Lowri Griffiths on what it is actually like to look for a flat in London in 2026

By Lowri Griffiths

I have been looking for a new flat since March, which means I have spent four months experiencing London’s rental market from the inside, a position that has given me a detailed and involuntary education in power dynamics, the psychology of scarcity, and the particular way that estate agents say “it’s a popular property, we’ve had a lot of interest” in a tone that manages to be simultaneously threatening and bored.

The search began when my current landlord’s rental review letter arrived, proposing a 22 percent increase on my current rent, which I declined and he declined to negotiate on, in the way that people decline to negotiate when they know they do not have to. I have been on Rightmove, Zoopla, and SpareRoom since March 15th. It is now July. I have viewed eleven flats, offered on three, lost two to people who offered more than asking price and one to someone who offered asking price and, according to the estate agent, had “better references,” a characterisation I have been turning over for six weeks and cannot fully parse.

What Viewing Flats Is Like

The viewings are themselves a study in the redistribution of dignity that the rental market has achieved over the last decade. Properties are shown in batches: you are given a fifteen-minute slot during which four to eight other prospective tenants are also viewing the same flat, in a format that resembles a speed-dating event for people who are too anxious to make eye contact. The flat is presented by an estate agent who manages the paradox of wanting you to like the property and wanting you to not ask too many questions about it by maintaining a relentless positivity that answers everything and conveys nothing.

The flat I viewed in Stoke Newington in May was described in the listing as “bright and airy,” which it would have been if the building across the street had not been, at some point between the listing photographs and my viewing, replaced by a development that blocked the light the photographs were taken before existed. This was not mentioned. I asked about it. The estate agent said the new building was “a positive sign of neighbourhood investment.” I declined to make an offer.

The Rights I Have in Theory

The Renters Reform Bill, which has been in various stages of parliamentary progress since 2019 and which was passed in a modified form in 2024, provides some additional protections for tenants, including restrictions on no-fault eviction that are genuine improvements on the Section 21 regime they replace. They do not address the fundamental supply constraint that means any landlord with a desirable property can replace a departing tenant at higher rent within weeks. Rights without alternatives are limited instruments. The Shelter housing rights guidance covers tenant protections comprehensively. I have read it. I am still looking for a flat. Lowri Griffiths covers London life at prat.uk.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com