Our hotspots for 2026

0:00Have you ever wondered what successful property investors actually do? Well, after more than a decade of helping thousands upon thousands of people invest, we found that actually it's really simple. The investors who do the best are just following some basic principles and sticking by them. So we put together an entire guide that sums up these principles, an investment philosophy, if you like. And you can find that for free at propertyhub.net forward slash strategy.

0:32Hey everyone, it's Robby here with Robby and you are listening to the Property Podcast. Who wants to invest in average? You want the best. And in this episode, always one of the most popular episodes of the year, we give you our property hotspots of 2026.

0:55Welcome to the Property Podcast. Thank you for joining us. In case you don't know, we run a business that buys more than£100 million worth of property for our clients every year. You can find out about that at propertyhub.net slash invest. So obviously, we're pretty interested in where are the best places to invest. We think we found them, but we're not keeping them to ourselves. And we'll be sharing them with you in just a minute. Let's start with our news story of the week. And this gentleman seems to be making news everywhere around the world at the moment. But he's also now made it to the Property Podcast.

1:23and that gentleman in question is Donald Trump. And Donald Trump wants to ban large investors from buying single-family homes in a bid to bring down prices, Rob. Now, Donald talks a lot and some of his talk leads to action, but a lot of it doesn't as well, so we have to bear that in mind. So let's explain what he's proposing because it's not the biggest news story in the world about Donald at the moment, but it is important. And then what are the impacts of this as well are important to discuss too? Yeah, so what he's addressing is effectively the same challenge that we've got in the UK. Housing is increasingly more expensive.

1:59There's not enough of it. So while in the UK, politicians' moves have been targeting individual landlords, trying to usher them towards the exit, what Trump is doing is targeting the big investment firms like Blackstone, who own a lot of individual homes and trying to take them out of the market. So he's not saying they have to sell what they've already got, but saying they won't be able to buy any more. And if you take the simplest possible view of economics, then you'd say, well, there's less demand in the market, therefore prices will fall or prices at least won't go up as fast. Now, it's not a direct comparison to the UK, because it is a bit different in the US.

2:31In the UK, we have pension funds and banks, big companies owning individual properties, but they normally play a part in building them as well. So they own them from new, and it's new supply that wouldn't otherwise happen. In the US, there is more of big investment firms buying up houses that already exist on the resale market so there's more of an argument to be made there than here that they could be contributing to prices in some way so that's where this statement has come from but like you said rob what we've got to ask ourselves is what does it mean and wrapped up in that is it going to happen anyway let's just start with a big fat if because as we've already said not everything donald trump says happens so let's just begin with that but let's play it through if this happened Blackstone won't stop investing.

3:19They don't go, okay, well, let's just sit on that cash then. They'll deploy it in other areas. Now, they can move to other asset classes, absolutely. But if they have real estate funds and real estate teams and that money needs to be deployed elsewhere, well, a great place for it to move to could be the UK. And that's for many of the reasons why we invest. Great legal system, fantastic land registry, the use of leverage, really reputable developers. the list goes on and on and that inflow of cash which would be significant could start finding its way to the UK market now if and I'm going to throw another riff in if that happened then you would naturally expect property prices to push up if the funds were significant enough because if the increased competition comes in they're already operating in the UK it's important to say but if they come in in a much bigger way and buy the majority of you build property that is produced that's going to encourage those developers to build more but it will also increase prices because there's just so much money flooding in and I think that's a reasonable thing to expect as a consequence of this.

4:26Now that might annoy you or excite you depending on where you are in your portfolio journey if you're sitting on a load of property you probably like to see property prices go up and if you're building your portfolio and you're in the early stages that would annoy you because suddenly you're dealing with much more competition i wouldn't get worried because this is a long way off i know he can be decisive and quick with some of his actions but he often falls back from very aggressive positions so rob i'm not going to lose any sleep on this or get excited by this in either capacity it's not something that i think will be seen through could be very very wrong on that but for me it's interesting to observe but no action needed right now okay 2026 hotspots always love putting these together and we know this is always a popular episode.

