One of the most noteworthy effects of the pandemic on the rental market has been the shift in the distribution of available properties between urban and suburban areas.

According to Rightmove, the imbalance of supply and demand for rental properties in these areas has led to an 11% rise in asking rents compared to pre-pandemic levels. The average asking rent in suburban areas across Great Britain is now suggested to be £1,041 per calendar month, up from £940 in February 2020. In rural areas, rents have jumped from £1,141 per calendar month to a current level of £1,264. Urban rents are up by just £25 over the same time period, from £1,347 to £1,372.

It’s been a busy summer across the buy-to-let marketplace. An array of landlords remain well placed to benefit from some highly favourable conditions as competition heats up across the lending arena, rental income is strong and a lack of good quality stock continues to fuel demand. Another important factor within this is improving rental voids and this trend was evident in recent data from Goodlord.

This outlined that the North West saw the biggest month-on-month decrease in void periods in August, with its average dropping from 20 days in July to 18 in August – a decrease of 10%. London and the East Midlands also saw their average void period reduce in August, by one day.

The proportion of landlords reporting increasing tenant demand has hit its highest level since 2016.

Research from Paragon Bank found that just under 39% of landlords have seen increased tenant demand over the past three months, with 18.2% saying it has grown ‘significantly’ and a further 20.3% reporting slight increases. The percentage of landlords seeing growing demand has risen by 8% since the prior quarter and there’s a continuing trend of increasing tenant demand in the form of a 25% rise year-on-year. Additionally, there was a 2% decrease in the proportion of landlords reporting a fall in tenant demand compared to Q1 2021.

Record-breaking numbers of new prospective tenants are fuelling growing demand for BTL products among UK property investors, with product choice returning closer to pre-pandemic levels.

Newly released figures from Moneyfacts revealed that 2,709 buy-to-let products were recorded at the beginning of July. This was said to be the highest number of BTL options on offer in the buy-to-let sector since 2,897 in March 2020, 971 products higher than July 2020 when availability was limited due to product withdrawals following the start of the pandemic.

Additionally, Moneyfacts found that the average overall two- and five-year fixed buy-to-let rates have fallen when compared to July 2019. However, year-on-year both the two- and five-year fixed average rates for all LTVs are up 0.37% and 0.31% respectively.