Activity has picked up significantly with competitive bidding now taking place on a number of schemes, and rental prices being achieved on some developments reaching 5-10% higher than anticipated.
Lucy Morton, Head of Residential Agency at JLL, comments: “It has been an exceptionally busy few months for the lettings teams across all the JLL agency offices, and well-presented properties have let with fewer voids than in recent years. The quality of rental stock has increased considerably, with renting no longer considered the second option but the preferred option for many.
Punitive changes to stamp duty have shaped how people are interacting with the property market, most notably at the higher end. Once upon a time, if you were looking to live in London for 2-3 years you would automatically look to buy, but now with the cost of stamp duty, along with more stable price growth, you are likely to only break even in this time given the cost of buying a home.
Renting has become more desirable than ever because in many cases, you’re not just renting a home but embedding yourself into a lifestyle. Many new schemes, including, Rathbone Square, Uncle Elephant and Castle, Two Fifty One and 190 The Strand, which have all proven exceptionally popular, providing amenities such as gyms, residents lounges, private dining spaces and even cinemas, and in addition to luxurious living space giving its tenants more options than ever.
An unspoken perk of renting is the ability to ‘Right-Size’, which is an exclusive benefit of renting as opposed to buying. Tenants have more flexibility around where and the type of property they rent, so if the ‘shoe doesn’t fit’ you can move easily, allowing young professionals to upsize when they become a young family, or families to downsize when the children leave the nest. We have witnessed this trend in many of our offices, for example in Stratford, we found a lovely couple their first home together but 3 years on, they have an addition to the family so have moved from a one to a two bed.”
