Tenants Seeking Larger House Shares To Cut Costs

House and flat sharing website SpareRoom has announced a significant rise in the numbers of tenants seeking out properties with six or more bedrooms. Due to this demand, landlords are beginning to invest more in larger properties.

Over the last 12 months, SpareRoom saw a 43% increase in rooms available in  house shares with four bedrooms, a 51% rise in rooms in a five-bed house shares, and a massive 59% increase in rooms in larger properties with six or more bedrooms.

Let-Leeds has particularly seen a large rise in professional House Shares in Leeds suburbs such as Headingley and Burley.

Where the average rent for a one bed flat is Leeds is approximately £500 pcm, professional Tenants have been virtually priced out of the market. When a young professional then adds council Tax, Water, Gas, Electricity, Water, TV Licence, Broadband and insurance, you’re looking at almost £800-900 per month. With house shares, Tenants have been able to reduce this monthly cost to circa £350-400 pcm with all their bills included for them!

2012 has seen a tremendous surge in larger house shares. SpareRoom’s figures show a 74% increase in rooms in five-bed properties, and a 79% increase in properties with six or more bedrooms. With the average rent for house share in a property in London with six or more bedrooms being £350-400, a tenant can potentially save over £3,000 a year. No wonder they’re getting popular!

Across the UK as a whole, it’s much the same story. Room rents for two and three-bed flat and house shares cost the tenant an average of £426 per month, while a room in a four to six-plus bedroom property will cost a tenant an average of £397 per months, which gives a potential saving of £348 a year.

Matt Hutchinson, director of SpareRoom, said, “Faced with stubbornly high living costs, jobs uncertainty and, in many cases, reduced incomes, renters are increasingly looking to make savings wherever they can, and sharing a larger property with more people is a simple way to do that. Not only is the rent cheaper, but monthly bills are lower when divided amongst a bigger group, too.

“Landlords can reap higher yields from larger properties and tend to rent by the room in bigger house shares, as it can be difficult to find a big enough group of sharers that will move in altogether, unless their property is located in a university town or city and they are targeting the student market.”

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