5:10So let's get straight into it Rob. This year we're doing something a little bit different. We've split our hotspots into the obvious and the non-obvious. So there may be some surprises coming up. We'll cover some areas that you might not have been expecting to hear in this episode but we will justify. We will explain. But first Rob let's go through the obvious ones which we can do pretty quickly because I don't think there's going to be any surprises here or any complex cases that need to be made these are just clear winners they are clear winners and they may be obvious but obvious doesn't mean boring because they are super strong and let's start with one that's been in our list for many many years now has no sign of being removed and that's manchester manchester city center and greater manchester manchester has seen billions of pounds spent on it over the last few decades and billions of pounds more are planned to be spent in manchester that city has absolutely transformed it's become a bit of an economic powerhouse now i think that's fair to say there wasn't really an alternative to london in the uk it was london and then everywhere else just crack on but manchester feels like a very strong contender to be the uk's second city with so much going on with so much investment and that goes from jobs transport links in all the infrastructure, the lot.

6:27So much has happened, so much still to happen, and of course all those great universities as well. Greater Manchester, well you've got 10 boroughs there, so you've got plenty to go at, so maybe your budget won't go as far as the city centre, or maybe you just don't fancy the city centre. Well Greater Manchester gives you lots of variety. You've got places like Salford, Stockport, Wigan, Bolton, they're all benefiting from the powerhouse that is Manchester the city centre but they're all doing stuff in their own right as well some of them have seen a tremendous amount of money spent on them still lots more funds to go through you're looking for good transport links into the city centre so if you do look at any of these boroughs don't just pick one and think it'll be fine make sure the transport links are there fast trains into the city centre but if you do that and you're buying a good area then you will probably do very very well pretty hard to go wrong in manchester and i'd say the same for the next of our obvious picks which is Leeds.

7:22Leeds we've probably had in our hotspots every year I would have thought since we started doing hotspots way over a decade ago but the amazing thing is prices are still so reasonable for what you're getting even after all this time. I think the strength of Leeds as a city is underrated. You've obviously got the universities but most people don't know what a strong financial services city it is. You get lots of students there but you also get lots of students staying on, loads of young professionals staying in and moving to Leeds for those jobs in financial services but other sectors as well like the NHS overall just very economically solid and that's why there's been so much build to rent investment in Leeds.

7:59We said before it's always reassuring when big companies spending hundreds of millions of pounds with lots of very smart people quenching the numbers decide to put their cash somewhere they have decided on Leeds and there's been absolutely tons of investment there. There's also something else that we always like to see which is major regeneration there's loads going on across the city most notable being the south bank project which is pretty much going to double the side of the city center and create 35 000 new jobs so leeds has had so much going for it for all these years still does but it's going to have more it's crazy to think that leeds can be called underrated rob with all that going on but it really is and next on our list is probably a place that's also underrated which is a bit bonkers because is Birmingham.

8:41Birmingham is another city that has transformed. I think the difference between Leeds and Manchester is Leeds has felt like it's always been great. It didn't need extra money coming in. It has had that extra money, but Manchester and Birmingham, going back a while, needed a bit of money spending on it, and that money has come. While that is well documented with Manchester, people don't really talk about it as much with Birmingham, but you again are seeing billions of pounds being spent in Birmingham. You've got Paradise Birmingham, 700 million you've got birmingham smithfield 1.9 million you've got the west midlands investment zone 5.5 billion we're not talking pocket change here we're talking real transformation and of course hs2 is going to be delivered to birmingham soon getting you to london in just 49 minutes you can't get across london in 49 minutes so i don't think birmingham would want to be referred to as a commuter town to london or a commuter city to london but it will be commutable absolutely so that will be transformational as well once that is delivered there's the metro extension as well so so much is happening yet so few people talk about birmingham and the opportunity it presents we actually put out a brilliant video on birmingham earlier this year and the investment opportunity it holds so we will link to that in the show notes if you want to do a bit more research but birmingham for us is very much an obvious pick yep and i'd say that our final obvious pick probably falls under the category of obvious to listeners of this podcast, but not particularly obvious to anyone else.

10:06And that is Derby with an honourable mention for Nottingham next door. So Derby, we've been talking about for quite a few years now, because it's just got this really obvious opportunity. We've got these big local high skill employers, yet there's massive undersupply of high quality rental accommodation. Up until a year or two ago, if you looked at what was there on the market to rent, you would be extremely underwhelmed. There was just nothing. that is starting to change as the result of some of the projects that have taken place but that undersupply is still real and then the other critical factor that you've got in Derby because you do have these high-skill employers that the average wage in Derby is very high and the average wage in comparison to property prices is out of balance with the rest of the UK I mean the property prices to buy and also to rent are still very affordable and that is critical because it means that there is headroom for prices and rents to rise it doesn't matter how great a city is if no one can afford to pay any more than they're already paying so derby's got all of that going for it there's also loads of regeneration going on in the city center itself and because it's not a big city center when you come in you start chucking hundreds of millions of pounds around it makes a difference so derby is a very clear opportunity and i think there's a risk that nottingham gets overlooked as a result of this we used to talk about nottingham a lot we haven't done so much recently not because anything's changed it's just because it's almost so obvious that we don't need to talk about it but nottingham is somewhere i've been investing for a long time it's bigger and more mature than derby but price is still very reasonable yields still very good and it's got the same transport and connectivity benefits as derby as a result of where it sits in the country so derby and nottingham rounding out our picks of the obvious so that completes our obvious list now for the stuff that may surprise you.

