Top for Yields
Asked to name the UK’s top location for property yields, few would choose a quiet city nestled in the foothills of the Pennines, West Yorkshire.
And yet, Leeds continues to defy the odds by consistently topping tables as one of the UK’s best-performing property investment locales.
Town to City
Once an important cotton-trading town that benefitted from trade with industrial powerhouses in nearby Sheffield and Manchester, Leeds is now a crucial centre of business in its own right.
The city has benefitted from massive investment and redevelopment over the past decade with a particular focus on the city centre, where gleaming new offices and housing developments have risen among the city’s grand 19th-century architecture.
The rate of economic growth is stunning. Leeds has consistently outperformed London in growth and job creation since the government announced the city is to perform an integral role in its vision for a Northern Powerhouse, also beating every other UK city except London for Gross Value Added (GVA).
National Links
Joining a growing population of urban workers is an expanding student population with a good number of international students who stay on in the city after study.
It’s easy to see why. Leeds is well connected to the North and South by motorway and to the rest of the world by air. Leeds-Bradford Airport is just seven miles away and itself subject to rapid expansion.
Rail links are excellent too. At the heart of the Trans-Pennine Express route, Leeds station is the busiest in the North. The addition of HS2 in 2026 is expected to double usage to 60 million passengers per year – numbers usually only seen at major international airports.