Birmingham named as UK buy to let hospot
06-11-2015
Birmingham has come top in the best postcodes for buy to let, with landlords in the Midlands benefiting from the UK’s best rental yields, new research shows.
The highest rental yield postcodes from the first quarter of this year can now be found in Birmingham, Ipswich, Liverpool and Glasgow, according to the data from property peer to peer lending platform LendInvest
Though Birmingham has beaten London, postcodes around north and central London are still delivering the best overall returns on investment, thanks to capital gains delivered by rising house prices.
The rental yield is worked out by taking the annual rental income your get from the property and calculating it as a percentage of the property cost. Using around 1,000,000 sales and 500,000 rental listings from Zoopla, LendInvest has taken the average asking rental price per year and divided it by the average asking property purchase price and then broken it down by the first part of a postcode, known as the outcode.
Four of the 10 highest rental yielding areas are in Birmingham, with 13.6% in B44, 11.9% in B42, 10.5% in B98 and 9.1% in B23. In Ipswich and Liverpool landlords can get 10.8% in IP4 and 9 per cent in L28 respectively, while Glasgow areas such as G34, G21 and G22 are yielding 11.9%, 10.1% and 9.2% respectively.
‘Many landlords tend to invest near to where they live, but if they look further afield, they could easily increase their yields and capital growth,’ said Jane Morris, managing director of Property Let By Us.
‘The Midlands provides a great investment opportunity as the property is much more affordable than the South East and the yields are high. For example, in Coventry a three bed semi will cost around £125,000 and will provide rental yields of around 6.57%,’ she explained.
‘Many of the landlords that we work with are netting between 6.57% and 9.1% from their properties in Birmingham, Coventry and Nuneaton. My advice to any landlord looking to invest outside there area is carry out thorough research on property prices; rent prices; and yields to ensure they make the right investment,’ she added.