It has been hard over the last couple of years and there are no markets that have not suffered in some form.  The rental property market has faired remarkably well compared to many other industry sectors and although there has been a decline in growth for both demand for rental properties and new landlord instructions in the first quarter of 2009 there is an optimistic outlook.

There are some statistics that have been made public by the Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) which reported that 55% of surveyors reported falls in rent in the first part of this year.  However, there was also reports of a 16% rise in the number of tenants searching for a rental property during the same period.  The study conducted by RICS also suggested that the outlook was for rents to continue to decline other the coming months.

The good news for the letting agents and the landlords is the demand for the rental property has been on the increase and the types of property that are most in demand are houses compared to flats.  This then brought a faster decline in rent prices for flats than for houses due to the supply and demand factors.  The demand for property and the fall in rental prices is very much a regional effect and the worst hit area of England and Wales was London which saw the worst in the rent prices and the tenant demand than anywhere else in the country.

Rentright is a UK wide rental property portal and has the unique RRPI (Residential Rental Price Index) which can be used as a guide line to show the current prices and trends in the area you are looking to rent a property.  The rental statistics are updated in real time and can be broken down into the number of bedrooms and the type of property required.  Also you can find current rental property advertised by local letting agents and landlords in the UK on the Rentright website.