Testing the Rental Market Amidst High Inflation Rates and Rental Prices

The property industry has always been a great business to be in, but it's never been more lucrative than now.

In the past month, one of our properties located in East London recently had a room vacated by one of our old tenants. To keep the revenue coming, we had to advertise the room to look for a tenant that will take it right away.

We were expecting a few responses from our initial ad, but we were sorely mistaken. We received more than hundreds of enquiries, and we were overwhelmed by how many people are interested in renting from us! The response rate was higher than expected so we had to take down the advertisement that was only been up for 2 days.

Add to the fact that news of a looming recession, inflation, and rental price increases has been all over the industry and kept the landlords and property investors wary of a sudden downfall. Just recently, the Bank of England stated that we are likely to enter a recession in the coming year 2023. Inflation rates hit a 40-year high record level, and the rental price rose by an average of 3.2% in the 12 months to July, based on figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Yet we are still proud to report that the property industry is alive and tenant applications have been increasing significantly despite the ongoing crises. According to the latest data from Goodlord, the number of tenancies being processed was up to 22% year-on-year.

It is a great reminder of just how much demand there is for housing, even during a crisis like this one. This is because people still need places to live—even if those places cost more than they used to. People are coming back looking for places to stay in the city as well, as more companies now require an in-person work set up as restrictions are lightened fresh from the pandemic.

We couldn't have been more thrilled at the increase in interest from tenants. We received hundreds of inquiries yet we only have to choose one since there is only one available room open as of the moment. But we would not waste such interest as there would still be upcoming opportunities for them in the future if they are still looking for a place to stay.

In the coming weeks, another co-living space will be open for rent. We will not open only one, but 7 brand-new rooms fresh from refurb. Glad that we had the chance to test the market beforehand, we are now confident that we will be accepting new tenants with less effort due to the high demand. The only thing we had to make sure is to choose the most deserving of them that will start a good tenant-landlord relationship with us.

With this, we do follow a system to filter out who we want to accept as tenants. There are so many things to consider such as their lifestyle, their ability to pay rent on time, and employer and landlord references, among others. Of course, we try to be as inclusive as possible but our ultimate goal is to ensure that all of the housemates should get along well with each other as they will be co-living under one roof for the long term.