Is my rent fair? How to check a London rent

Find homes advertised near yours that match it on the things that drive rent most:

• Bedrooms and size. Two 2-bed flats can differ by 20 square metres or more. Compare price per square metre where you can — the floor plan or the home's energy certificate shows the size.
• Type and building. A flat in a new block with a gym and concierge isn't a fair comparison for a conversion above a shop.
• Location. Stay close — ideally within half a mile. Rents can change a lot between one side of a high street and the other, and with distance to a station.
• Condition and furnishing. A newly refurbished flat lets for more than a tired one.

Aim for at least eight to ten comparable homes. With fewer, one unusual listing can skew the picture.

Official averages (like the ONS figures for August 2026 on our borough pages) are useful context but a poor test of one home:

• They include long-running tenancies, so they lag behind what new lets cost today.
• They mix every kind of home in the borough — big and small, new and old, near and far from transport.

A rent well above the borough average can still be fair for a large or well-located home, and one below it can still be too high.

Listings show what landlords hope to get, not what tenants agreed. When the market is slow, homes often let for less than advertised. Homes that have been advertised for months are usually overpriced — leave them out of your comparison, or treat them as the top of the range.

Council tax, energy and water can differ by hundreds of pounds a year between two homes at the same rent. A poor energy rating (E, F or G) means higher bills — check the home's energy certificate. Our guide to London rents breaks down a typical month.

• It's well above similar homes in the same building or street.
• It's been advertised for weeks and the price hasn't moved.
• The listing has no floor plan or size, so you can't compare it.
• The rent assumes facilities (parking, outdoor space, a refurbished kitchen) that the home doesn't really have.
• An agent asks you to offer more than the advertised rent. Since 1 May 2026 that's not allowed — see what the Renters' Rights Act changed.

The same test applies to a rent increase: the rent tribunal decides what the home would let for on the open market today, compared with similar homes. If your landlord is asking for more than that, you can challenge it.

RentScore does all of this for any London address: it finds similar homes advertised nearby, leaves out stale listings, limits how many come from one building, adjusts for size and energy rating, and shows a fair range with how confident it is — plus the true monthly cost.