A new report from Countrywide has revealed that retiree tenants are paying a lot more in rent than they were ten years ago.
During the last twelve months, retiree renters paid a total of £3.7bn in rent – a rise of 216% on the £1.2bn paid in 2007.
This rise means that £1 in every £14 paid by tenants in the UK comes from a pensioner. In fact, the total amount of rent paid by private tenants in Britain during the last year hit £50.6bn.
Rent Rises
In 2017, pensioners paid an average of £810 per month – a rise of 0.3% on last year and 19% since 2007. However, the typical retiree actually paid 12% less than the average tenant, as they were likely to rent a smaller property.
75% of retiree tenants rent a one or two-bedroom home, in comparison to 66% of all tenants.
Pensioners now make up 8% of the total number of tenants, in comparison to 5.2% in 2007. The greatest proportion of retiree tenants can be found in Wales, where almost 1 in 5 tenants are of pensioner age. The South West and North East have the next greatest proportion.
However, London has the fewest, with just 3.5% of retiree tenants.
In Britain as a whole, 53% of tenant pensioners live alone, while 81% are over 65.
Retiree renters paying much more than one decade ago
Slow Growth
During May, the cost of renting a home was just 0.1% higher than it was in May 2016. In the capital, rents fell for the seventh straight month.
Johnny Morris, Research Director at Countrywide, observed: ‘The rental market can no longer be typified by the image of carefree, young professionals. More than half of tenants are over 30 and the number of pensioners renting has reached record levels. And with younger generations growing up much less likely to be homeowners, tenants are getting older with an ever more diverse group of people calling the rented sector home.’[1]
‘Seven consecutive months of falling rents in the capital are starting to show signs of rippling out across the country with rents down in over half of regions outside London. The number of homes on the market remains well up on last years’ levels, softening rental growth,’ he added.[1]
[1] http://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/landlords/retirees-rent-triples-in-10-years.html