A new report claims that the lettings market has shrunk alarmingly as tenants stay put as moving home becomes more expensive.

According to Matt Trevett (main image), Managing Director of The DPS, landlords registered 77,000 deposits in 2023-4, but eight years ago that figure was 250,000, a drop of nearly 70%. The data was gleaned from official data provided to the Government by the UK’s three main deposit schemes.

Staying longer

At the same time, the average length of a DPS-registered tenancy has been increasing, up every year since 2021, from 789 days to 910 at the end of 2024 – a rise of 121 days, its The Private Sector Rental Review reveals.

DPS also recently found during a previous survey that the proportion of tenants who said they had moved during the past 12 months had halved: from 46% in April 2023 to 20% in October 2024.

And the proportion of tenants who said they’d rented between one and five years increased from 42% to 54% between March and October 2024. Also, 35% of tenants said they’d eschewed moving home despite wanting to, up 11 percentage points from 24%.

Trevett said: “Whilst the overall number of tenancies in England and Wales continues to increase, that rate of growth has slowed during the last 12 months.

A combination of high rents and a shortage of suitable rental properties means that it’s less common than ever to see tenants move.”

“This is the first time the rental market has grown by less than 100,000 tenancies in any 12-month period during the past eight years.

“Tenants are now spending just under two and a half years in a property on average, which is around four months’ longer than in 2021.

“A combination of high rents and a shortage of suitable rental properties means that it’s less common than ever to see tenants move.”