The affordability of private rental properties

06 October 2019

We’ve published new research revealing that 9 out of 10 homes for rent are too expensive for families on housing benefit.

Analysis of data on private rental listings extracted from Zoopla found that:

Only 7.54% of rental properties advertised in England are affordable to LHA claimants.
"Family-sized" properties, i.e. those with two or more bedrooms, are even less affordable, with only 6.5% being affordable at the relevant LHA rate.
Southern and Eastern parts of England are the least affordable areas.
In 2011, LHA was set to the 30th percentile of rents within Broad Rental Market Areas, meaning that claimants should have been able to afford 30% of the rental market in each BRMA. In 2019, the median percentage of the rental market that is affordable within a BRMA is only 5.9%.
Only 2.75% of rooms within shared accommodation are affordable at LHA. The shared accommodation rate is usually the only LHA rate that single people aged under 35 may claim.