The average rent in inner London is up more than 20% compared with 2021. Behind this statistic are scores of would-be renters navigating the sprawling city of dwindling opportunity. From 1843 magazine: Illustration: Ewelina Karpowiak
t is a Tuesday morning and I am lying awake in bed in my new flat. A drill is gunning its way through concrete somewhere beneath my window; a digger clatters through what was once a working men’s club. The crew on the demolition site started their shifts early this morning, their machinery ripping through my dreams. But despite the disruption, I am happy. The rent here is affordable.
I started looking online when I was still living in Brazil. I was pretty complacent about my options: I don’t have children, so I reckoneduntil I found the right place. I was lucky enough not to need a council house, so I could forgo a wait of many years. As a renter long familiar with London’s housing shortage, I thought I knew all the tricks. On an intern’s salary, I used to joke that renting in the capital meant living in a box, a boat or an abandoned building.
Another message pinged into my inbox. Sharon, a homeowner in her 50s, would communicate with me only via Telegram, an encrypted messaging app. When we finally managed to speak, she answered the video call with a mouthful of vegan yogurt, the camera positioned awkwardly close to her face. “Sorry, I was out till 4am last night partying,” she said, swinging around her dreadlocks. After I wrote to confirm her bank details for the deposit, she told me she had already given the room to someone else.
They explained that their monthly rent was paid in wads of cash, taken out in carefully staggered trips to the ATM
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