11:48Now, I'm confident in our non-obvious list, there's going to be places that you'll be raising your eyebrows to. Maybe not the first one, though, I hope. And it has made our non-obvious list because I don't think many people would write this down as a place to invest. But actually, I don't think many people would argue with it as a place to invest. And that's Doncaster. And what's to argue with? You've got low price point compared to all the other places that we've talked about. We've got great yields. We've got huge employment because of where Doncaster is, its transport links. There's so much to light from a pure buy-to-let reason for Doncaster and its surrounding areas like Gainsborough and Scumforb that you really, really should be looking at it, especially if your budget won't stretch as far as the city centres that we've talked about so far.

12:33I mean, the road connections are fantastic. You just look at a map and you can see that for yourself with all the motorway networks that are on its doorstep, but the trains as well. I don't think many people realise how well connected it is by train. So 20 minutes to York, direct. 30 minutes to Leeds, direct. So commutable to Leeds. Only an hour and a half to London, again, direct. Because it's on the East Coast line, you've got all these fast trains that you can take advantage of. And it's not like there's just one train a day going to the capital. There's multiple per day. Every single hour, you've got a train going into London.

13:03All that connectivity, like I've said, attracts all the major employers like Amazon, Lidl, many other logistic-based businesses. You've got the iPort Logistics Hub, which employs over 5 ,000 people. And with rental yields between 6 % and 9 % for these areas, it just makes it very, very attractive. But capital growth prospects are very good as well for this city. It feels like it's underpriced. It feels like when you look at it compared to other places, when you're getting strong fundamentals and really strong yields, normally the next thing that arrives is capital growth. So that's why we out Doncaster and its surrounding areas because the fundamentals are strong, the yields are very strong, the price point is low, affordability is really strong.

13:42All those factors normally combine to see capital growth uplift. So if it doesn't deliver this year in 2026, it won't be long before really strong capital growth arrives at Doncaster and the surrounding areas. You said yields, you said affordability, you said fundamentals. All of those same things would apply to the next one on our non-obvious list, which is Newcastle. Now, for years, we've had Newcastle as a one to watch. We've been saying it's got a lot going for it. It's going to be time, but it's not yet. But now I think it is the time. We actually did our first deal in Newcastle last year.

14:14Technically, Gates said, but whatever. And it was a great deal. And we are actively looking for more because it was such a great deal and it was so popular. So what's Newcastle got going for it? Well, it's got extremely affordable house prices. The average house price is$206 ,000. way, way, way below the UK average. And of course, that's everything. So if you look at your typical buy-to-let price point, that's going to be significantly below that. And importantly, the other thing that it's had recently is rental growth. So the Northeast as a region had 9.2 % rental growth last year. That's important because for a long time in Newcastle, yields weren't as high as you'd expect.

14:51When you see low property prices, you might expect high yields. And that wasn't the case because rents were stubbornly low but because rents have picked up so fast that means that yields have improved so now great you've got that combination you want you've got strong yields now and you've got great growth potential because prices are still so low word of warning this applies everywhere we say every time we talk about hot spots but it applies more in Newcastle than anywhere else it's really important not to make the classic mistake that so many people make of finding a city that's already affordable, then getting carried away by just how affordable it is and going on to buy the cheapest thing you can find there.

15:29This happens bizarrely often and it's always a mistake. If you're going somewhere like Newcastle, prices are going to be affordable. You can afford the best areas and you could form prime property. That's what you want to be buying. If you buy the cheap stuff, it's going to cause you more problems and you're not going to see the benefit of that capital growth. Prices rise for the things that everyone wants. So make sure you get that right in Newcastle and you'll have yourself a strong investment. Next on our list is a place that has never made our lists before. So we welcome, for the first time ever, Coventry.

