Top 8 London Rental Platforms That Make Flat Hunting Easier

Average rent in London hit £2,253 a month as of January 2026, according to the ONS. That’s the highest in the UK by a massive margin — the North East, for comparison, averages £767. Kensington and Chelsea sits at £3,640. Even Bexley, the cheapest London borough, comes in at £1,485, which is still above the national average.

And yet people keep moving here. The competition for rental properties has calmed down from where it was in 2022, when landlords were fielding dozens of enquiries per listing, and tenants were offering above asking price just to secure a viewing. Rightmove tracked an average of 10 enquiries per rental property in 2025, down from 14 the year before — though still nearly double the pre-pandemic figure of 6. Stock levels are recovering too, up 9% year-on-year, but that number is still sitting 23% below where things were in 2019. So yeah, better than it was. Not great.

The Renters’ Rights Act got Royal Assent in October 2025 and starts phasing in from May 2026, which means Section 21 no-fault evictions are on the way out. Good for tenants who are already in a place. Doesn’t do much for the supply problem, though. A SpareRoom survey from October 2025 found 27% of landlords claimed they were leaving the rental market, with another 5% shifting into holiday lets. Whether all of them actually follow through is another question, but the sentiment isn’t encouraging.

All of which means: the platform you use to search, and how fast you can act when something decent appears, still makes a real difference. These eight handle the process in different ways.

1. Rentberry

Most rental sites work the same way the landlord sets a price, you take it or scroll past. Rentberry added a bidding system where tenants can submit offers to landlords instead of just accepting whatever’s listed. In a city where rents regularly stretch past what people can realistically afford, being able to propose a figure you’re actually comfortable with is unusual. Not many platforms give you that option.

Applications, contract signing, and payments all run through the platform, too. If you’ve ever rented in London through a traditional letting agent — where communication bounces between email, WhatsApp, a reference-checking portal, and the agent’s voicemail — you’ll appreciate having everything in one place.

The interface picks up quickly, even if you’ve never rented in the UK before, which matters given how many international tenants end up searching in London. Direct messaging between landlords and tenants means responses come faster than routing everything through an agent. Rentberry is an excellent choice for anyone in London looking for a quicker, more streamlined rental process, particularly if you want some say in what you actually pay.

2. Rightmove

This is where most people start, and the numbers explain why. Rightmove’s dataset covers over 70 million listing records. Independent research from Street found that 3 out of 4 tenancies agreed between January 2024 and April 2025 came from a Rightmove enquiry when compared with the next largest portal. Nothing else has that kind of reach.

Filters go deep — price, bedrooms, tube proximity, parking, garden, pet-friendly (pets are the most-searched feature on the site, apparently). Listings come with photos, floor plans, and virtual tours with increasing frequency. Rightmove also publishes quarterly rental data, and their Q3 2025 report pegged London’s average advertised rent for new lets at £2,736 per month, with annual growth at just 1.6%. Useful context if you’re trying to work out whether a listing is priced fairly or if someone’s chancing it.

The downside? You’re dealing with letting agents for almost every property. That adds a layer between you and the landlord, and speed depends entirely on how responsive that particular agent is.

3. Zoopla

Zoopla’s listing volume is comparable to Rightmove’s, but the rental market tools are what give it an edge for people who like to research before committing. Average prices by area, historical rental data, price trend graphs — it’s all baked into the platform alongside the listings themselves.

Their December 2025 report noted national rental growth had slowed to 2.2%, the lowest in four years, with UK rental supply up 15% year-on-year. London’s supply recovery was slower at 6%. They also pointed to a major factor behind the demand drop: ONS data showing net migration fell 78% over two years, from 924,000 in the year to June 2023 to 204,000 by June 2025. Fewer people arriving in the country means less pressure on the rental market. That’s finally starting to show.

Zoopla’s rent calculator is genuinely handy if you don’t know London’s pricing geography. Tell it how many bedrooms you need and roughly where you want to live, and it’ll give you a figure based on recent activity. Saves you from falling in love with a Shoreditch two-bed before discovering it would eat your entire salary.

4. OpenRent

No letting agents. That’s the pitch and, honestly, for a lot of people, it’s enough. Tenants pay zero fees. You find a property, message the landlord directly, arrange viewings yourself, and negotiate terms without someone in the middle taking a cut and adding days to every interaction.

