Welcome to Liverpool

Liverpool is surfacing itself as one of the most thriving cities to invest in, offering some of the top investments. The property hotspot is culminated by a booming market and robust rental yields – it is hardly surprising that the popular city’s hive of activity presents unmissable best property opportunities for investors.

The Liverpool City Region is one of the UK’s top four growth hot spots, according to data from global design and infrastructure consultancy Arcadis. It placed Liverpool ahead of Manchester and London as an investment destination, measuring growth potential against the six key pillars of workforce and skills, infrastructure, business environment, place, city brand and housing.

The city’s unique business benefits, market opportunities and outstanding quality of life attracts a huge number of businesses, students, entrepreneurs, and professional workers to the area each year. Between 2008 and 2012 the population increased 3.3% and, as a result of this massive population expansion, demand for rented accommodation has grown exponentially.

Liverpool has 1.5 million residents, with almost 900,000 being between the age of 16-60 years old. In the wider functional area, the catchment increases to 2.5 million people, of which 1.4 million are of working age.

Liverpool is the fastest growing UK city outside of London and its population has more than doubled in the last decade, fuelled by the rise in jobs, young professionals and students.

Liverpool has a talent pipeline that is broad, deep and increasingly future-proof thanks to skills initiatives and excellent schools, colleges and universities.

Companies invest and reinvest because of the exceptional quality of recruitment and levels of retention that they experience. Universities produce a pipeline of 30,000 graduates every year, with the region boasting access to around 250,000 students within a 30 mile radius of Liverpool.

University of Liverpool is a globally-ranked research institution associated with nine Nobel Laureates; Liverpool John Moores University is one of the largest, most dynamic and forward-thinking universities in the UK; Liverpool Hope University is ranked second in the UK for graduate employment; and Edge Hill University is one of the select few to have held the coveted ‘UK University of the Year’ title.

The economy in Liverpool really has transformed over the last 20 years, and is now worth more than 2.3 times its value when compared to 1998.

Such growth to the economy follows a surge of investments and interest from big businesses and wealthy individuals in the area, which has indeed developed the city’s business industry.

Liverpool City Region is at the centre of the UK's second largest regional economy, with a regional economy worth more than £149 billion with 236,000 businesses and an immediate access to a staggering 6 million people.

Liverpool has seen many successful businesses relocate to the city, leading Liverpool to have the highest proportion of fast-growing businesses in the UK, with numbers increasing by more than 55% between 2009 and 2015.

Liverpool and the surrounding region is the number one recipient of foreign direct investment in the UK after London and the Southeast. Home to global Fortune 500 companies complemented by a large, diverse base of innovative SMEs and start ups.

Businesses are attracted to Liverpool by market opportunities, a low cost base, international connectivity and an outstanding quality of life.

As one of the best connected cities in the UK, Liverpool is firmly linked to global markets with many multinational companies. Liverpool boasts a broad range of industry sectors including: financial and professional services, low carbon, digital and creative industries, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, logistics and leisure. Major investors include Astra Zeneca, Pershing BNY Mellon, Jaguar Land Rover, Maersk, Siemens, Sony and Unilever.

Liverpool City Region is home to the UK's most digitally skilled city and the second fastest growing tech cluster in the UK.

The city is ranked No.1 in the UK for both entrepreneurship and business growth, and renowned for cutting edge technology and R&D, topping the Northern league table for business innovation. There is no shortage of talent either with 6 million people within the travel to work catchment and 13 universities producing over 70,000 graduates per year.

It’s estimated that in the ten-year period running up to 2023 the number of people visiting, living and working in Liverpool’s city centre will have grown 25%.

Liverpool was 4th Most visited City in the UK (hotels.com 2016) with excellent connectivity by rail, road, air and sea.

Liverpool sits front and centre of large scale regeneration and construction projects, thanks to the promotion of the prestigious Northern Powerhouse.

The region is experiencing £5.5 billion of regeneration in terms of revitalising the cities tired infrastructure, archaic transport links and forgotten culture to a modern, dynamic waterfront quarter - this project alone is estimated to provide at least 17,000 full time jobs, creating a substantial boost to the city’s expanding economy.

The new deep-water Liverpool 2 container terminal gives access to a new port and logistics infrastructure, which can service 95% of the world’s largest container ships, thanks to more than £1 billion of infrastructure investment.

For international connections there is a choice of both Liverpool and Manchester airports which are within a 45 minute drive. Liverpool John Lennon Airport has flights to all major European business centres and Manchester Airport has direct flights to 200 destinations and extensive freight and logistics facilities.

Liverpool is within easy reach by rail and an extensive motorway network. London is just two hours away by train – with services every hour. Direct rail services to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham and others. Motorway connections put the vast majority of UK cities from Glasgow to Southampton within four hours’ drive time.

Property investment in Liverpool city revolves predominantly around the young and professional workforce, with a whopping three quarters of people living in the city aged 17-29. With a population that has doubled in the past decade; partly down to the economic success of the city, as well as the attraction of Liverpool’s four universities, there is great demand for rental property due to this readymade target market of millennials.

A recent report from Private Finance shows that Liverpool is the best city to invest for high rental returns. As house prices and mortgage costs have the greatest influence on rental returns, Liverpool takes the top spot as it has a combination of a low average price and comparably high rent.

Not only does Liverpool's high student population make the city a dependable market for landlords, but its house prices are relatively cheap when compared to many other areas of the UK.

Six of Liverpool's postcodes were ranked in the top 25 best buy to let areas for 2018, according to a study conducted by Totally Money (that looked at 580,000 properties across England, Scotland, and Wales to find the areas that offer the highest buy-to-let yields).

L7 and L6 steal the top two spots, delivering an average rental yield of 11.79% and 11.52% respectively. L7 covers Edge Hill, Fairfield and Kensington - and L6 - which covers Anfield, the city centre, Everton, Fairfield, Kensington, and Tuebrook – thanks to their proximity to the city's three universities.

This is Money dug further into the financials and found that median sale values in the city's top five postcodes range from around £104,000 to £135,000, far below the UK average of £228,000. With these postcodes, Landlords can typically expect rental yields of 7.4 per cent to 9.8 per cent.

Median Price Paid (previous 5 years)

Median house prices have grown 11%

Median Sales Listings (previous 5 years)

Sales listings have steadily continued to grow over the last 5 years as more stock is being built around Liverpool

REalyse - Data accessed 14/02/2019

Asking rent has performed steadily until November 2017 and has seen a growth of 10% over the last 5 years

Population has doubled over the last decade and demand for rental property can been attributed to the growing millennial professionals and students.

Asking Rent

Rental Listings

Rental listings started decreasing significantly in October 2017 where asking rent has started to increase around the same time demonstrating the demand within the city.

REalyse - Data correct as of 14/02/2019

Overview by property type in the Liverpool L area (12 month average)

REalyse - Data correct as of 14/02/2019

This report was written in February 2019 and is based on evidence and data available to Vesta Global Ltd at the time. It uses certain data available then and reflects views of market sentiment at that time. Any forecasts or projections of future performance are inherently uncertain and liable to different outcomes or changes caused by circumstances whether of a political, economic, social or property market nature.

Please contact Vesta for sources.