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Living in London is absurd. You work your ass off to pay for a mouldy box, and often only live in that mouldy box so you’re close enough to travel to that particular job. We get it. But, rat race aside, it’s probably worth it for all of the amazing things to do in the capital.
For once, we’re here with some actually good news: room rents in the capital are the lowest they’ve been in the last seven years.
According to new figures from rental website SpareRoom, the average monthly room rent in London during 2021 was £721, down from £766 pre-pandemic. This is the lowest since 2014, when the average was £687. Overall, rents dropped during the pandemic by six percent – and London was one of only two regions in the UK where prices did not increase over that period (the other being the West Midlands, where they remained stable).
‘We knew the pandemic had a dramatic impact on room rents in London, but we were shocked to see just how far they fell,’ said Matt Hutchinson from SpareRoom. ‘Yet our data shows a very different picture beyond the capital, with rents across other UK regions stable or on the up. The last two years have had a huge impact on our lives and have led most of us to question what’s important, including where we want to live.’
It’s not all sunshine and butterflies though. The data also showed that London rents began to rise again during the last three months of 2021, as people started to return to work and restrictions eased. This was particularly the case in east London, which is of course popular among moustache-wearing, oat-milk drinking young people. We all knew it was coming, Hackney.