- Seaside towns including Weston-Super-Mare, Herne Bay and Burnham-on-Sea are seeing some of the highest increases in searches among renters looking for rooms in flat and house shares.
- Historic market towns like Baldock, Corsham and Sherborne have also seen significant rises, and topping the list is Essex market town Waltham Abbey; searches here have more than doubled.
More flatsharers are going coastal according to analysis of more than 241 million area search terms input by those landing on flatshare site SpareRoom in 2025 compared to the previous year.
Within the list of 28 areas for which searches have increased by more than half are five seaside towns: Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset (+62%), Herne Bay in Kent (+55%), Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset (+54%), Paignton in Devon (+53%), and Whitstable in Kent (+53%).
Helston, a Cornish town at the northern end of the Lizard Peninsula and just a couple of miles from the sea, and Bideford, a port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, have both seen a 70% rise in renter searches.
But it's only the relatively affordable coastal towns rising in popularity. Renter searches for pricier seaside city Brighton, for example, have dropped by more than a fifth (-21%). The average room rent in Brighton is now £730 per month, based on the latest available rental index data (Q1 2026). By contrast, all the seaside towns in the table below have average rents well below this mark.
Top of the table is Essex market town Waltham Abbey, where the average monthly room rent is now £784, about an hour's commute from central London and significantly cheaper - by £2,328 per year - than inner London (£978 per month). It is one of four market towns that feature, alongside Baldock in Hertfordshire (+62%), Corsham in the Cotswolds (+60%), and Sherbourne in Dorset (+51%).
Flatsharers today are contending with stubbornly high rents. The average room rent in the UK is currently £747 per month, 30% higher than in Q1 2020 (£574 per month). That means the average renter is paying £2,076 per year more for a room today than before the pandemic.
Flatsharing is the most affordable way to rent, and yet even flatsharers are now migrating away from pricier cities in a bid to reduce living costs. The lifestyle offered in seaside and market towns may also suit the rising numbers of people who find themselves flatsharing in their 40s, 50s and beyond, priced out of home ownership and renting solo.
The table below lists area search terms input by renters looking for rooms, that increased by more than half between 2024 and 2025:
| Search term input by renters | Area description | Average monthly room rent Q1 2026 | % change in searches 2025 vs 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Waltham Abbey | Market town in Essex | £784 (EN9) | 113% |
| 2 | Deeside | Industrial conurbation of towns & villages in Flintshire and Cheshire on Wales-England border | £576 (CH5) | 98% |
| 3 | Regents Park | Residential area of NW inner London around the Royal Park | £1,229 (NW1) | 96% |
| 4 | EX2 | Exeter postcode including St Thomas, Countess Wear, Wonford | £665 | 76% |
| 5 | Helston | Town in Cornwall at the northern end of the Lizard Peninsula | £557* (TR13) | 70% |
| 6 | Bideford | Port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon | £584 (EX39) | 70% |
| 7 | Oldham | Town in Greater Manchester | £565 | 68% |
| 8 | BL1 | Postcode in Bolton, Greater Manchester covering the town centre, Halliwell, Heaton, Smithills | £572 | 67% |
| 9 | Horfield | Suburb of the city of Bristol, on its northern edge | BS7 (£737) | 62% |
| 10 | Weston-Super-Mare | Seaside town in north Somerset | £664 | 62% |
| 11 | Baldock | Market town in north Hertfordshire | £789* (SG7) | 62% |
| 12 | Hillingdon | Greater London borough; main towns are Hayes, Ruislip, Northwood, West Drayton, Uxbridge | £807 (UB10) | 62% |
| 13 | Sudbury, Greater London | NW London suburb straddling boroughs of Brent, Harrow, and Ealing | £830 (HA0) | 60% |
| 14 | Broxbourne | Commuter town in Hertfordshire | £712 (EN10) | 60% |
| 15 | Corsham | Market town in west Wiltshire, south west edge of the Cotswolds | £706 (SN13) | 60% |
| 16 | DN1 | Postcode covering Doncaster town centre and surrounding area of Hyde Park, South Yorkshire | £506 | 57% |
| 17 | RG12 | Postcode covering Bracknell, Binfield, Birch Hill, and Winkfield Row in Berkshire | £680 | 56% |
| 18 | London E1 | East London postcode including Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Whitechapel and Shoreditch | £985 | 55% |
| 19 | Herne Bay | Seaside town on the north coast of Kent | £617 (CT6) | 55% |
| 20 | Burnham-on-Sea | Seaside town in Somerset | £652 (TA8) | 54% |
| 21 | Cheadle | Village in Stockport, Greater Manchester | £673 | 53% |
| 22 | Paignton | Seaside town on coast of Tor Bay in Devon | £607 (TQ3), £583 (TQ4) | 53% |
| 23 | Whitstable | Seaside town on north coast of Kent | £638 (CT5) | 53% |
| 24 | Cotham | Affluent, leafy north Bristol suburb | £822 (BS6) | 52% |
| 25 | NE6 | Newcastle postcode spanning Heaton, Byker, Walker, Walkergate | £572 | 52% |
| 26 | Sherborne | Market town in north west Dorset | £698* (DT9) | 51% |
| 27 | Silvertown | District in West Ham, east London on north bank of the Thames | £987 (E16) | 50% |
| 28 | KT12 | Walton-on-Thames, Surrey | £781 | 50% |
*indicates room rent is based on small sample size in Q1 2026
Matt Hutchinson, director of flatshare site SpareRoom, comments: “Searches offer a good gauge of where the rental market is heading. They indicate people aren't just chasing cheaper rents but a different way of living too. Think panoramic views or the comfort of community.
“Many of these places that are rising in popularity are cheaper to live in than major cities, but not cheap enough to live alone. What’s most interesting is that it’s not only well-connected commuter towns on this list. Some of these areas don't have the fast public transport links that have long dictated where flatsharers, who trended towards young professionals, live.
“Today we have more people flatsharing well into their 40s, 50s and beyond because years of rent rises have made buying and even renting alone unaffordable. Remote working is an enabler too. Many of those looking to flatshare in seaside towns will either not have an office to visit, or they'll only be going in every so often.
“The trouble is flatsharers are fighting for supply in areas where holiday lets have consumed rental stock. For those landlords concerned about seasonal voids, and the impact of holiday lets on local communities, this rising demand from tenants might compel them to consider the rental market.”