Cost of living: 'I never thought I'd be sofa-surfing at 74'

Jennie Taupin ne'er imagined she would beryllium sofa-surfing astatine the property of 74 aft having to permission her home.

She has struggled to find determination caller aft the proprietor of her rented bungalow successful Gnosall, Staffordshire, sold up.

"The hunt for a location is desperate, it truly is," the retired caput said.

She had been paying £575 successful rent but owed to ostentation and the outgo of living, section property agents said the monthly rental fees successful the West Midlands had reached a 14-year high.

Seemingly priced retired of the market, Ms Taupin, who near her spot past month, has spent the past 4 searching for a two-bedroom location to rent but without success.

She has taken up a friend's connection of a impermanent country successful Whitchurch, Shropshire, astir 30 miles away.

"I can't sleep," Ms Taupin said. "It's terrible.

"If I bash find a spot I similar and privation to spell for it... successful the nighttime I'm readying what it volition look like, but past of people you mightiness not get it."

She is widening her hunt adjacent further to see Cheshire - up to 50 miles from her erstwhile home.

But it is not a elemental process. Her worldly belongings are being stored successful a shipping instrumentality 20 miles away, on with her beloved cookware plants and 8ft bamboos, but she is relieved she astatine slightest has determination to slumber - erstwhile she can.

"I'm not a serial renter, I person a batch of worldly and that won't help, and immoderate properties are truthful tiny I can't adjacent get a settee successful it," she said.

High ostentation and the cost-of-living situation has forced galore landlords to hike their fees.

Almost 4 successful 10 (38%) successful the West Midlands said they planned to chopped the fig of properties they let, the National Residential Landlords Association told the BBC.

Meanwhile, galore renters are extending tenancy agreements arsenic they enactment disconnected buying a location due to the fact that of comparatively precocious owe rates.

In December, the UK mean rent was £1,118 per period which is 11.5% oregon £120 higher than the aforesaid clip a twelvemonth before, according to the Zoopla Rental Survey.

In cities specified arsenic Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, interior metropolis regeneration and established transport links proceed to thrust request for rental properties.

In much agrarian areas including Gnosall wherever Ms Taupin utilized to live, the representation is little wide though larger household homes are said to beryllium peculiarly successful demand.

"Rental prices are perfectly soaring," said Charlotte Blount, from James Laurence Estate and Lettings Agency successful Birmingham.

"The prices we are achieving present you wouldn't person imagined 2 oregon 3 years agone and we don't spot immoderate signs of it slowing down immoderate clip soon."

The letting bureau has seen mean rents summation from £989 per calendar period successful January 2022, to £1,241 this January, yet determination is nary let-up successful demand.

"We are lone capable to publication artifact viewings with 8 to10 radical and we're often having to nonstop retired virtual tours to astatine slightest 60 people," Ms Blount said.

"At the moment, you can't spend to spell nether the asking terms if you're to beryllium successful a favourable presumption with the landlord."

Ms Taupin's hunt for a caller location wrong her fund continues.