Scotland property investment boom continues as Manchester climbs ranking

Manchester has surpassed London as the top city in England for property investment, while demand in Scotland’s largest cities remained particularly strong.

Real estate firm Colliers’ latest UK residential investment cities report for the first half of 2024 found that Edinburgh was the top city for those investing in properties across the UK.

The Scottish capital kept its position from the previous report at the end of 2023.

Meanwhile, Glasgow was named the second-ranking city again amid resilient property valuations.

Manchester finished third in the rankings, with an improvement helping to mark it as the strongest city in the England, according to the report, which analyses cities within the UK against 24 indicators, including GDP, population growth, and leisure facilities.

Colliers said the city has been boosted by a strong recent economic performance and favourable property backdrop.

The city has had a record house price growth of 33% during the last five years, far outstripping the report’s 20-city average of 15%.

Andrew White, head of UK residential and international properties at Colliers, said: “Manchester has gone through a significant transformation including redevelopment in recent years across the housing tenure mix, so it’s only natural that it would rank highly in our analysis.

“In addition, we’ve witnessed lots of large corporations and government bodies moving their headquarters to the city in the last five years, such as, JP Morgan, Octopus Energy and Rolls Royce, which has naturally resulted in increased demand for homes, and bolstered significant house price growth in the city.

“Furthermore, Manchester’s economic and residential growth highlights the need for strategic expansion to meet housing demand.

“As Manchester continues to attract residential investment and experience population growth, the availability of greybelt land for development will support sustainable urban expansion.”

Oliver Kolodseike, from Colliers’ research and economics department, added: “While the top two cities have remained static in our latest analysis there’s been plenty of movement across the top 10 cities, mainly due to changes in GDP predictions, house price growth as well as updated data on business start-ups.

“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.”