northern ireland investment property

I'm think of purchasing an investment property in Belfast and was wondering if anybody has done so recently. As I know very little about Belfast at the moment, could anybody recommend developments on the market. Which areas in belfast (north, south, east or west) would be the more business end of the city? I've seen in other posts that the rental return is quiet low in the north, is there any reason for this or is the outlook for rent going to improve in the future?

The reason rents are low in NI is because 60% of the NI economy is public sector as was stated recently by Paxman on BBC2 Newsnight.

I believe the public sector had pay rises of 2-3% recently.

The NI market now appears to be awash with rental properties so I would expect rents are liable to remain fairly static.

Yields appear to be about 2.5%-3.0% of current prices.

Did you know you can obtain yields of 6% in Liverpool?

Depending on your perspective it may be a good time to buy as apparently house prices in some unnamed parts of Northern Ireland have dropped in price by up to 8%.

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=80809&pt=n

Just sold a property in Belfast which I purchased 18 months ago. Original rental yield 6.3%, yield on selling price 3.4%. Yields are way too low and I was told by the estate agents that there were loads of empty properties around which investors cannot rent out.

Price of a 2 bed apt in belfast will knock you back over 200k. When you factor in interest rate and currency adjustments they are similar to dublin which does not seem at all justified. Yields are probably higher in dublin now (well they are definitely closer to base interest rate than the NI yields).

Definitely not the time to buy in the north - the crash is coming.

Hi, I am from Belfast and moved to the south for a better paid job (although the house prices were shock here).

Yes the problem is the high number of UK and Irish investors buying up property in the north causing some house prices to jump by almost 45%.

I moved out of a rented house in Belfast 2 years ago and it was on the market for STG 100k. I checked the property and it is now worth 190k. The rental prices are exactly the same, so your return now will be a lot less that it was 2 years ago.

With the peace deal looking like it is finally going to go ahead, the house prices should increase at a more normal rate, but ONLY if a lot of inward investment happens, otherwise the house prices will go in reverse. i wouldn't say a crash will happen because of all the potential property investors from UK and Ireland looking at Belfast as it is still improving and has loads of potential to improve on a very large scale. It is small city after all. The new Titanic Quarter promises loads of housing and jobs, but this is like the Port Tunnel or the M3 or Dublin to Navan railway. promise loads but will it be deliver or even deliver the expected returns...

Only time will tell...

Even rundown houses in Belfast are fetching stupid prices, just because the demand far outweighs the supply. Buying a house to rent seems like a bad investment right now in Belfast, esp with all the empty houses about. I think I would be looking at Manchester or Liverpool as there is a lot of investment there at the moment…

Hope this helps…

Here is more info on why rents are low...

The debate underscores the importance of the public sector to the Northern Irish economy, with the government directly employing around a third of the workforce, and accounting for close to two-thirds of economic output, against 48 per cent in the UK as a whole and 27 per cent in the Republic of Ireland.

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But perhaps the biggest problem facing any incoming administration is the huge number of economically inactive in the workforce, now at 530,000 compared with 720,000 at work.

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podd said:

...

Did you know you can obtain yields of 6% in Liverpool?

Click to expand...

.... and did you know there was also a large number of investors, who have acquired residential units in Liverpool, Manchester & Bolton regions who cannot get tenants for them ?

Let the buyer beware I guess

Cheers

G>

Garrettod said:

.... and did you know there was also a large number of investors, who have acquired residential units in Liverpool, Manchester & Bolton regions who cannot get tenants for them ?

Click to expand...

Hmmm...sounds a bit like Belfast then...

Hmmm, sounds like you need a city with a high student population...
So looks like either Dublin or Glasgow or even Edinburgh then...

I was in Dublin last week and someone told me that Dublin is now ahead of Belfast for many respects, i.e economy wise. We all know, 20 yrs ago it was the other way around but apparently NI now is trying to fill the gap and catching up with new investment policies and subsidies. Does someone know if this is true and whether there are actions already in place along the line, please?