The beauty of buy to let is that rather than just offering one type of return on your investment, there are two – rental returns and capital growth. In order to benefit from both of these returns, however, you need to look for property investment opportunities in areas with a strong potential for capital appreciation as well as high rental yields.

When you look at property price trends, it’s evident that UK property prices are rapidly growing. In a recent report by Savills, it was revealed that property prices in the North West and Yorkshire and forecast to see the most significant house price growth over the next five years. In the North West, property prices are expected to grow by 24%, while Yorkshire prices are set to see an increase of 21.6%. If this is the case, a property such as One Baltic Square in Liverpool which is priced from £121,950 would be worth around £150,000 in five years. With this North West growth in mind, nvestments in Liverpool and Manchester are definitely worth exploring to benefit from high returns overall.

Along with rental yields and capital growth, Liverpool investments come out on top in terms of affordability. According to a recent property statistics from Zoopla, property prices in Liverpool average at about £178,105 as of February 2020. When looking at flats specifically, the average price for a one-bedroom flat stands at just £98,831, which is worlds apart from London’s average of £476,419 for the same property type. Many investments in Liverpool are also priced under £100k, allowing you to benefit from excellent returns for an affordable price in a prime location.

Another step you should take when conducting due diligence is to read customer reviews for the company. These can normally be found on websites like TrustPilot or Google Reviews and can be a good indication of whether the investment opportunities and the company itself are worth exploring further.

If a company has a lot of beaming reviews and a high average rating, they’ve likely been operating for a long time and left a lot of investors satisfied with their purchase! Things like good communication, friendly service and an easy investment process are all qualities to look out for when reading customer reviews.

Once you’ve researched the company and selected a potential investment opportunity that you want to explore further, you should look into arranging a meeting or property viewing before making your final decision. This stage of the property investment process will give you a chance to ask some more questions about the property, find out more about the company, find out a bit more about the area it’s based in, and hopefully take a tour of the property or the development site.

If the property is off-plan, it’s unlikely that a tour of the physical property will be possible as it will still be in the construction stage. In this case, you may be able to view CGI images of the property during your meeting or view a show flat for an idea of how the property is expected to look. Here at RWinvest, we even offer our investors the chance to use a Virtual Reality headset to take a CGI tour of certain developments.

This is the stage of the investment process where you will decide whether or not to go through with your purchase. You should trust your instincts at this stage and pay attention to your overall feelings towards the property investment opportunity itself and the company selling it. If the venture ticks all your boxes and you feel confident that it will bring you success, you should trust your gut and make the first of many investment opportunities!