Brits in cities could save £2,700 per year by moving less than 5 miles

The average UK city-centre renter can save £225 ($304) per month, or £2,700 per year, by moving just 4.6 miles out of the city and into the suburbs, fintech thinkmoney has revealed.

With the average tenancy lasting four years, this amounts to an overall saving of £10,800.

And moving from the centre of London could help renters save as much as £3,217 per month.

A major increase in remote working could mean fewer people need to live close to their office. Thinkmoney analysed the average rent and house price costs across 23 most populated cities and compared them to the costs of living in nearby suburbs, villages, and towns.

The average rent across the central locations was £1,087 per month - that’s over half (53%) of the estimated average monthly income in Britain, which is £2,023. However, the rent in 23 of the best-rated nearby suburbs, renters can expect to pay an average of £862 each month.

Thinkmoney said it recently discovered that 46% of Brits didn’t have any savings before the pandemic, “so any funds that can be saved are all the more important.”

London’s city centre is considered to be the W1 postcode district where tenants could pay up to £4,302 each month in rent for a two-bedroom property.

Welwyn Garden City is just north of London and thought to be one of the best areas to live near the capital. The average rent there is £1,085 - a saving of £3,217 or £38,604 across the year, the report said.

Additionally, an annual train ticket to travel between the two destinations would cost around £4,428, which would still mean a saving of £34,176 over the year.

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Renters in Leeds could see savings by looking at properties just five miles from the centre.

A property in the central LS1 postcode would have a monthly rent of around £1,285. However, Horsforth, another best-rated location to live near the city, is 25 minutes away, where monthly rent drops to £826.

That’s a saving of £459 each month or £5,508 over the course of a year’s tenancy.

In Manchester, relocating eight miles meant monthly rental savings of £386 or £4,632 for the year.

And a move of one mile in Bristol could also see private sector tenants save £292 each month, thinkmoney found.

While renters can save up to £2,700 each year by moving away from central locations, the same cannot be said for house prices.

Thinkmoney said the typical asking price for a property in the city centre locations analysed was £262,938, with that cost rising to £290,295 in the nearest suburbs, towns, or villages.

This could be for a number of reasons. One of which could be that houses in the locations outside of the city tend to be larger, and there has been rising interest in properties with more space due to the pandemic.

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