at an all-time low, but lenders hiked their rates to reduce risk.
Hamptons explains that these higher mortgage costs meant that for the first time since 2014, renting was cheaper by £65 per month than buying with a 10% deposit.
Any future increase to the base rate of a similar scale will likely add a comparable amount to mortgage repayments.
The data shows that each 0.25% rise in the base rate will push the cost of buying further above the cost of renting by £41 a month for a typical first-time buyer with a 10% deposit.
Despite rents rising by 11.5%, they would need to rise by 12.5% just to keep pace with the rising cost of buying.
Meanwhile, for buyers with a 5% deposit, it has nearly always been cheaper to rent than buy since the monthly mortgage costs are higher.
However, with the base rate rise, it will be £105 per month more to buy than rent, the data shows.
On a regional basis, for someone with a 10% deposit, it is typically cheaper to rent rather than buy further South, while further North it is generally cheaper to buy than rent.
Across the whole of Great Britain in May, Hamptons data found it was £40 per month cheaper to buy than rent, but in the South East (by £1pcm), South West (by £2pcm), East of England (by £64pcm) and East Midlands (by £44pcm) it is cheaper to rent than buy.
In January 2022, it was cheaper to buy than rent in every region of the country.
Meanwhile, for the first time since November 2019, rents in London grew faster than in any other region in the country.
Data found that average rents grew 15.7% over the last 12 months, faster than the 13.4% recorded in the South West over the same period.
The last time London rents were growing quicker than anywhere else was during late 2019 when rents in the capital were up 6.4% over the year compared to 3.9% across Great Britain.
Inner London saw rents jump by 33.6% over the course of the last year, the fastest growth recorded in any region since the index started.
However, almost all this growth was generated by the recovery from the falls recorded during the pandemic, with Inner London rents up just 3.1% between January 2020 and May this year.
Hamptons head of research Aneisha Beveridge says: “Rising interest rates are set to swing the scales for would-be first-time buyers. For the last 11 months, it’s been cheaper to buy with a 10% deposit than rent due to rental growth running hot and mortgage rates near record lows. But yesterday’s Bank of England base rate hike will change this once again, pushing the cost of buying back above renting – a reversal of pre-pandemic times when the average buyer saved nearly £800 a year by owning rather than renting.”
“For many buyers though, it isn’t just the challenge of servicing higher monthly mortgage repayments, it’s saving up for a deposit which remains the big barrier.”
“Over the next year or so we expect several further small interest rate rises, with mortgage rates set to peak around the middle of 2023 which will add to the cost of buying in cash terms. We also expect rental growth to slow later in the year as rising living costs squeeze affordability. By this point, it will mean that for new buyers with smaller deposits, the monthly cost of purchasing a home will be significantly higher than renting one.”
