The North of England is leading the market

Liverpool skyline — photo by Elliott Brown, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The headline is that UK house prices are rising again. The more useful story, if you invest where we source, is where they're rising: growth is accelerating fastest across the major cities of Northern England, exactly the buy-to-let and HMO markets worth being in.

UK house price growth accelerated to 2.2% in the year to June, up from 1.7% in May, according to Nationwide. The engine is cheaper borrowing. Nationwide's chief economist Robert Gardner pointed to "a shift in market expectations for the future path of base rates" feeding through to lower mortgage rates, which could "restore household confidence and ease affordability constraints." In plain terms: as money gets cheaper, more buyers can afford more — and that supports prices.

The real story is a North–South split

Beneath that national figure is a divide that plays straight into a Northern-cities strategy. Zoopla's latest index found that every city growing above 3% a year sits in the North of England — while every city where prices are falling is in the South. Liverpool leads at 4.5%, with the wider North West and North East both above 3%, as London and the South East drift slightly negative.

Rents are rising with prices

Capital growth is only half the picture for an income investor — and the rental side is moving too. Liverpool rents rose around 7% over the past year to roughly £885 a month. That kind of rental strength is what makes a buy-to-let or an HMO stack up on cashflow, not just on paper appreciation.

What it means for investors

This is the map we already work from. We source in the major Northern English cities — Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham — precisely because that's where accelerating prices, rising rents and the best BTL and HMO yields overlap. As rates fall, more tenants and buyers can afford to pay, and these markets are positioned ahead of that shift rather than chasing it.

One caution worth repeating: a headline yield can flatter a deal. The whole job is finding the properties that still stack up on the net figure once voids, management and finance are in — and that's the part we do before a deal ever reaches you.

Sources: Nationwide House Price Index (June 2026); Zoopla House Price Index; regional rental data via Northwood UK. Figures are indicative and move with the market.