I am sure that Rightmove can teach us lots but I have been speaking to them about the market locally and they kindly prepared a set of interesting data for me which looks at the local area and compares:
Supply – the number of properties on the market and Demand – as measured by emailed requests for information on property at particular rental prices.
The chart is built from data taken over the last few months and so is bang up to date.
How to read the graph above? The first property band £750-£900 shows that 13% of the available property was in this price band being chased by 22% of the applicants.
The graph shows that at rental prices between £750 and £1100 demand outstrips supply. It nears balance between £1150 and £1300, and then supply is in excess at £1350 and hugely so at £1,550, where 25% of property falls in this price bracket and is being chased by only 5% of applicants.
As an agent I certainly feel that it gets harder to let property at the higher prices with less consumers about who are spoilt for choice. If you are in this market the property has to be pristine to let quickly with no negative points.
On the positive side this graph shows us that demand remains very strong at the lower rental prices in our area and the lower the rent the better the demand will be. Price is a key factor but that is not the only factor, location and property condition also matter hugely, afterall nobody buys on price alone.
As much as I love this information much of this data won’t come as a surprise. Yield which expresses annual rental income over the property price shows us that smaller properties which rent for less have a higher yield and as properties get larger and more expensive the yield on them drops. So if you are looking to invest you can see that strongest demand tends to be in smaller less expensive properties.
