THE LATEST research from the international rental marketplace, Spotahome, has revealed that London is just one of six European capitals to have seen the cost of renting fall over the last year.

Spotahome analysed monthly rental data across each capital city in the EU, as well as London, and found that the cost of renting has increased by 3 per cent on average since last year.

Valletta in Malta has seen the largest increase, up 11 per cent to £942 per month, with the Lithuanian capital Vilnius (+10 per cent) and Polish capital Warsaw (+9.2 per cent) also seeing some of the largest increases.

However, it’s not all bad news for European tenants. Budapest has seen the largest decline in rents, down -2.8 per cent, along with Prague at -2.1 per cent.

Perhaps more surprisingly, some of Europe’s most iconic and sought-after capital cities have seen tenants benefit due to a decline in rental growth, or with it remaining largely unchanged. 

London, Rome, Berlin and Paris are amongst some of the best cities in the world to live in due to a mixture of history, art, culture, infrastructure, nightlife, cuisine and great people; to name just a few things.  

As a result, tenant demand across these cities is high with rental prices following suit. With a current average rental cost of £1,744 per month, London remains the most expensive rental market in Europe, with the average cost of renting in Paris also over £1,000 a month.  

However, in the last year, London has seen the average cost of renting fall by -1.2 per cent, with Rome, Berlin and Paris also seeing rental costs remain largely flat with marginal drops of -0.9 per cent, -0.3 per cent and -0.2 per cent respectively.

With these cities offering young professionals some of the best job opportunities coupled with the best quality of life outside of work, this news will be warmly welcomed for those with an eye on them as a future place to call home.  

UK and Ireland Country Manager of Spotahome, Nadia Butt, commented: “A reduction in the cost of renting across some of Europe’s largest destinations for international tenants will be very welcome news for those already residing within them, regardless of how minor.

“We’ve seen rental growth in the majority of these locations remain on an upward trajectory for quite some time now due to the high demand for properties in these sought after cities.

“However, with current travel and workplace restrictions reducing this demand from working professionals and students, in particular, we’re starting to see rental costs in some of the most inflated markets start to level out.

“Unfortunately, this rental respite is only likely to last for the short-term and once we start to see a return to a new normal, it should start to pick up again.

“For those planning a move, this current lull provides an excellent opportunity to secure a rental property at a lower cost than they may have otherwise, and this will help with the overall cost of relocating to a major city once the time comes.”