People in Bristol are struggling to find homes to rent and those that can are paying increasingly unaffordable fees. Bristol Live has launched a campaign, looking at the rent crisis in Bristol and what can be done to help people find homes they can afford which are clean and safe to live in.
All over Bristol people are coming to Bristol Live to report cases of rogue landlords, mouldy flats and extortionate rent. This week a consultation was held about a possible rent cap and what it could like if it were to be implemented in Bristol.
It would be the first rent control in the UK since 1988 if it were brought in. However, it is long overdue with people increasingly paying more than £1000 a month for unsuitable homes.
Read more: Bristol Live launches Bristol Rent Crisis campaign
We have asked two of our reporters, one who rents in Bristol and one trying to move to Bristol, for their experience of the rental market.
JJ Donoghue
I first moved to Bristol in August 2021, starting what I thought would be a temporary job here at Bristol Live. The temporary job became a full time one, which was fantastic, but it changed my rental situation. I was staying in an Airbnb in Bristol which I had booked until the end of the month, so when I discovered that my move was going to be permanent it meant that I needed to find somewhere to live long-term. I quickly discovered that this was going to be very difficult. There is a scarcity of genuinely nice, affordable rooms in Bristol right now. I was on property websites day and night looking for a room, without any breakthroughs. At times I would ring up a letting agent on the same morning that a house was listed just to be told that they were fully booked for viewings already.
When I did manage to get a viewing for a house, I would often find it was unclean and mouldy, or that the bedroom was too small to fit a desk into, which has become an unintended consequence of the work-from-home revolution. On the rare occasion that I found a house which was spotless and ideally sized, it usually came at a price that I could not afford. And even if found a perfect room and then put an offer in, someone would always get it ahead of me.
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By the end of August, I still had nowhere to live. I ended up sofa surfing with friends and renting Airbnbs, which cost me more than £1,600 over two months at a time when I barely had any money. I eventually found a home through sheer luck - a friend of a friend was looking for somewhere to live as well, and it was much easier to get a two-bedroom flat than a single room. And even now, with my utility bills rising and my rent consuming half of my monthly pay, I'm relying on financial help from my parents just so I can afford to live - another piece of luck which I know is not available to many.
I'm now in the process of looking for a single room to move into again, and I'm encountering exactly the same problems as I did before. I can only cross my fingers and hope that I get lucky again.
Assiah Hamed
My experience in trying to rent in Bristol has been frankly much more long winded than anticipated.
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As a first time tenant, I have been obviously searching for an accommodation where both my budget and the location would be suitable, but with friends based in the city advising me that there is no way you can rent an apartment, let alone a studio, other than for the average of £800 a month- my heart simply sank.
Being based in the Midlands, commuting is not even an option to consider; therefore, my only option is to work remotely until I miraculously find an affordable home where I will be able to access local amenities and be somewhat near to my workplace. I must also add that working remotely has been the case since I was first assigned as a What's On reporter for Bristol Live in November, and I have only managed to visit the city a few times since. Hence, it is the norm to speak to other young people who have chosen to stay at home to live with their parents until they have saved up enough to move out. With living costs rising, it’s no doubt that I feel uncertain about my fate not only starting out in our industry, but starting out in the world on my own.
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