Landlords get tenant referencing tools — credit checks, employment verification, previous landlord references — so there’s still a screening process. It just happens faster because both sides are talking to each other instead of going through a proxy.

You do lose the hand-holding that an agent provides. Nobody’s chasing the landlord for you, nobody’s handling the paperwork coordination. If you’re fine managing that yourself (and most experienced renters are), the speed and cost savings make OpenRent worth considering. If you’ve never rented before and want someone guiding the process, maybe start elsewhere.

5. OnTheMarket

OnTheMarket got attention for one specific feature: publishing new listings up to 24 hours before they showed up on other portals. In a market where a decent one-bed flat in Zone 2 can have a queue of enquiries within hours, that head start matters.

You can set up alerts by area, price, and property type, so notifications arrive the moment something matching your criteria gets listed. The interface is clean, the search tools are solid, and it doesn’t try to do too much.

Listing volume is smaller than Rightmove or Zoopla, so you wouldn’t want this as your only search tool. But as one tab among several, the early access to new properties justifies keeping it in your rotation.

6. HouseSimple

HouseSimple has a property comparison feature that lets you stick multiple listings next to each other — rent, square footage, amenities, location — and actually see the differences laid out. After your third consecutive evening of viewing flats and trying to remember which one had a decent bathroom and which was next to the railway line, that kind of tool starts feeling essential.

Pricing transparency is another focus. All costs are shown upfront before you apply. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 already banned most letting agent fees, but some charges still appear in various forms across different platforms. HouseSimple keeps it straightforward.

7. LettingaProperty

This one targets professionals specifically — furnished flats in central London areas, ready to move into without needing to sort out broadband accounts and buy a sofa. Finishes tend to be higher-end than your average rental listing, and the locations skew towards places that are convenient for working in the City or the West End.

Virtual tours are available on a lot of properties, which matters if you’re relocating. Whether that’s moving from Manchester or from Munich, being able to properly assess a flat without physically standing in it saves time and travel costs. You can narrow your shortlist remotely and only visit one or two places in person.

8. SpareRoom

When a whole flat in London averages £2,253 a month, splitting a place with flatmates becomes less of a choice and more of a financial reality. SpareRoom is the biggest platform in the UK for room rentals and flatshares, covering over 370,000 room ads per quarter.

Average London room rent in Q4 2025 was £985 per month according to SpareRoom’s data. That’s down slightly from the all-time peak of £1,015 in Q4 2023, but still 37% higher than five years ago. The cheapest pockets are in south-east London (averaging £958), and parts of east London — E6 (East Ham) and E12 (Manor Park) still come in under £800.

Filtering works by location, budget, and flatmate preferences. Want someone who keeps to themselves? Someone sociable? Fine with pets? SpareRoom lets you specify. Identity verification and roommate reviews add a layer of trust when you’re essentially picking a housemate from a listing.

One figure that stuck out from their data: a March 2025 survey found 28% of London renters in flatshares were spending more than half their take-home pay on rent. Three-quarters were above the 30% threshold that’s generally considered the maximum you should be spending on housing. Even in shared living, London is squeezing people hard. SpareRoom has also reported growing interest in commuter towns — St Albans, Brentwood, Redhill — as renters get pushed out of the city altogether.

Platform Comparison

Where London Rents Are Heading

Zoopla projects UK rents will rise 2.5% through 2026. Rightmove’s estimate is a bit lower at 2%. Neither predicts rents will actually fall — they’re just climbing more slowly than the double-digit annual increases tenants were dealing with in 2022 and 2023.

London’s supply picture is still tight. Rental stock is up 6% year-on-year in the capital versus 15% nationally. The demand side has softened thanks to lower migration numbers, but properties in decent areas at reasonable prices still go fast. Rightmove noted that 24% of rental listings had their price reduced in 2025, the highest proportion this decade so landlords are adjusting, but slowly.

For anyone searching this year, the practical situation hasn’t changed that much. Use multiple platforms. Set up alerts on all of them. When something comes up that fits your budget and your requirements, move on it the same day. The market is calmer than it was, but hesitation still costs flats.