Glasgow’s lettings market is the strongest it’s been in up to 10 years, with a shortage of rental flats driving demand and prices, according to local lettings agency Rosevale Letting.
Riccardo Giovanacci, founder of Rosevale Letting in Glasgow’s Newton Place, said: “Rental returns are the strongest we’ve seen for the last seven to eight years, or maybe even 10 years.
“This time three years ago, a one-bed flat in Glasgow’s West End might have rented for £650 to £700 a month, or maybe £750 on a good day. Now that same flat will be going for £1,000 a month.”
Lack of rental stock has been the main driver behind an “unbelievably strong” last couple of years, Giovanacci added, with many landlords choosing to leave the market.
“Property values have rapidly increased and a lot of people who had become accidental landlords over the last 10 to 15 years had an opportunity to get out of the market,” he says.
“But those landlords aren’t being replenished.”
Increasing legislation in the private rented sector, fewer tax breaks and a switch to holiday let sites like Airbnb were also driving landlords and their properties out of the market.
But demand for rental property has continued climbing, especially since the end of the Covid lockdowns.
Giovanacci said: “In the autumn and winter of 2020, there was an excess of stock, but the market took off like a freight train the following summer, and it hasn’t really stopped since then.
“Historically there were always peaks and troughs in the market. But in the last two years, it’s just got stronger and stronger.”
