Property investors are being advised to head north for better returns, with new research revealing that Bootle in Merseyside is currently the best place to bag a buy-to-let bargain. 

The latest list of diamond property hotspots from AI powered property investment portal One and Only One Pro, which ranked investment properties across England and Wales with a score from one to ten, with properties rated ‘ten’ being the most likely to increase in value, found that the top five locations with the highest concentration of top scoring properties can all be found in the north of England. 

Bootle now holds the top spot, having replaced Salford, which was ranked first last year but has now dropped to 47th place in this year’s report. 

Burnley holds on to second place, Grimsby and Hartlepool both make the top five for the first time in third and fourth place respectively, whilst Liverpool ranks fifth. 

Henri Sant Cassia, from One and Only One Pro, said: “It is great to see the predictions we made last year have been borne out – the north has remained strong and the central London market had, as we predicted, bottomed out price wise and is now seeing an upturn.  

“The top five diamond property hotpots this year all offer great value, even for first-time investors, in terms of average house prices. Investors could easily overlook towns like Grimbsy or Burnley which offer fantastic value in comparison to the big cities.

“It is important to note that our data isn’t simply an analysis of last year’s trend – our system algorithm analyses and studies future trends and also factors in changes in bank lending and fiscal policy for example which could influence the property market during the following year.

“Despite the general doom and gloom, especially around Brexit, in 2019 the market actually remained quite robust, as we had predicted. The trend for the government to continue to legislate against the rental sector and increase taxes for smaller landlords is likely to continue in 2020.  

“As interest rates are likely to stay low, rental profit will be high for landlords so we predict a positive year ahead for property investors on that front. We should also continue to see banks relaxing their criteria so landlords and property investors will be able to borrow more money and with easier stress testing.”