16:01Yes, Coventry is our next non-obvious. If you're surprised, well, that's why it's called non-obvious. But there are many, many reasons to look at Coventry. I think where we found success over the years when we've picked areas is areas that have incredible fundamentals but are a bit unloved or a bit underrated. Coventry feels like it's one of those places that is underrated despite what is there. Because fundamentals really drive these picks. And because of its location, 75 % of the UK is within two hours of Coventry. The rail links are fantastic. Only 50 minutes into London. Only 20 to 30 minutes into Birmingham.

16:39So the two biggest cities are commutable. Then you've got the motorway networks as well. easy access to the M1, M6, M42, M69, which means it creates a magnet for employers with all that connectivity. And the city itself has got plans for a light rail, which is basically a tram, and that's going to be delivered as well. But it's not just ourselves who rate Coventry. On the market actually picked Coventry as one of its hotspots in 2025. So we're not first to pick it out, but we definitely believe that hasn't been much attention given. And the development of the city centre is a big reason for that so you've got this connectivity but the city centre isn't known for its beauty i think that's fair to say but there's a 37 acre master plan being delivered between the railway station and the city centre and that will transform how people feel when they enter the city it's already started so it's not something that's being talked about it's already been started and it will take many years to deliver but that will transform the whole feel of the city centre and then you've got the huge huge investment of the Coventry and Warwick Gigapark and that's battery manufacturing and batteries are obviously very much in demand the way the world is going right now that's a 250 hectare site and that will create over 6 ,000 jobs but it's not jobs in the pipeline you've got jobs there already Jaguar Land Rover 15 billion pound committed over the next five years.

18:06Future Energy Lab, money committed there. You've got other major employers like JLR, Seven Trent, Eon, and another 12 ,000 companies employing over 80 ,000 people in the region. It's the type of employment that really interests us. It's that advanced manufacturing, it's the aerospace, it's the automotive. They are really high-end jobs. They are jobs that will allow people to have a good disposable income. And the property market in Coventry means that people can get great value because the value of their homes here is a lot less than some of the other cities that we've referenced so far. So it really feels like an underpriced opportunity.

18:43It's an area that we're going to be targeting aggressively over the coming years because the fundamentals are brilliant, the perception isn't, and when that exists it creates immense opportunity. It's a strong pitch Rob. I don't think there would have been many people who were expecting to hear Coventry at the start of this episode but I think you made the case very clear. Now, we've got a bit of a turnaround job to do on this final non-obvious pick as well. Remember, we say non-obvious for a reason. And this, for long-term listeners of the podcast, given everything we've talked about over recent years, is certainly non-obvious.

19:15Because it's time. It's time to talk about London. But not just London as it is today, but an opportunity that's being stored up in London for the future. So I think there'll be people listening who have the impression that we hate London. Definitely not the case. fundamentally super strong so much going for it but as an investment it just hasn't made any sense since about well it's about when the podcast started pretty much we just it just hasn't made any sense because it already had its growth spur london bounced back so strongly from the last crash it was always gonna be the case that the stronger growth would be elsewhere until london wages had a chance to catch up but over the years a lot of that has happened because prices have stood almost still for years.

19:55In 2024, prices were up by 1.3%. In 2025, they were down by 0.1%, according to HomeTrack. So while that's been happening, wages have been climbing, rents have been climbing, that means yields have been improving. So already the case for London has been getting stronger. Still, maybe not quite there yet. But the other thing that we've just started talking about on the podcast over the last few months of last year, very much underreported, is a major supply crunch that is underway. And there are many causes for this supply crunch, but a big one has been the new safety rules that came into place that slowed down high-rise construction across the country.

20:29Any kind of tall building had all these new hoops to jump through, really, really hard to do, slowed everything down, made development more difficult. And of course, in London, pretty much everything that gets built is a high building. What that means is that at the moment, and for the past couple of years, you've had projects that would have been developing, not. So you've got projects that haven't started, you've had projects that have been stalled and effectively they've just locked them up and are waiting for all this to resolve itself and that means lots of new development that would have been working its way through the process hasn't been the result of that is in 2027 28 in that financial year it's forecast there'll be 3 000 new homes available for sale 3 000 for the whole of london it's a staggering number rob and what really makes it hit home is more people will move to london in

21:19More than 3 ,000 people come to London in a single month. The population will grow by that much. But yet, we're only going to see that amount of homes complete in 27 and 28. Total. Not per year. Total. That is a crazy number. And we've been thinking about this. And we've said we've been keeping an eye on London. The yields are improving. And that is true. But we still felt it wasn't right to go. but imagine a world where you can say well I know this is going to play out let me lock the price in today and complete on it in a few years time you can with off plan I actually think this could be a bit of a masterstroke I actually think this could be as good as our call as we made with Manchester we said Manchester was going to do incredibly well before pretty much anybody talked about Manchester because we saw an opportunity and I believe the same opportunity exists here.

