The Number of Properties Available in the UK

In 2021, England and Wales had an estimated 28.1 million properties divided amongst a population of 60 million, meaning there were 2.13 persons per property on average.

Despite this seemingly reasonable ratio there is an ongoing housing shortage across the country meaning that a large number of these properties are either not available to rent or purchase, or are in the wrong place!

We can use rental data estimates from Bricks&Logic to understand the changing demand for homes by location across the UK. With 8.5% of UK households relying on the private market, it provides a good proxy for overall demand.

In terms of supply, there is an ongoing reduction of rental property stock across the country which is clearly impacting the rental market and driving up rental prices. 

Government policies have likely influenced this alongside recent economic challenges such as rising borrowing costs prompting more landlords to leave the sector.

Over the past year, the average rental prices in the North West have seen a notable increase. While average rents have risen by 8.6% across the region, increases as high as 15% have been seen in some areas.

See Fig. 01

Average rental prices have surged by 13.5% over the past year. While many public sector jobs offer a London weighting to offset the higher costs of living in the capital, the public purse is unlikely to cover these increases.

See Fig. 02.

In some areas of the Southwest, up to 90% of properties are either holiday lets or second homes. This seriously impacts the supply of stock for ordinary residential accommodation

The average rental increase across the region in the last 12 months has been 6.9% but this varied between 0.3%, and 13% depending on your location.

See Figure 03.

Overall, we can see a 8.2% rise in average rental costs over the past twelve months. (Figure 04)

This is clearly caused by a combination of reducing supply and increasing demand and is not uniform across the country. 

Finally, it’s worth noting that over 250,000 homes in England are classified as long-term empty properties according to Council tax data. 

This means that the properties have been vacant for 6 months or more. 

There are many reasons why a property could be vacant including during building works but in some cases they will be perfectly habitable properties left vacant by the owner for their own purposes.

While the ratio of the number of homes to the number of residents does not seem particularly low, it is evident that demand for property in certain locations is outstripping supply. This would imply that there are other areas in the country where there is excess supply.

Home building and particularly affordable home building in in-demand areas is likely to be top of the political agenda for some time. 

Find out more about rental prices and their changes over time at www.bricks&logic.co.uk.