Experts predict upturn in investor sales for city centre apartments
Manchester city centre is being tipped as one of the UK’s top spots for property investors as demand for rental apartments outstrips supply and boosts yields.
Latest figures from the Real-time Economy Database show that the number of apartments available for rent has fallen by 1.5% in the past year, with average rental returns for a two-bedroom apartment rising 5.3% in the same period.
With Manchester now Europe’s largest centre for students and many major businesses relocating or setting up in the city, demand for rental apartments is bucking the general market trend.
Anthony Stankard, a director in Jones Lang LaSalle’s Manchester office, said: “There has been a marked increase in the number of buy-to-let investors looking to start or increase their holdings in Manchester.”
The Green Quarter, Lend Lease’s development of 215 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments off Cheetham Hill Road near Victoria Station, is one of the schemes benefiting from the city’s rental resurgence.
Mark Dickinson, managing director (Development, EMEA) at Lend Lease, said: “Sales at Cypress Place – the latest phase of the Green Quarter scheme – have started strongly thanks to growing investor demand. Jones Lang LaSalle has estimated a 7% rental return on a studio apartment – making it a clear winner with both local investors and those looking to move out of London and diversify their portfolio.”
The Green Quarter is designed to be an urban oasis, with eight contemporary apartment buildings set amongst landscaped gardens.
Mark Dickinson continues: “Lend Lease has drawn on the company’s experience of building sustainable homes and communities to create something special at Green Quarter, a place designed to make work/life balance a reality, and a place where all of our residents, owner occupiers and tenants, truly love where they live.”
Prices at Lend Lease’s Cypress Place start from £87,500 for a one-bedroom apartment. For more information, visit green-quarter.co.uk.
