THE cost of renting has fallen but Edinburgh remains one of the UK's most expensive cities for a tenant, according to a survey.
Seven of 12 UK regions saw new-tenancy rental price falls last month, according to the HomeLet Rental Index. Average private monthly rents in Scotland fell by 4.4 per cent in October to £587 per month, and those in the UK, outwith London, are now £708.
HomeLet said that while rents for new tenancies in October were still higher than in the same month of 2013, it had recorded lower rental prices in each of the past three months in many regions, indicating a cooling in the rental market.
It also indicated that Edinburgh was the second least affordable major UK city to rent, with rents commanding 47 per cent of income, while Glasgow was the fifth most affordable, with rents taking 35 per cent of income.
HomeLet is part of the Barbon Insurance Group.
Martin Totty, the group's chief executive officer, said: "The divide between areas that previously registered fast-growing rents and those where increases were more modest suggests that the market may be levelling out geographically. All around the UK, landlords continue to make sensible decisions about the ability of tenants to pay rents."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article