What would a boomer say about renting?
Plenty of boomers rented a bedsit for a few years, then bought. Today far more people rent privately, many well into their thirties. Here's the Boomer's take, followed by the real numbers.
Ask a Boomer: renting Comedy, not advice
Eighteen hundred pounds for a ROOM?! For that money in 1979 I'd have rented a whole flat above a launderette, and the heat from the tumble dryers came up through the floorboards for free!
Go round and see him in person. Offer six months up front, compliment his hedge, and mention that your father once played darts with his uncle. That's how deals get done.
Anyway, what do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud! Took me three days to work that one out.
Thirty-one and living with FOUR strangers?! By thirty-one I had a wife, two children, a Vauxhall Cavalier and a lawnmower with a name!
Mind you, there were seven of us in a terrace in 1974, but we were all related, so that doesn't count. Put a rota on the fridge, label your cheese, and don't let them near your good biro.
Anyway, I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down! Gets me every time.
Forty people?! The last queue that long I stood in was for Star Wars at the Odeon in 1977, and at least I got a choc ice at the end of it!
Turn up twenty minutes early with a firm handshake, a letter from your bank manager and a tin of Quality Street for the agent. Nobody says no to a purple one.
Anyway, what's orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot! Ho ho ho!
The real numbers
- The average private rent in the UK was £1,400 a month in August 2026, up 3.8% on a year earlier.
Source: ONS, Private rent and house prices, UK (August 2026, provisional) - In 1983, 10.8% of households in England rented privately. In 2024-25 it was 18.9%, or 4.7 million households.
Source: English Housing Survey 2024-25, Annex Table 1.1 (England, 1983 and 2024-25) - In 2024-25, 38.2% of households in England headed by someone aged 25 to 34 rented privately, up from 21.4% in 2003-04.
Source: English Housing Survey 2024-25, Annex Table 1.4 (England, 2003-04 and 2024-25) - Private renters in England spent an average of 34% of their household income on rent in 2024-25.
Source: English Housing Survey 2024-25, housing costs and affordability (England, 2024-25)