Advertised rents for the properties in Greater London that Hello Neighbour listed were 9.8% higher in August than a year earlier. That is the fourth monthly rise in a row and the highest growth rate since April 2025. Averaged across June, July and August, rents are up around 8%. This is now looking like a clear pattern, so it is important to understand what is behind it, and what it means if you are letting a property this autumn.
There hasn't been a significant increase in demand. We recorded 40 enquiries per property in August, up from 34 in July, but below the 47 we saw in August 2025 and a long way below 72 in August 2024 and 84 in August 2023.
Phil Shelley, our Chairman, published a ten-year review of what drives UK rental prices last week. One of his conclusions was that the fall in demand seen over the last 18 months is losing pace. Our January to July average went from 69 requests per property in 2023 to 50 in 2024, then 42 in 2025, then 34 this year, a 27% drop between 2023 and 2024 but a fall of only 17% between 2025 and 2026. Demand is still falling, but each year it falls by less, and we think that supports the view that the market is finding a floor.
Phil also reached the same conclusion we do on why advertised prices are rising, from an entirely different evidence base. The Renters' Rights Act is driving different behaviour from landlords. Since 1 May, landlords cannot accept offers above the advertised asking price, and rent increases are limited to once a year. The ability for tenants to challenge any rise is also new. These rules have encouraged landlords to list higher at the outset.
The logic is easy to follow if you are the one setting the rent. Advertising below market used to be a way of generating competing offers that landed above the asking figure. That route is closed, and the only direction available once a property is live is downwards. If you also get one attempt at an increase each year rather than a negotiation at every renewal, the opening figure carries far more weight than it used to. The four monthly growth rates since the Act came into force are 3.7%, 6.4%, 8.7% and 9.8%. Many of the conversations we are having with landlords also support this explanation.
Our figures cover properties currently on the market, so they are advertised rents not achieved rents. Our own experience would suggest that achieved rents are still growing rapidly but at a slightly slower pace than advertised.
Two other measures are published for London. HomeLet, which records rents agreed on tenancies that started in the month, has London at 6.0% for July 2026. The ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which covers new and existing tenancies together, has London at 3.0% in the 12 months to July. The 6.0% is a good indication of the current market, whilst the ONS data lags change, partly because it includes tenancies signed years ago and partly because a rent level for a property sits in the ONS index for up to 14 months before it refreshes.
The gap between advertised and achieved is important for any landlord thinking about valuations today. That gap was 1.4 percentage points in June and 2.7 in July. We await HomeLet's August index to see if higher advertised rents are translating into real rent levels.
The gap costs money at a rent review. A Section 13 notice on Form 4A is the only lawful way to increase the rent on an Assured Periodic Tenancy, and the figure you propose has to be no higher than open market rent. Your tenant can refer it to the First-tier Tribunal, and the Tribunal can only confirm your figure or reduce it. It cannot award you more than you asked for, so there is no upside in proposing high, and the referral costs your tenant very little.
An increase built on what similar properties are advertised at is built on the most inflated figure available. What stands up is achieved evidence: what comparable properties let for, how long they took to let, and what your own property last achieved. Our guide to getting a rental valuation right covers how to set the figure properly.
Affordability remains the binding constraint in London, so we do expect achieved rents to continue to grow slower than advertised for the rest of 2026. We also expect hard negotiation on initial rent levels.
London rents are the highest of any English region, at an ONS average of £2,317 a month in July, and tenant incomes have not moved 9.8% in a year. Nationally, rent already absorbed 36.3% of the median private renting household's income in the year to March 2024, against the 30% the ONS treats as its affordability threshold, on the ONS private rental affordability series. Pay is not closing that gap: private sector regular pay rose 2.8% in the three months to June while rents rose 3.7% over the year to July. Phil's piece sets out the full nine-year series.
The national picture is calmer than London's. The ONS has average UK rents at £1,393 in July 2026, up 3.7% over the year, and attributes the rise in the UK rate mainly to a pick-up in London. Zoopla's most recent UK Rental Market Report, published in June 2026, has national rental growth at 2.1% and London at 2.2%.
Price accurately from day one. The advertised rent is now the maximum you can accept, so there is no route back up if a tenant would have paid more, and no second increase later in the year to correct an opening figure that was too low. Set it above what the market will bear and you carry the void, which costs far more than the uplift you were reaching for. Base the figure on what comparable properties actually let for, not on what they are advertised at.
Get the right tenant in at the start. Section 21 has gone and every new let is an Assured Periodic Tenancy, so ending a tenancy is slower and harder than it was. Referencing, affordability checks and a proper conversation before the tenancy begins are worth more now than they have ever been.
Keep your costs under control. If achieved rents are growing more slowly than advertised rents, the difference has to come from somewhere. Fixed, transparent pricing with no ongoing letting fees and no maintenance mark ups protects your yield when the headline rent is not doing the work for you.
We expect advertised rents to keep running above last year through the autumn. Part of that is the new pricing behaviour working through, and part is arithmetic: our readings for the same months last year were weak, so the comparisons get easier from September regardless of what happens now.
Phil's view, working from ten years of evidence rather than from our own listings, is that pricing high at the point of advertising will not last. We agree. A rent set above what the market will bear is what the challenge mechanism exists to correct, and a property sitting empty costs more than the increase was worth. The figure worth watching over the next few months is the distance between what is asked and what is agreed.
If you want to know what your property would achieve rather than what it could be advertised at, we can help. See how Get Rented Pro works.
A busy month on the Hello Neighbour blog. Phil's ten-year review is the one I would read first. It is the most thorough piece we have published, and the best answer we have to where rents go next.