House price woes lift city rents by 4pc
FEARS of a further fall in Northern Ireland house prices, job worries and stricter bank lending helped push average property rents in Belfast up four per cent in the second quarter of 2010, according to research published yesterday.
The detailed quarterly report by Northern Ireland’s largest dedicated online lettings site, Citylets, indicates that tenants in Belfast and Greater Belfast were paying out an average 564 a month during the three months to the end of June as opposed to 544 registered in the three months before.
Properties were also snapped up quicker, the company said, with the time taken by landlords to let properties falling to an average 48 days from 57 days during the same period. This nine-day improvement in the time to let is indicative of increasing demand from tenants as well as potential supply constraints.
“The deflation of Northern Ireland’s property market bubble, worries over job security and tougher lending criteria for first-time buyers continues to have a positive impact on demand from prospective tenants, who feel that these challenging economic times mean renting is the better or indeed only option,” said the report’s author Citylets.co.uk analyst Dan Cookson.
“Our analysis shows that while rents are down on last year, there are signs of recovery with improved time to lets, which bodes well for a sector which generates more than 620 million in receipts to the local economy every year,” he added.
“It also shows that the private rented sector has held its own when compared with the dramatic falls seen in the value of house prices overall, which, according to Department of Communities and Local Government, are down 35 per cent in NI from the peak in August 2007.”
The Citylets quarterly rental report is based on collected and analysed data that spans two years and which includes data supplied from more than 30 of Northern Ireland’s largest letting agents including Ulster Property Sales, Templeton Robinson and BTW Cairns.
Although average monthly rents rose during the second quarter, they are down on the same quarter a year ago, with a 6.6 per cent annual drop registered to the end of June 2010.
The 564 per-month average compares with 755 in Edinburgh, 590 in Glasgow and 854 in Aberdeen. The average monthly rental price for a two-bed property in Dublin is around 850 (or €1,000).
“Set against the plunge in property prices we have witnessed in the last few years, the private rented sector has remained relatively stable, which is good news for landlords and tenants alike,” said Citylets founder and managing director, Thomas Ashdown.
“The volume of rental properties coming on to the market has increased significantly but this now seems to have been met with reasonably good demand from a generation of tenants with more choice than ever.”
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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