Real Estate
London Luxury-Home Shortage Propels Rents to Pre-Covid Levels
- Supply of available properties has plummeted 68% in a year
- International students, corporate tenants compete for homes
The cost of renting in London’s wealthiest districts is soaring at the fastest pace in a decade as tenants seeking to return to the capital in style find there’s a vastly smaller stock of homes to choose from.
Rents in the priciest neighborhoods jumped by an annual 11.7% in September and have now returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to a LonRes report out Monday. A chronic shortage of available homes -- with supply 68% lower than a year earlier -- has pushed prices up so quickly that landlords have wiped out the losses they endured during the pandemic.