For the 6th month in a row, the number of available properties for rent in Edinburgh remains extremely low. Supply of homes on the rental market has been creeping upwards since a low in September 2021 however numbers are still well below what we would normally expect for this time of year.
At Umega we normally advertise 40-60 properties on the market at any one time. This ballooned to 170 properties this time last year during Coronavirus restrictions when it wasn’t possible to move easily, before falling to only 6 homes on the market by the end of September last year due to a surge of tenant activity over the summer and the return of students to Edinburgh. We’re now seeing our advertised properties remaining steady at around the 15-25 level. The patterns emerging on Rightmove suggest other agents are experiencing the same, hence the low supply of homes across the market.
This makes it a good time to be a landlord with a property on the market and a tough time to be a tenant looking to rent a quality property as the demand from prospective tenants is so high compared to the supply of available rental properties.
These are not the best conditions for the Scottish Government to put its New Deal For Tenants strategy out for consultation because the measures outlined in the strategy are designed to improve the deal for tenants by making conditions tougher for landlords. The likely effect of new legislation introduced in line with this is that less new landlords will come to the market and there is likely to be even less available stock than there is now.
Prospective tenants in Edinburgh will be hoping to see the levels of available stock rise significantly as we head into the summer . If not, it’s going to be a tough second half of the year for tenants who are in the market for a new home.