22:21Now there aren't going to be many off-plan properties being built, hence the numbers as we've talked about, but there are some that will be built. So getting a long-term off-plan, not 6-12 months, long-term off-plan opportunity, looking at pricing today, that for me is something that I'm seriously considering investing in in the next 12 months. And I've not invested in London actually ever before. In the Southeast, yes, but I've never personally invested in London. And for the first time, I think I will make that move in 2026. So you don't have to follow me, and you don't have to listen to what we've said.

22:57But I think this case is so compelling. I just think it's so non-obvious that people will sleep on this opportunity. Why would people go to this level of depth analysis to try and find the opportunity. It's not something you're going to do. We are in this market day in, day out. We speak to people day in, day out who work in this market. So we are in the privileged position where we can potentially spot these opportunities. That's not a promise, so don't come crying if this doesn't work out, but it's a belief. And it's a belief that we are very much going to take advantage of because rents will absolutely keep on increasing and that will be exaggerated by this lack of supply.

23:37The population will absolutely keep on increasing. It's projected to reach 9.6 million by 2035. We're at 8.9 million now. 700 ,000 people could be into London in the next nine years. That's a lot of people, but there isn't a lot of property. And what does that create? Well, we think an incredible, incredible non-obvious investment opportunity. So there you go. You've got our obvious picks and our non-obvious picks. And the great thing is you've got a choice. If you go for some of these non-obvious areas, and if we turn out to be right, then there's going to be more total upside because you're getting in earlier, you're getting in at a lower price.

24:14And for some people, that will really appeal. But you don't have to do that. There are no prizes for originality in property because of the way the market is, because of the point you're getting in at. If you go into Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Derby, Nottingham, it's hard to imagine you're regretting that in 10 years time, you're going to do well. So you can really take your pick. And the great thing is, because we're highly unlikely to have some kind of mega property boom in 2026, there will be choices, you will have options, you will be able to go and get some really good deals done. But as we say, every time we talk about hotspots, you can make a really bad investment in a really good area.

24:49So do make sure you do your numbers and do make sure you're pushing for a really strong deal because those deals will be out there. Now, if you think we've delivered a lot of value already. Do not go anywhere because we've got a Hub Extra for you. And Rob, you've not actually shared with me what this Hub Extra is yet. So I'm looking forward to hearing about it. Yeah, I was a bit embarrassed to share because this is the most January Hub Extra in the world because it's a book, it's a self-improvement book and it's called High Performance Habits. It's by Brendan Burchard. It's been out for a few years, but it's January.

25:17So along with everyone else, I'm trying to reinvent myself. I'm sure Brendan's having a very good few weeks for book sales. But I was really impressed with this book. If you've spent a bit of time in the self-improvement world, you get to a point where you feel like you've heard it all before. And I was going into this book thinking I'd heard it all before. I just wanted a bit of a reminder and that's all I wanted from it. But actually, it's got some really interesting ideas. It's got some advice that's very easy to apply and it's just super well structured. So we'll have to wait until December to see if any of it is actually stuck.

25:43But I'll say I enjoyed it and I was very pleasantly surprised. So that's High Performance Habits. Rob, I'm so surprised you've produced a self-help book as the Hub Extra because it's been so long that at least I've known for you to read one of these type of books. I used to hoover them up in my early 20s. And I don't think people should poo-poo self-development books, because if you haven't gone through that journey of reading them all, I think you're holding yourself back, because there is a lot of learning to be done there. The reason why sometimes, including ourselves, people sound a bit sceptical is those themes.

26:15And once you've consumed enough of it, you don't need to carry on, maybe as a reminder like you've done, Rob. So if you're telling me, there's a book out there that you would recommend me and others to read then i'm gonna buy it i'm gonna buy because i can't believe there's something new there and i'm very keen to be proven wrong but if even so if even if i felt i've read it before maybe i need that reminder too so thank you for that one well that's us done for another week you've got our hot spots you know where you should be investing or at the very least you understand how we got to our hot spots so you can go and find the best investment areas of your own so i think it's fair to say we've started january strong We've made our predictions, we've given you our hotspots, we've told you how to make it your best property year ever, and we've given you that extra four-part series to help you take action.

26:58So if you haven't listened to all that yet, go back, you'll find it all on your feed. And by the time you've done that, it'll probably be next Thursday, we'll be back here to do it all again. So we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.