Northern markets challenge the South East in latest LendInvest Buy-to-Let Index

• Luton holds off rising Colchester to remain top of the LendInvest BTL Index
• Manchester breaks into the Top 3 amidst increasingly stronger metrics in Northern markets
• University cities perform well in the Index occupying four of Top 5 spots

London, 28 September 2017 – LendInvest, the UK’s leading marketplace platform for property lending and investing, has released the latest LendInvest Buy-to-Let Index report with a spotlight on university towns.

Published quarterly, the LendInvest BTL Index ranks each postcode area around England and Wales based on a combination of four critical metrics: capital value growth, transaction volumes, rental yield and rental price growth.

Key findings for September 2017

• Luton, a convenient commuter town north west of London, retains top spot
• Colchester climbs the table (#4 to #2), eclipsing near-neighbour Rochester (#4) which sees fall in both rental yield and capital gains
• Manchester moves into the Top 3 on strength of rental yields and capital gains, and Hull climbs 28 places from #33 to #5, signalling further upward mobility in the Northern markets

Ian Boden, Sales Director at LendInvest, said: “This quarter’s data supports the strong market sentiment that the impact of price sensitivity in London and the South East isn’t being felt to the same degree elsewhere around the country. Cities such as Hull and Nottingham making significant gains in the Index (up #33 to #5 and #35 to #12 respectively) is encouraging, and points to competitive market conditions in those areas and higher than average levels of activity. Maintaining a balance between the types of tenure in our housing system is more important than ever. We would expect to increasingly see professional BTL investors become cross-country landlords, and diversify their portfolios by looking beyond their local areas to find the best investment opportunities elsewhere around the UK and entering alternative asset classes.”

Note to Editors:

• Full PDF report available here
• Embeddable map showing postcode areas around England and Wales can be downloaded from here
• Data sources: Land Registry, Zoopla
• Full underlying data available on request