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Average UK monthly private rents increase by 3.7% as average UK house prices increased by 2%

ended 19. August 2026

Average UK monthly private rent increased by 3.7%, to £1,393, in the 12 months to July 2026; this annual growth rate is up from 3.3% in the 12 months to June 2026, new ONS figures show.

Average rents increased to £1,451 (3.8%) in England, £843 (4.5%) in Wales, and £1,016 (1.7%) in Scotland, in the 12 months to July 2026.

In Northern Ireland, average rents increased to £875 (2.3%), in the 12 months to May 2026.

In England, private rent annual inflation was highest in the North East (6.3%), and lowest in the South East (2.9%), in the 12 months to July 2026.

Average UK house prices increased by 2.0%, to £272,000, in the 12 months to June 2026; this annual growth rate is down from 3.0% in the 12 months to May 2026.

Average house prices increased to £293,000 (1.8%) in England, £213,000 (1.8%) in Wales, and £195,000 (2.3%) in Scotland, in the 12 months to June 2026.

  • What is your reaction to the figures?
  • What does it reveal about the housing market?
  • How can we fix the housing market?

Responses asap.

9 responses from the Newspage community

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Katy EatentonVerified
Mortgage & Protection Specialist at Eatenton Finance
The property market is certainly not firing on all cylinders but equally prices aren't falling, in no small part due to the ongoing lack of supply. Now is certainly a good time to negotiate hard on price, which many first-time buyers are doing. And vendors need to price realistically or they won't sell.
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Darryl DhofferVerified
Founder at The Mortgage Geezer
Average UK rent has soared to a bargain £1,393 a month! That 3.7% spike means your landlord’s second holiday home is safely funded. England leads the generosity at £1,451, though the North East bags the overachiever award with a blistering 6.3% hike. Meanwhile, house prices slowed to £272k, because why let tenants save a deposit when you can squeeze every spare penny out of them first?

This reveals our housing market is functioning precisely as designed which is a relentless wealth extraction funnel trapping millions in long standing tenancies.

The simple fix - Build actual social housing, kill speculative buy-to-let perks, and introduce genuine rent caps. Or, we could just tell renters to cancel Netflix and embrace communal living.
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Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
These figures show a housing market moving at two very different speeds. House-price growth has cooled to 2%, yet rents are still rising faster at 3.7%. That tells us the real pressure is not disappearing; it is simply showing up more heavily in the rental market.

For renters, affordability is becoming increasingly stretched, while would-be buyers are still battling deposit requirements, borrowing limits and high monthly costs. At the same time, landlords face higher financing, tax and regulatory costs, which can reduce rental supply and push rents higher.

There is no single fix. We need more homes, but we also need to stop treating housing policy as separate pieces. Planning, rental supply, mortgage affordability, first-time buyer support and landlord policy all interact. If we make it harder to rent out homes without making it easier to build or buy them, renters ultimately pay the price.
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Babek IsmayilVerified
CEO at homebuying platform OneDome
Tenants in many areas of the country are already facing extremely steep rents, and they continue to edge higher. If more landlords decide to leave the sector and rental supply falls, that could put further upward pressure on rents. For renters hoping to move into homeownership, higher monthly housing costs can make it harder to save and take that next step.
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Evren ErginVerified
Founder And Developer at ValuQ
The story is in the gap between the two numbers. House price growth has slowed to 2%, while rents are climbing 3.7% and still accelerating. The cost of not buying is now rising faster than the cost of buying, which quietly punishes the very people waiting for a cheaper moment to get on the ladder.

Treat the £272,000 average with care, though. It is a national mean, and no one lives in the mean. In the same year, one English city can have its houses rising while its flats fall by double digits. Plan around the headline and you are planning around a number that describes nobody's actual home.

How do we fix it? Supply where the demand actually is. Rents are rising fastest in the North East, at 6.3%, not because people want to pay more but because there is too little to rent. Build near the jobs and the stations, and both curves ease. Everything else just manages the symptom.
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Samuel Mather-HolgateVerified
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
These figures show a housing market stuck in a vice. Rents are still climbing faster than many household budgets, while house prices are barely moving because buyers are boxed in by high borrowing costs, thin supply and weak confidence. That is the worst of both worlds- renting is getting more expensive, but ownership is not becoming meaningfully easier. The Government keeps trailing big ideas, then failing to land them. We have heard talk of stamp duty cuts, buyer support, planning reform, housebuilder incentives and tougher housing targets, but renters and buyers cannot live in a rumour mill. The fix is not complicated- build more homes, make planning faster, stop punishing mobility with stamp duty, and give first-time buyers a credible route onto the ladder.
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Tony SanchezVerified
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
These figures show the rental and sales markets moving at different speeds. House prices are still rising, but more slowly, while rent growth has picked up again.

Rents increasing faster than property values may improve a landlord’s gross yield on paper, but that is not the same as greater profitability. Mortgage costs, tax, insurance, maintenance and compliance all sit beneath the headline rent, while refinancing still depends on the lender’s valuation and affordability calculations.

There is no quick fix. Britain needs more homes across different tenures, but new construction takes time. In the meantime, policy should avoid unnecessarily reducing the existing supply of rental homes and make it easier for smaller developers to build. Ultimately, sustained additions to supply are the only durable way to ease pressure on both buyers and tenants.
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Harps GarchaVerified
Director at Brooklyns Financial
These figures don't match what we're seeing. Landlords locally are struggling to match last year's rents, never mind exceed them. Rightmove's own BDM told our lettings team that agents are finding properties hard to let because of oversupply, and a quick look at the portals shows the scale of the price reductions. It may be a local story rather than a national one, but it's a real one.
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Patricia OgunfeiboVerified
Founder & non-practicing Solicitor at tenant2owner
This is not surprising; I suspect this is the practical impact of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 coming into force on 1 May, and landlords adjusting their prices upwards before then.

As any increment from that day will run the risk of a challenged increase resulting in a tribunal finding that a current rent is above market rent and reducing it, I also suspect that rent inflation will stabilise over the next 2 years, once these increases stop being evidence for new proposals.

Opportunities also abound for tenants looking for the security of homeownership, the security in which was acknowledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when in talking about the NPPF 2026, he said: “Making it easier for people to buy their own home is about more than a house. It is about security and families feeling they have a place they can truly call their own.