A City Clearly United

The Market

From 1991-2001 Manchester’s regeneration took the city-centre population from a matter of hundreds to 17,000. Gone are the dark satanic mills, the derelict and decaying warehouses and in their place: characterful apartments, epicurean hangouts and popular nightclubs.

The Northern Quarter is a good example of this urban regeneration, transformed from beggarly to bohemian.

In a report published by UK online housing portal Right Move, national house prices were forecast to grow by 6-8% in 2014 with the city of Manchester singled out as a specific property hotspot. The fundamentals are definitely in place to support this assertion. Based on rental yields alone, Manchester ranks fourth in the UK for buy-to-let property. This has attracted a number of pension funds to the city’s portfolio, in search of safe and secure performing real estate. Wider economic data backs up the confidence too – over the next five years a predicted growth of 2.9% in the city’s GDP and a 4.9% increase in jobs are both encouraging.

As ever, it comes down to the basics of supply and demand and the Manchester market is currently feeling the effects of short supply. Following the 2008 financial crash many new developments and sites were halted and the market is now responding to that lull in its projected homes pipeline. Now, appetite for new builds is apparent.

Royal Mills, the redevelopment of a former textile factory between New Islington and the Northern Quarter, was 50% reserved within two weeks of its launch date in summer 2013.

According to Jones Lang Lasalle’s Residential Eye report, published in October 2013: “The new homes market has seen a particularly strong revival this year. Developers have been busy finishing previously mothballed sites - pricing units to sell rather than yield maximum gain.

They have also become active land buyers again, positioning themselves ready for the next phase of the housing market recovery.”

Transformation

The city’s transformation and emergence from recession has not gone unnoticed. In a 2014 article The Economist lauded what it called ‘The Manchester Model’, describing the city’s success as “an economic and political system which seems to work and is increasingly being copied.”

Now the fastest growing economy outside of London, Manchester has a story to tell. With 7% growth figures predicted in the housing market for 2014, investors may want to write their own chapter on the city too.