POUND NOTES
■ Rents have hit a record high, with the average being asked across Britain, excluding London, hitting £1,126 per calendar month, according to a property website.
The average monthly rent being asked is 11.8% higher than a year earlier, Rightmove said, adding that the average rent is now 19% or £177 per month higher than when the coronavirus pandemic started.
Asking rents in London have surged by 15.8% over the past year, pushing the average asking rent there to a record £2,257 per month, according to Rightmove, whose latest figures cover the second quarter of 2022.
Rising rents continue to be driven by a shortage of available rental stock, although there have been some recent signs of improvement, the website added.
June saw the highest number of new rental listings coming to market of any month this year so far.
■ Property professionals saw fewer new inquiries from house hunters in June, but house prices continued on an upward march, according to surveyors.
Some 27% of professionals reported a fall in interest from potential buyers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said.
It marked the third month in a row that interest from new buyers slipped.
London appeared to be more resilient, as 7% of professionals there reported an uptick in inquiries in the past month.
Despite a general cooling in demand in the housing market, the direction of house prices was upwards, with 65% of professionals seeing an increase.
That’s because of a lack of available properties for buyers to choose from, the report said.
Survey participants also said market appraisals are broadly unchanged compared with 12 months ago.