Best Resources for Buy-to-Let Property Research

If you’re searching the market for a residential or buy-to-let property, you will almost certainly come across a property portal or two. Websites such as Zoopla and Rightmove are excellent, easy-to-use resources for seeing what’s available in a given area and comparing prices.

You can filter your searches to show you exactly the types of properties you’re interested in and set minimum or maximum price points so you’re not sifting through listings that are out of your budget. Additionally, property portals often publish reports detailing the performance of residential and rental property markets across the UK, providing prospective investors with invaluable insights.

When researching a particular region or city, you can also find valuable stats such as average rents and property prices on portal websites. Property portals are often the first point of call for buy-to-let investors, and it’s easy to see why. If you haven’t already, we recommend checking them out!

For buy-to-let property investors, the most regular and immediate returns on investment will come from rental income. This is often referred to as a rental yield, which is the annual return as a percentage of the property price. Rental yields can vary from place to place depending on the value of real estate in a given area. Much like the research you might conduct around property prices and market growth, understanding the yield you are likely to get from a buy-to-let property is key to developing a solid investment strategy.

You can gain insightful stats on average UK rental yields from several sources. These include the website PropertyData, which gives the average yield by postcode in most UK cities. Alternatively, you can easily calculate a rental yield yourself by taking the average property price from a source like the UK House Price Index and the average annual rental figure from Rightmove or Zoopla. If you divide the property price by the yearly rent and multiply it by 100, you will have the expected rental yield for that property. Either way, calculating the estimated rental yield from an investment property is good practice before making any significant financial commitments.