A surge in demand for property to rent in Scotland has sent available stock levels down almost two thirds in just three months.
Citylets said many prospective tenants around the country have reported unusual difficulty finding a home to rent.
What began as a resurgence of tenant demand late in Q2 2021 quickly evolved into what many letting agents in Scotland have described as simply the strongest and most sustained period of lettings activity on record.
Stock levels in Scotland plummeted a full 65% over the quarter.
Gillian Semmler, of Citylets, said: "The ramifications of the health pandemic, amongst many other things, have now seen nothing short of a demandemic in the Scottish rental sector.
"Stock levels have declined dramatically in a very short space of time as stock levels struggle to keep up with unrelenting demand from tenants in all walks of life. Getting a residential property to rent in many areas of Scotland has pivoted abruptly from abundant choice to slim pickings.”
This Q3 will likely be remembered as a unique period where demand for property to rent was simultaneously high in all regions covered by the Citylets report, it said. Major cities, satellite towns and rural locations all posted positive annual growth of up to more than 10%.
Larger properties, in general, continued to fare best with 3 and 4 beds posting annual growth of 8.4% and 5.8% respectively driving the Scottish average up 4.7% Year on Year to a new all-time high of £906 per month.
Demand was rekindled across all property types and sizes with additional late demand from students returning to their university cities for in-person learning. The pace of the market accelerated dramatically, down 14 days on average for Scotland-wide average Time to Let of just 27 days. Three and four bed properties in Glasgow and Aberdeen let three weeks faster than last year.
Adrian Sangster of Aberdein Considine, said: "When commenting on the market I feel like a broken record. High demand, low stock. Post-lockdown we experienced a 100% increase of enquiries from people looking for properties across Scotland, especially family sized homes.
“This demand has continued throughout quarter 3. With insufficient properties to meet demand it leaves many people feeling upset and frustrated because they can’t find a home. The PRS in Scotland is the most heavily regulated in the UK therefore is a matter of deep concern to hear increased anti-landlord rhetoric from the coalition. If this continues, I fear many landlords will leave the sector reducing further the choice of properties available."
Sunak urged to give 'hard-pressed' Scottish pubs a break
The Scottish licensed trade has called for Westminster to slash alcohol for pubs duty in tomorrow’s Budget.
Marc Crothall: Budget must back Scottish tourism
With the UK Government’s Autumn Budget just days away and details of the Scottish Government’s taxation and spending plans to follow in December, the Scottish Tourism Alliance is calling on both governments to back the recovery of our vitally important sector with financial measures to secure growth; these two budgets could be game-changers for the economy – for better or worse.
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 here