Flatsharers are looking further out from central London as room rents stay high, with new SpareRoom data showing demand for rooms in the capital has fallen since before the pandemic while commuter areas gain ground. For landlords with shared housing in inner London, the figures point to a market that is still active but becoming more price-sensitive.
London room searches fall as outer boroughs and commuter towns gain
According to SpareRoom, the number of people looking for rooms to rent in London was down 18% in January 2026 compared with January 2020. Across the rest of the UK, room search demand rose 11% over the same period.
The platform also analysed more than 241 million area search terms entered in 2025 and found searches for London fell 14.2%, while interest in Greater London rose 38.2%. SpareRoom’s room-rental platform showed some of the strongest gains in places such as Waltham Abbey, up 113%, Hillingdon, up 62%, and Sudbury, up 60%.
Inner London still commands the highest room rents, but tenants appear more willing to trade a longer commute for lower monthly costs than they were a few years ago.
This follows Residential Landlord’s recent coverage of widening regional rent gaps and our earlier reporting on the pressure in London’s lettings market. Taken together, the latest search data suggests demand has not vanished – it has shifted outward to areas where room rents look less punishing.
What the shift could mean for shared housing landlords
For landlords in prime or inner London flatshare markets, the warning is that high headline rents do not guarantee the same depth of demand. Tenants still want access to the capital, but more are testing outer boroughs and Home Counties locations that keep commuting viable while cutting monthly costs.
That may support occupancy in fringe London and commuter belts, while making pricing discipline more important for landlords in the most expensive postcodes. It could also strengthen the case for landlords to think harder about room standards, bills-included offers and transport links rather than relying on a central London postcode alone.
The market is not collapsing. It is simply becoming less forgiving for overpriced stock.
Opinion
London landlords should not mistake this for a tenant exodus from the capital. It looks more like a refusal to keep paying any price just for Zone 1 or 2. If costs stay this stretched, the winners will be the landlords who offer decent rooms on the edge of London rather than the ones clinging to old pricing assumptions.
