UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have only been a landlord for a little over three months but - for future reference - how often do other landlords/landladies increase their rent? How do you determine what is a reasonable increase year-on-year?

Annually.

Modestly.

I am thinking <5%. Often 2% or something like that. In recent lets I have been trying something out... when a person tries to haggle with me over the price (which I don't mind at all) I have started to say that I'll write a clause into the AST that the rent will not be increased for at least 2 years. I am trying to figure out whether this encourages longer tenancies. Time will tell, but it's what I want. The average tenancy length in the UK is said to be 18 months. I would prefer that to be longer - not by virtue of longer fixed terms, but through Tenants thinking everything is good value.

If you want to justify your increase, use the publicly available inflation rates, then do some rounding (down probably, because then you can say it's less than inflation). If you're jumping over the inflation rate like an ambitious pole vaulter, then maybe you'll not want to mention the inflation rate.

Examples from me this year - £500 to £510, £625 to £640, £1,200 to £1,250.

Thanks.