Rents in London and the South East fell in the year to May 2020, but rose in other parts of Great Britain.

The finding comes from property agents Hamptons International. The firm put the average greater London monthly rent on renewed tenancies at £1,617, down 4.7 per on the year, and the average South East rent at £992, down 1.2 per cent.

The average for GB as a whole was £924, but excluding London, £752 – up 0.9 per cent.

Scotland saw the strongest rental growth last month, up 3.6 per cent on the year; followed by Wales up 3.4 per cent, and the North up 2.3 per cent. 

‘Despite the rise in demand from tenants looking to move home as the housing market reopened last month, income pressures continued to weigh on rental growth’, said Hamptons International head of research Aneisha Beveridge.

But London and South East landlords were not too badly hit. Hampton estimates they did the best when selling their properties.

London landlords made a gross gain of £254k when selling up last year, way above the average of £78k, and over 20 times that made by North East landlords who averaged £12k.

The 15 local authority areas in which landlords chalked up the biggest capital gains – selling after an average of 9.5 years of ownership – were all within the M25.