Rightmove; 45% Tenants Surveyed Expect Rent Rise

Bloomberg reports that almost half of Britons who rent their homes predict they will have to pay more for their accommodation in a year’s time, Rightmove Plc said.

Forty-five percent of tenants surveyed expect their rent to increase in 2011, the fifth consecutive quarterly gain and 12 percent more than a year ago, the operator of Britain’s biggest property website said in an e-mailed statement today in London. The number of properties available for rent by real-estate agents dropped by a fifth in June, compared with a year earlier.

Britons’ ability to buy homes is being impaired by banks’ rationing of mortgages, while the government’s planned spending cuts, the deepest since World War II, have sparked concern the economy may plunge back into a recession. Mortgage approvals fell to a four-month low in June, while consumer confidence dropped in July, according to GfK NOP.

“Many renters are caught in a ‘financial markets crossfire,’ taking financial hits from all directions,” Miles Shipside, commercial director at Rightmove, said in the statement. “As well as being negatively impacted by the new government’s austerity measure, they are likely to have to compete harder and pay more for the dwindling choice of rented accommodation.”

Rightmove surveyed 2,124 people online between July 5 and July 19.