British Sharers Pay the Highest Rents in Europe

My nephew lives in Bologna, Italy and has been searching for a flat for almost a year. Recently he thought that he had found one. When he viewed he found that the whole flat needed to be redecorated - as his expense, there was no furniture, the kitchen and bathroom were just about ok. The Agent told him that he was lucky because most landlords do not provide kitchens - this is in fact true and tenants move "fitted" kitchens around with them. He was desparate because of the shortage of rented property and agreed to take the flat. The flat was in fact what we would could a bedsit but in Italy a room divided by a curtain is considered to be a separate room. Then the blow. He was asked for 6 months rent up front, 1,100E deposit and a rent of 800E a month. He had the money for the first month and the deposit but he could not afford to pay 6 months advance rent and lost the flat. He told me that this was the cheapest "flat" he could find at the moment and since he and his partner only bring home just over 2000E a month between them he could not afford more.

My nephew told me that my tenants are lucky and that the flats that I rent would cost at least 50% more in Bologna but would not but up to my standards.

In most of Europe a ;person needs to prove that they have a contract not just a job, often has to provide a guarantor, and up front rents of up to one year are fairly common.

I let property to sharers: the benefits from a landlord's perspective are a more stable income because if you lose one sharer through a job move or relationship change, you don't risk a void on the whole property. Houseshares can also be attractive places to live for young tenants who are new to an area, and they tend to change jobs more frequently than most people. The negatives are greater wear and tear and it's much harder to enforce an inventory on a whole house where the mix of tenatns might change 3 or 4 times in a year. You also get a greater churn of tenants as the arrangement is inherently more flexible from their point of view than, say, a couple renting a flat for a year: the sharers travel relatively light and are analogous to mature postgraduate students. However when houseshare tenants fall out, there can be a lot of extremely childish behaviour!

Houseshare rents may be a littler higher in absolute terms compared to Europe, but compared with renting an apartment they are the cheapest form of private-sector accommodation available. The article fails to compare the additional cost of utility bills: council tax alone split 4- or 5-ways in a houseshare is much more affordable than renting a flat yourself or with one other person. And it takes no account of the cost of furniture - a lot of British houseshares include furniture, which saves the tenant a small fortune on capital costs and the cost of lugging the stuff around.

The comparisons rather depend on currency exchange rates. A drop of 6% in GBP compared to the Euro would apparently put France as higher than the UK. Nonetheless, it is a point well made that flat sharing is not cheap in the UK. On the other hand, property is relatively expensive here but regulations are different.
As Mary and Tony demonstrate above, we may not be comparing like with like here. Take it all with a pinch of salt!