I wanted to make this programme for several years, comments Phil Spencer.It seemed particularly relevant to the market right now, where buy-to-let has had incredible growth over the past six-to-eight years. A lot of amateur investors out there are now feeling incredibly clever.
However, looking forward, they are not going to have a boom to cover up any sort of mistakes. While I absolutely believe there is still a big future in buy-to-let and Ive just bought two buy-to-let properties myself investors today, and over the next few years, are going to have to be a lot more careful, a lot more strategic, about what they buy and where.
The research was based on findings from the UKs 434 local authorities. The top 10 places are not our actual opinions, comments Spencer. Weve been very careful with our research, reporting statistics independently analysed not by us,
The programme makers used six criteria for analysing which area should appear in the top 10. These criteria are demographics, age of inhabitants, the local economy, what planning permission had been granted (and the supply of new properties), amenities and universities.
Spencer says: This last group is a particular big target; we looked at numbers of students compared with the amount of accommodation provided by universities, assessing the balance of supply and demand. The top two in the list are both university cities and both something of a surprise.
London was excluded from the analysis because its very much a market on its own and tends to distort national figures.
Kirty and Phils top ten:
- 1 Oxford
- 2 Cambridge
- 3 Edinburgh
- 4 Brighton & Hove
- 5 Southampton
- 6 Reading
- 7 Belfast
- 8 Bristol
- 9 Leeds
- 10 Manchester
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