London’s rental market has become a ‘nightmare.’ Here’s why

London
CNN Business
 — 

For Rebeca Blázquez, the past few weeks have been a “nightmare.”

Based in Madrid but hoping to find work in London before starting her master’s degree, the 22-year-old university graduate spent a month searching online for a room to rent in London on a £900 budget ($1,070). She sent dozens of messages to landlords and vacating tenants, and logged in for virtual viewings only to find that the room had already been taken.

“I think that I sent over 100 messages to different ads, and I only had [a] reply to 30 messages,” she told CNN Business.

Renters, real estate agents and property search specialists described to CNN Business a frenzied scramble for rental units since the spring as students and workers flocked back to the city after the pandemic.

That surge in demand collided with a steep drop in supply. Data from Rightmove, an online property portal, shows that the number of available rentals in London fell by almost a quarter between July and September from the same period in 2021. Prices have soared as a result to all-time highs.

The average monthly rent, including bills, for a room in a shared house or apartment hit £933 ($1,109) in October, up 17% from before the pandemic, according to data from SpareRoom, the country’s biggest roommate search site.

Blázquez said that apartment hunting this fall was a far cry from her experience back in September 2020, when she last rented in the city. She settled on a place earlier this month, but is paying nearly £300 ($357) more for a similarly sized room in a less desirable location.

“I rented it without seeing a video or anything because I was so desperate,” she said.

Matt Hutchinson, communications director at SpareRoom, told CNN Business that the capital has seen a “huge influx” of students, young people and overseas workers in recent months — demand that the pandemic kept bottled up.

At the peak in September, there were almost nine people looking for every room listed on the site.

“We’ve never seen the market like it is now,” Hutchinson said.

Though demand has fallen back slightly since September, it is still higher than the average summer peak, when the market is usually its busiest.

“If someone has advertised a…