Scotland best place in UK for fast rental return for landlords

Scotland offers the quickest return on property investment with the annual rent returning the original asking price in 17.7 years, a report has found.

Glasgow is the quickest city in the UK to return investment at just over 13 years, according to a study from letting agent Benham and Reeves, followed by Belfast at 15.8 years and Aberdeen at 17.8 years.

The report looked at average house price plus the cost of buy-to-let stamp duty and annual rent and ranked each area on the number of years it would take for this annual rent to recoup the cost of buying in each area and paying taxes such as land and Buildings Transaction Tax in Scotland and Stamp Duty south of the border.

Northern Ireland was the second quickest region to return investment through rental at 18.9 years, followed by England at 25 years and finally Wales at 26.4 years.

In Glasgow, the average house price was £129,764, plus property tax of £5,190, giving a combined total of £134,954. With an average rental income of £10,140, the cost of the property was recouped in just 13.3 years. In Edinburgh, it takes an average of 21.6 years to recoup the cost of an average property price of £263,868.

Marc von Grundherr, director of Benham and Reeves, said: “Buy-to-let investment is a complicated business, even more so given the changes to the sector of late, however, the primary indicator of a good investment is always going to be the rental yield available.