It's official: rents are continuing to fall in London as city-dwellers relocate to the coast and more peaceful spots in the country.
The average room rent in the capital is now £725, which represents a 7% decline from this time last year, when it was £780.
The drop puts the capital out of step with the rest of the country, where rents have increased by 2% year-on-year, SpareRoom reports.
The only city which has seen a steeper decline is Edinburgh, where rents are down 10% year-on-year.
In some areas of the capital, rents have fallen far more sharply as COVID-19 makes working from home outside of the city much more commonplace. Not surprisingly, these tend to be relatively central postcodes where renters normally pay a hefty premium.
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In Aldgate (EC3) room rents are down 34%; in Maida Vale and Paddington (W9) they've decreased by 20%; and in Westminster and Pimlico (SW1) they've dropped by 17%.
Camden (NW1) has seen room rents drop by 15% from £1,011 to £860, while South Lambeth (SW8) has seen a 13% fall from £856 to £744.
North Kensington (W10), St John's Wood (NW8), Holland Park (W8) and Fulham (SW6) have also become more affordable – relatively-speaking – over the last year.
“With so many young renters leaving the capital, either to find cheaper rents, to move with family, or to leave the UK altogether, it's hard to know when, or even if, London will regain the appeal it had before the pandemic," SpareRoom's Matt Hutchinson said in response to the findings.
"What we’re seeing might just be a temporary shift in the rental market, or it may be the start of the UK’s rental map being redrawn permanently. Even if young renters do return to the capital in their previous numbers, affordability will be their absolute top priority, in a city that already had an affordability crisis coming into this."
Check out the most and least expensive areas to rent in London below, courtesy of SpareRoom.