Scottish Housing Market Review Q2 2024

4. Private Rental Sector

4.1. Private Housing Rental Prices

Letting agencies only cover around half of the private rented sector, and each letting agent's data will be affected by its market coverage, which will vary by geography and market segment. Subject to these caveats, data from Citylets and Rightmove show that the asking price for new lets in the PRS continued to increase although at a slightly slower rate than the recent historical highs. Citylets data (see Chart 4.1) shows that rents for new lets in Scotland advertised through their portal increased annually by 11.5% in Q1 2024, slightly lower than the 12.9% annual increase in Q4 2023. According to the Rightmove Rental Tracker, the increase in new let rents moderated somewhat from 10.6% in Q4 2023 to 9.8% in Q1 2024.

In real terms (adjusting for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index), the annual change in the Citylets private rental prices index in Q1 2024 was 7.7%, relative to 8.3% in Q4 2023. This was because the fall in the growth rate of nominal rental prices more than offset the decline in CPI inflation, which moderated from 4.2% in Q4 2023 to 3.6% in Q1 2024.

Source: Scottish Government