Private rental sector expected to exceed 5m homes by 2025

England’s Private Rented Sector housing stock expected to exceed 5 million homes by 2025

Research from Ocasa, the specialist rental platform, reveals that, after almost 20% growth in the past ten years, England’s Private Rented Sector (PRS) could exceed 5 million homes by 2025.

In the past ten years, England’s PRS has increased in size by 18.8%, from 4.1 million homes to just shy of 4.9 million.

On a regional level, the fastest growth over this time period has been seen in the South West where the PRS’s stock level has increased by 31.2% from 404,768 homes to 530,975.

The West Midlands market has grown by 25.4%, in London the market has grown by 21.7%, and in the North East, the number of PRS homes is 17.3% higher than it was a decade ago.

Based on these historic growth trends, Ocasa has forecasted how the Private Rented Sector will perform in the future.

Taking England’s 18.8% growth over the course of a decade, it is calculated that, between today and 2025, dwelling stock totals could increase by a further 6.4%. This is equivalent to an additional 313,906 homes which will bring the national total to just under 5.2 million.

Regionally, the most new homes are expected to be added to the PRS in London (68,336), the South East (47,500), and North West (38,075).

Meanwhile, the smallest increase in market size is forecast to come from the North East where just 13,291 new homes will be added to the Private Rented Sector by 2025.

Sales and Marketing Director at Ocasa, Jack Godby, commented:

“The government is trying to dampen the Private Rented Sector by making it less and less cost effective to purchase additional homes for investment purposes such as buy-to-let. But there is still a huge need for rented homes in England – not every can or wants to buy their own home.

Perhaps the new PM’s latest tax incentives will give a boost to the market, but in order to ensure that there are enough good homes for those who need them, more still needs to be done to make buy-to-let more attractive for landlords.”