Manchester City may have romped to another Premier League title win at the weekend, but in terms of property price growth over the past season, the club — or more accurately the surrounding area — been less-than-impressive.
GetAgent.co.uk studied the rate of house price growth surrounding each of the 20 Premier League clubs’s home grounds since August, and the data showed Manchester City finished bottom of the league — average property values in the M11 postcode slumped by an eye-watering 26% in the period to £105,000.
Conversely, the estate agent comparison site’s report showed that Bournemouth AFC took the title of top dog for the 2018/19 season, with property prices in the vicinity of its Vitality Stadium and its BH7 postcode rising by an average 18% year-on-year to £460,438.
Commenting on the data, chief executive of GetAgent.co.uk Colby Short said: “While the actual Premier League remains fairly predictable when it comes to the top teams, the current property landscape is anything but.”
Colby noted that the figures show “just how diverse the national market is” on a granular level, and added that “while regional cities like Manchester as a whole are performing very well, there are even areas within these more in-demand locations that are seeing a lull.”
Bring on buy-to-let?
So how can you capitalise on the splendid property price growth in Bournemouth, or even the other footballing cities of Liverpool and Newcastle which locked out the top four places of the table? Is it time to take the plunge perhaps in buy-to-let?
Certainly not, in my opinion. More red tape, bigger tax bills and a steady erosion in landlord power is the story of the rentals market right now, and is likely to get worse as the main political parties try to curry favour with Britain’s renters.
It’s also possible that property prices in some of these locations could stagnate or fall in the coming season as economic and political uncertainty created by Brexit drags on. The report showed, average property prices fell in almost half of the Premier League clubs’s postcodes last season.
Score with these sporting heroes
For this reason I’d be very happy to give buy-to-let a miss and put my money to work in the stock market. Heck, there’s no shortage of sporting picks that could make you a fortune in the near-term, like JD Sports Fashion.
I’ve celebrated the retailer and its exceptional growth story time and again, its strategy of rapid expansion across Europe (and more recently in Asia and North America) helping annual earnings swell by double-digit percentages in the past half a decade.
Paddy Power Betfair is just one of the London-quoted bookmakers worthy of investment, in my opinion, as like its rivals, it is also stretching its geographical footprint to light a fire under revenues growth. Revenue was up 15% during January to March because of great performances in the US and Australia.
Or how about Science In Sport? The sports nutrition specialist has big plans of its own, as illustrated by the autumn acquisition of industry heavyweight PhD Nutrition, a deal which doubles the size of the business and gives it exposure to 45 countries across the globe. And the company has every right to be aggressive given the rate at which demand for sports powders is growing. Sales at Science In Sport swelled 37% in 2018 to £21.2m.