Private sector rent statistics: 2010 - 2020

Broad Rental Market Area Profile – Lothian

Note in the following text and charts that average rents that have changed within +/- 0.5% could be considered as being fairly similar to previous periods.

Average (mean) rents in the Lothian area have increased between 2019 and 2020 for 1 bedroom (1.1%), 3 bedroom (1.1%) and 4 bedroom (3.2%) properties, whilst 2 bedroom properties have seen a drop of 0.3% and the average rent for 1 bedroom shared properties has stayed the same. This compares to CPI inflation of 1.7% across this time period between 2019 and 2020. Average rents have increased for all property sizes between 2010 and 2020. Increases over this time period ranged from 43.9% for 1 bedroom shared properties to 52.4% for 4 bedroom properties, which compares to CPI inflation of 21.5%.

For all property sizes, since 2010 increases in the top end (upper quartile) of rents have generally been greater than increases in the bottom end (lower quartile), which has widened the gap in rents.

Average 2 bedroom rents have been higher than the Scotland average in each year since 2010, and this difference has grown since 2013, with the average rent in 2020 being £969 per month, compared to the Scotland average of £689.1