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UK tenants pay the most rent in Europe
The National Housing Federation has claimed that those renting in Britain pay a higher proportion of their wages towards rental costs compared to any other country in Europe.
According to research conducted by the National Housing Federation, private tenants in the UK are paying higher levels of rent and spending a huge chunk of their wages on rent compared to other European nations.
The average rent in the UK currently stands at £750 per calendar month, this is extremely high compared to the European average of £400, according to the National Housing Federation.
There is more bad news for renters in the UK as they are currently spending a high proportion of their wages on rent. Private renters in the UK are currently spending nearly 40% of their income on rent, compared to the European average of 28%.
The only other European country where tenants come close to matching Britain’s high rental commitments is Spain, where the average rent of 622Euros a month takes up 39% of their income. This is quite a stark contrast compared to Germany, where renters spend an average of 600Euros on rent, which equates to 25% of their monthly wages.
David Orr, chief executive at the NHF remarked: “Not only do British renters face crippling rents, but they have almost no certainty about whether they will be able to stay in their home from one year to the next.”
The reason for this is due to the fact that renters in the UK are often presented with short tenancies and it is believed that 77% of renters have moved properties in the last five years. This is nearly double compared to the 43% across the whole of Europe.
The report from the National Housing Federation comes in the wake of findings from a report by Halifax that a growing proportion of first-time buyers believe that they will effectively become ‘generation rent’ and that renting will become the norm in their generation. This is despite the fact that there are currently record low mortgage rates and the number of mortgages increasing for those with small deposits.
