On average there are now 10 inquiries for each rental home on the market, down from a high of 22 in 2022, Rightmove says
An estate agent believes Londoners will increasingly be “more likely to adopt the European system where they are going to be renting for life” as the average cost of rent jumped to a new record high. The average advertised private rental home in London hit £2,791 per month in the second quarter of 2026, according to Rightmove data.
Rupal Patel, director at Shepherd’s Bush Winkworth estate agents, told Mylondon he believes rising rents will make life choices ‘harder’ for people living in London. He said: “Tenants are now going to be more likely to adopt the European system where they are going to be renting for life.
“Historically people have had ambitions to own their own properties and join the property ladder, so I think people are going to be renting for a lot longer, this has already happened, I have noticed so in the last five to 10 years that people are renting a lot longer before taking that next step.”
Competition between tenants remains significantly lower than at its peak, with the average rental home now receiving 10 inquiries, compared with 11 a year ago and 22 in 2022, the report said. There are regional variations, with London rental properties having an average of eight inquiries, compared with 14 inquiries per rental property typically in the North West of England, Rightmove added.
Mr Patel told MyLondon renters are not yet being pushed to move outside of London despite rising costs. He said: “I thought with the way prices are going this would be the case, however I have not quite seen this as of yet.
“One of the biggest demands for tenants is that they want to be close to a station to get to work and historically, because there was so much competition we may have had seven to ten people intersted per property but now if it has gone down to six to eight.
“You can still only take one tenant per property so I haven’t yet seen a massive shift of people moving away from London. Also a lot of the large corporate companies have done a whole U-turn in encouraging people to come back into work.”
With the average price per month of a rental property now £2,791 per month, Mr Patel explained what tenants can expect to get for their money. He said: “For around £2,000 a , I wouldn’t say with a garden, but one on a first or second floor is what you would be looking at.”
In May 2026 the Renters’ Rights Bill came into force, abolishing “no-fault” Section 21 evictions, ending fixed-term tenancies in favour of rolling monthly contracts and stopped rental bidding wars. Mr Patel said this has impacted the London rental market and Rightmove said the number of homes to rent is one per cent lower than a year ago.
He addeed: “[At Winkworth we] take care of close to 700 properties and I have noticed a large portion of our landlords have decided to sell up. Anyone who is a small time landlord who has between one to five properties and became accidental landlords from 2015 onwards for example, have decided enough is enough and decided to sell their properties…we have managed to sell them but that has reduced the amount of rental properties on the market.”
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