Mortgage shortage traps more tenants in high-rent Brighton and Hove homes

Rents are eating up a growing proportion of people’s incomes in Brighton and Hove, according to a new report.

The report blames the rise in rents on a shortage of mortgage lending and says that as a result more and more tenants are trapped in increasingly high-rent homes.

Savills, the estate agent, said that rents cost about 47 per cent of average income in Brighton and Hove. This compares with a national average of 31 per cent.

Similar rental hotspots include London, where the figure is 53 per cent, and Oxford, where it is 57 per cent.

Lucian Cook, a research director at Savills, said: “Not only are more people renting, and for longer, but the social profile of tenants is changing and broadening.

“Private renting is becoming a way of life for a much wider spectrum of people.

“And the number of tenants ‘trapped’ in the sector shows no sign of decreasing.”
The research suggested that low consumer confidence and weak mortgage lending had led to renting hotspots around the country, such as Brighton and Hove.

This was down to limits to the number of properties available.

Local factors include the geographic constraints of the Downs and the sea as well as a historically low level of new building.

In addition, Brighton and Hove City Council has recently made it harder to convert family homes into student digs.

And the licensing of shared houses has become more expensive and rigorous in the areas nearest Sussex University and Brighton University.