Eleven Enquiries per Rental Property This Summer, and Nine in London

Rental properties advertised on Rightmove drew an average of 11 enquiries each over July and August, down from 12 in the same two months last year (Rightmove, 24 September 2026). The pre-pandemic summer average was 8. At the peak, in July and August 2022, it was 28.

Competition has eased, then, but it is still running above where it sat before 2020.

The national figure hides the spread

Scotland averaged 19 enquiries per available property and the North West 16. London, the South East and the East Midlands all averaged 9. At town level, Birkenhead and Wallasey topped the table on 30 enquiries each, with Carlisle on 29 and Glasgow on 28 (Rightmove, 24 September 2026).

Average advertised rent across Great Britain is £1,580 a month, and the pace of rent growth has continued to slow as supply has improved (Rightmove, 24 September 2026).

What it changes about borrowing, and what it does not

The loan on a let property is worked out from the rent it produces, not from the owner's salary. Expat and non resident applications are assessed the same way, which is rarely what people expect when they first ask.

Enquiry volume plays no part in that calculation. What it points to is the distance between the rent used in the assessment and the rent that actually turns up in the account. A flat fielding 19 enquiries re-lets quickly. One fielding 9 may take a few weeks longer, or let slightly under the figure you had in mind, and the mortgage payment continues either way. One empty month at the national average rent is £1,580 the lending calculation never asked about.

To be clear about what the data is: Rightmove counts enquiries, not void periods. Strong demand and a fast re-let are not the same thing. But it is the best regional read available on how deep the tenant pool is right now.

Rent, rates and capacity

Where a landlord's borrowing was capped by rental cover rather than by the loan to value limit, a rise in rent is exactly what frees up capacity, and over the past couple of years that has been a real route to releasing equity. With rent growth slowing, on Rightmove's own reading, it is doing less work than it was. Rates have risen over the same period and pull the other way.

Borrowing capacity has two ceilings and the lower one applies. One is the loan to value cap measured against the valuation. The other is whatever the rent will carry. Which ceiling you meet first is a case by case matter, and on any given file it is usually the interesting question.

Letting from overseas

Landlords living abroad often buy in London and the South East because it is the market they already know. Those regions sit in the lowest enquiry band in this release. That is not a verdict on them as investments. Yields, tenant profile and capital values are all outside what an enquiry count measures.

What it does affect is how much slack to leave in your own figures. A void is also harder to shorten from another time zone. Agreeing a slightly lower rent, or signing off a small piece of work before a viewing, takes longer when the decision has to cross a time difference and an agent's working week.

If you are refinancing a let property this year, or buying one while living overseas, get in touch and we can go through the numbers on your own case.

Sources

• Rightmove, Britain's most competitive summer rental hotspots, published 24 September 2026