Recently named as England’s highest-ranking city for residential investment by commercial real estate firm Colliers, Manchester continues to forge its place as one of the country’s most vibrant property markets.
The latest edition of the UK’s Top UK Residential Investment Cities report sees Manchester overtake London to third place in the table, behind Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The biannual report analyses 20 locations within the UK against 24 indicators, including GDP, population growth, EPC rankings and leisure facilities, covering a whole spectrum of the considerations of residential investors. The data showed Manchester’s record house price growth of 33% during the last five years – eclipsing the report’s 20-city average of 15% – and predicted GDP growth at an annual rate of 2.2% over the next five years, also higher than the overall average of 1.8%.
Oliver Kolodseike, Colliers’ Director of Economics and Research, said: “Due to our analysis looking at a variety of indicators which are central to the residential property market, we can tailor the insights based on investors’ core drivers, whether that’s economics, housing factors or indicators which are essential for residents.”
These are just the latest in a string of findings and predictions that illustrate that Manchester is and will continue to be an investment hotspot.
Manchester is a prime location for residential real estate and enterprise
The in-depth Big Six Residential Development Report from JLL tracks the new homes sales, lettings and build-to-rent markets in Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, and Manchester and its February 2024 edition showed Manchester experiencing the largest increase in homes available over the previous year, 25.6%. It goes on to say that average annual rental growth here had grown by 12.2%, second only to Birmingham and ahead of the two Scottish cities leading the Colliers report.
Provisional figures from the ONS state that the average house price in Manchester was £235,000 in May 2024, up 1.8% year-on-year, and that private rents rose by 12.3% to an average of £1,228 in June 2024, from £1,094 in June 2023. This is higher than the rise in the whole North West region (9.5%) over the same period.
Separate research from JLL, Innovation Geographies 2024, has named Manchester a ‘secondary specialist’ city which offers “greater affordability compared to other groups is enabling a higher rate of net migration as well as real estate demand and price growth”. A lower-cost property market combined with the benefits of flexible working patterns and technology sees major companies and entrepreneurs no longer relying on being based in established and expensive ‘global leader’ locations. Already, more than 80% of the FTSE 100 companies have a presence in Manchester.
Manchester is an important research and education hub
This report goes on to say that ID Manchester exemplifies “the ability of innovation to catalyze multi-faceted regeneration”. Once completed, this 15-year, £1.7bn project by The University of Manchester and Bruntwood SciTech will deliver over 2million sqft of commercial, innovation and retail space, more than 1,500 new homes and nine acres of public realm, creating over 10,000 new jobs, training and apprenticeship opportunities. The first building will open this Autumn: the Renold Building, originally opened by the university in 1962, has been restored and converted into offices and facilities for small businesses.
The latest figures state that there were over 120,000 students enrolled at Greater Manchester’s universities in the 2021/22 academic year. With an expanding choice of career opportunities together with new and regenerated residential districts, there are strong reasons for staying in the region post-graduation. Over half already do, second only to London.
Plans to make Manchester a zero-carbon city by 2038 – 12 years ahead of government’s national target deadline – also suggest that it will maintain its appeal as a place to live and work over the coming years.
Keith Osborne came into the property industry in 2001, firstly in the overseas homes sector, then as a writer for the brand’s monthly property magazine until 2006, specialising in the UK new build homes market since 2010 as an editor for Whathouse.com, a contributor to Showhouse magazine and as a judge for the prestigious annual WhatHouse? Awards.
