In 2014 the average tenant paid 93p in rent for every £1 spent on mortgage repayments by a homeowner able to put down a 10% deposit. This has fallen by 3p in the last 12 months.

Nick Dunning, group commercial director at Countrywide, said: “For many households, particularly in the short to medium term, home ownership doesn’t always make sense financially or otherwise.

“As house prices rise renting increasingly allows people to live in areas they would otherwise be unable to afford to buy.”

London rents fell the quickest relative to buying as the average tenant spent 86p on rent down from 93p a year ago.

It is now cheaper to rent than it is to buy in 30 out of the 33 London boroughs up from 25 in 2013.

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In the past 12 months it became cheaper to rent than buy in Croydon, Enfield, Hackney, Hillingdon and Tower Hamlets.

Dunning said: “In more expensive cities, such as London, the cost of renting in more central areas can be just half the cost of buying.

“The result is that in the most central areas of London, and many other global cities, over half the population now rent.”

This trend of rents falling in comparison to mortgage payments was seen across 87% of the country.

The 13% of areas where the cost of renting rose relative to buying were almost exclusively parts of South Wales and the North East England.

Rents in Wales and the North East grew 4.6% and 2% respectively over the past 12 months whilst house prices continued to fall.

Scotland has seen the biggest increase in rents up 13.4% year-on-year driven by the very strong performance of a number of large cities.