Rent Affordability Calculator
A huge part of our job is making sure we find the right homes for the right tenants and the affordability of that home is a big factor in that.
We work to a metric of 3x for our rent affordability calculator. This means your monthly household income must be 3x your rent to pass referencing, so that your rent is never more than 33% of your income. We don’t want any of our housemates getting themselves into debt because their rent is too high OR finding they have no money to spend at the end of the month, because they have over-extended themselves.
We have a duty of care to all of our housemates to ensure that their rent is affordable and will not create hassle and stress for them further down the line.
If you input your household income below, our online rent affordability calculator will tell you the maximum rent your referencing will pass for.
If you input your household income below, our online rent affordability calculator will tell you the maximum rent your referencing will pass for.
If you find that your income does not reach the affordability calculations, then you will likely find that any tenant referencing you enter into will fail as your income does not support the rental amount required.
We get asked a lot if there is any flex in these metrics which is a hard question to answer, as it is very circumstantial.
Some tenants are happy to pay more to their rent, to live in a specific area of the city and have less disposable income. Ultimately, it will be up to the landlord if the income is too low and a referencing report fails.
If you are looking to rent a property that costs more than 33% of your income, there are some options you have available to you. The most common of these is a guarantor.
A guarantor is someone who will sign to guarantee any liability that you might incur during your tenancy, in other words, they will agree to pay any rent, damage or other costs that you are not able or willing to pay while you are a tenant at the property.
This is not something to be taken lightly, they will be stepping into your shoes legally if there are costs you do not pay for that you are liable for as per the terms of your agreement.
This is especially common with student rentals, where parents are more often than not guarantors.
Where there are multiple tenants, it is very common for each tenant to have a guarantor, so in the example of students, each tenant will have their own guarantor.
As you would expect, Guarantors must also go through referencing, to ensure that they are able to be guarantors and are able to cover any potential costs not paid by the tenant. It is also very common to request that the guarantor be a UK home owner.
The affordability metrics of a guarantor tend to be 4x, so their income must be 4x the rental figure. This equates to the rent making up 25% of their income. This threshold is tighter, usually because they will have their own housing costs to consider when factoring in being a guarantor for someone else.
They will also need to be referenced, so will need a clean credit record and have their identification checked, among other things.
If you input your guarantor’s household income below, our online guarantor rent affordability calculator will tell you the maximum rent your guarantor’s referencing will pass for.
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