Expert insight from James Maguire, Sales and Business Development Director at UK rental services provider Housing Hand
It’s a busy time to be a letting agent in London. In December 2025, Knight Frank reported a 12% increase in prospective tenant registrations compared to December 2024, along with 5% more viewings – a direct indicator of the demand that agents are dealing with.
But being busy alone doesn’t equal success. Capturing the true value of a thriving lettings market means maximising successful lets. And this is where things get interesting.
A common bump in the road on the journey of converting a prospective renter into a tenant is the need for a guarantor. Guarantors are a common part of the rental process; the English Housing Survey 2023-24 data shows that one in five private renters (22%) was asked to provide one.
The problem – as we discovered when surveying working professionals and student tenants for our Understanding Renters in 2025 report – is that 34% of London renters didn’t know what a rent guarantor was at the point they were asked to provide one. Not only that, but 29% don’t know the difference between a personal rent guarantor and a rental guarantor service.
As we dug further into this knowledge gap, we found that, of those we surveyed, 53% were told they had to provide a guarantor to become a tenant of their current property – far higher than the 22% captured in the 2023-24 English Housing Survey. This tallies more closely with the findings of campaign group Generation Rent, which reported that 42% of renters who moved in the past year were asked to provide a guarantor – up from 33% just three years ago.
In a city of 8.8 million residents, 30% of whom rent privately, that’s a lot of potential for lets to stall and/or fall through entirely. Compounding the issue is that just 38% of Londoners would turn first to a rental guarantor service when asked to provide a guarantor. Instead, 24% would ask their parents, 17% their friends and 13% their wider family – all of which usually take longer than a professional service. Using a personal guarantor also carries the risk that the person standing as the guarantor may not meet the qualifying criteria, growing the risk of the process collapsing.
With all of this to deal with, lettings agents need to be on the front foot with information about services available to smooth out the rental process. An example is Housing Hand’s rent guarantor service, which removes the worry of lets falling through due to tenants being unable to provide a qualifying rent guarantor. The service streamlines the process between tenants and landlords for a faster, risk-free rental process. The organisation’s Guarantor Passport® takes this a step further, enabling tenants to line up Housing Hand as their guarantor even before they know the address of the property they want to rent. Added to Housing Hand’s proactive approach to supporting tenants to remain in their tenancy, and the organisation’s 100% payout rate for all valid claims, this provides a strong proposition to lettings agents, landlords and tenants alike.
Given lettings agents (and landlords) are already facing a year of upheaval in the market, due to the legislative changes of the Renters’ Rights Act, streamlining the rental process to remove stumbling blocks has never been more important.
