Private renters are paying an average £918 a month for a buy to let home, according to the latest data.
Rents in the year to November rose by 1.5%, says market monitor Homelet.
Tenants in London are paying an average £1,597 a month and saw their rents increase by 4.4% in the past 12 months. Average London rents are 110% higher than those across the rest of the country.
When data from the capital stripped from the UK figures, the average UK buy to let rent is £760 a month – a rise of just 0.9% on last year.
Meanwhile, data from the Valuation Office, an official government agency, says the cheapest median rents in England were recorded in Kingston-Upon-Hull at £400 a month . The figure is for the year to the end of September 2018.
Landlords quit buy to let
Median rents in London ranged between £1,200 and £1,863 a month for the same period, with the lowest rent in Bexley, Kent (£,1000 a month) and the highest in Kensington & Chelsea (£2,383 a month).
The Valuation Office data comes from a sample of 486,000 rents, while the Homelet data comes from an undisclosed number of tenant referencing inquiries.
Elsewhere, ARLA Propertymark, the trade body for letting agents, says landlords are quitting buy to let due to government tax hikes.
Each letting agency branch has seen an average four landlords leave the market, says a new report.
David Cox, ARLA’s CEO said: “The number of landlords exiting the rental market is rising, and those who aren’t worried about it yet, should be. Buy-to-let investors have faced a huge amount of legislative change over the last 18 months alone, and as costs rise, they are being driven out of the market and new ones are being deterred from entering.”
UK rents by region
| Region | Ave rent Nov 2018 | Ave rent Oct 2018 | Monthly variance | Ave rent Nov 2017 | Annual variance |
| East Midlands | £625 | £628 | -0.5% | £615 | 1.6% |
| East of England | £898 | £908 | -1.1% | £894 | 0.4% |
| Greater London | £1,597 | £1,619 | -1.4% | £1,530 | 4.4% |
| North East | £517 | £515 | 0.4% | £533 | -3.0% |
| North West | £694 | £697 | -0.4% | £685 | 1.3% |
| Northern Ireland | £639 | £653 | -2.1% | £621 | 2.9% |
| Scotland | £635 | £647 | -1.9% | £620 | 2.4% |
| South East | £989 | £1,010 | -2.1% | £976 | 1.3% |
| South West | £819 | £811 | 1.0% | £802 | 2.1% |
| Wales | £599 | £614 | -2.4% | £610 | -1.8% |
| West Midlands | £688 | £693 | -0.7% | £675 | 1.9% |
| Yorkshire & Humberside | £623 | £631 | -1.3% | £624 | -0.2% |
| UK | £918 | £928 | -1.1% | £904 | 1.5% |
Source: Homelet
