It can be expensive for tenants to modify existing spaces.
"If one thing is clear following Brexit, it's that supply and demand remains a real issue in the rental market," said Cox. "If supply continues to dwindle against growing demand, no matter what the eventual implications of Brexit are, renting will become more difficult and expensive for tenants".
In San Francisco, where all short-term residential rentals – be it a room or an entire property – are banned without applying for an expensive permit, some tenants who have used Airbnb to rent their apartment have been given notices of eviction.
After Esher the next most expensive town for tenants is Oxford, where the average monthly rent being advertised by landlords on the website is now £1,612 – 11.7% higher than this time last year.
I'll be the most expensive and difficult tenant to move".
Stuart Epstein, owner of Devlin McNiff, a real estate firm in East Hampton, said he got calls on Thursday and Friday from "tenants in expensive rentals" who "were outraged that they didn't have power".
Born on the Lower East Side in 1917, he grew up in the Bronx and began haunting Fourth Avenue when he was 12. Initially he sold the booksellers expensive magazines discarded by tenants of his Bronx apartment building.
The sense that rents are as low as they are likely to become and that deals in the future will be more expensive is pushing some tenants to lock in for longer terms than usual, said Mary Ann Tighe, the chief executive for the tristate region of CB Richard Ellis.
Few landlords are in any position to offer tenants the expensive improvements that they were able to finance a few years ago.
Why should they add a new, expensive heating system if tenants would still leave their windows open, their lights on, and their heat at full blast?
