'My rent almost doubled, it was a harrowing experience'

When Chris Cullen's landlord wanted to almost double the rent on his Edinburgh flat last year, the 34-year-old says he faced an extremely depressing situation.

"It was a really harrowing experience to think to yourself, 'do I need to actually go home to live with my mum in a two up, two down?'," he told the BBC.

In the end, after a long search, Chris and his partner had to move to a place much further out of the city centre, which led to him also changing jobs.

"It's just a complete upheaval," he says. "It's like moving to a different city.

"Socially it was bad as well. We had loads of friends in the area, we were just part of the community there."

Recent figures show private rents have risen sharply across Scotland over the past 15 years, with the areas around Edinburgh and Glasgow doubling in price.

The Scottish government report outlines how private rents have increased significantly across all property sizes since 2010, rising on average much faster than overall price inflation.

According to the figures, two-bedroom properties remain the most common rental type in Scotland, with an average price of £921 per month last year, up 66.3% since 2010.

Some areas of Scotland, such as Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire (22.6%), Dumfries and Galloway (30.7%), and Ayrshire (32.1%), have seen rents go up much slower than the Scottish average.

While others such as Edinburgh and Glasgow have increased much more rapidly.

In Greater Glasgow, the average last year was £1,094 per month, the report said. Whereas 15 years ago it was just over half as much, at £564.

In the Lothian region, which covers Edinburgh, two-bedroom properties averaged £1,356, up 104%, from £665 in 2010.

Just four years ago, Chris and his partner Jessica were paying less than £900 a month for their two-bedroom flat in Newington, a lively residential neighbourhood close to the University of Edinburgh.

Over the next few years, the couple faced small but manageable rent increases which were capped under the Covid-19 rent restrictions.

Despite a 12% increase bringing their rent to just over £1,000, Chris said it came as a "massive shock" when their landlord said he intended to take the rent up to the full market value for that area.

This meant they would have to find between £1,600 and £1,750 a month, nearly double what they had originally been paying.

Chris, whose partner is disabled, said the rent increase was impossible to afford.

The pair went to their housing officer in desperation to ask what options they had.

Chris, who is originally from Ireland, said: "We were contacting the council through our housing officer saying 'look, this rent increase will make us homeless'.

"It's not like we can just go on the market and find something cheaper. There's nothing cheaper. Nothing exists that's cheaper."

Chris, who works for The Big Issue as a sales and vendor support worker, looked for alternative private rents but was faced with very few options and couldn't find any properties less than £1,100 to £1,200 per month.

"We were thinking: 'are we going to have to move to somewhere in the north of England?'," he said.

"It's a different country. We have no connections to those places."

Eventually, their housing officer suggested applying for mid-market rent housing, which offers below market rate properties for people on modest incomes.

These homes are typically let at reduced rents, and applicants must meet the income thresholds set by the local authority.

The couple were offered a property in the north of Edinburgh which they moved into last year.

"We're now paying £880, which is basically the amount that we were paying for a private two-bed in 2022 in the centre of town," Chris says.

Mid-market properties are run collectively by housing associations, private-investment backed organisations and the government across Scotland.

Chris said the couple were grateful to finally secure a home but the move still had a significant impact on their lives.

"Instead of me cycling 10 minutes to work, it was an hour on the bus," he said.

"I actually ended up changing jobs as a result because the commute was so bad."

The couple, who recently got engaged, would like to start a family but Chris says it's an impossibility for them to ever own a property unless something fundamentally changes.

He says mid-market rent has offered some limited security, however the couple are still unsure what their future holds, and whether their rent will go up again.

Scottish property expert Brian Gilmour says several factors are driving Scotland's rising rents, with the most significant being a lack of growth in rental supply.

At the same time, he says, it has become increasingly difficult for people to get on the property ladder, pushing more would-be buyers into the private rented sector and keeping them there for longer.

Gilmour says pressure is most acute in Scotland's economic and educational hubs of Edinburgh and Glasgow, where strong job markets and large student populations intensify demand.

"It's actually those squeezed-middle people with not-great salaries who are hit hard by these types of rents because they'll not go on housing association waiting lists because they have a job," he said.

"They are too economically active to get social housing, but not economically active enough to buy a house.

"Those are the people who are stuck in the private rented sector, where the rates have been going up."

Gilmour said young people under the age of 35 were most affected by these long-term increases and that the private rented sector was no longer the traditional stopgap it used to be before buying a property.

"They're paying such high rents that something has to give," he said.

"They can't both save for a deposit to buy a house and pay rent, one of them has to give. So it's going to be the saving for the deposit."