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Why Couples are Choosing Two Bedroom Apartments

As new developments spring up around city cores in the UK, we’re witnessing a dramatic shift in how and where young professionals are choosing to live.

City centres are quickly becoming some of the most desirable locations to live in the country, driven by incredible investment, job prospects and improvements to surrounding amenities.

For many, this represents a key opportunity – the chance to live and work within a bustling hotspot, often with easy access to everything they’d ever need.

This also means that quality apartments with plenty of space and good amenities are at a premium. For young professionals, especially couples, two bedroom apartments are in demand.

Camilla Dell from consultancy firm Black Brick said:

“Generally speaking, flats make better buy-to-let investments than houses, especially two-bedroom, two-bathroom flats which many young professionals favour and can share with a friend, partner or co-worker.”

This new generation of renters is, as you’d expect, looking to balance affordability and maximum space. Whether it’s at the heart of a city centre or located just outside, the flexibility provided by a two-bedroom apartment is proving incredibly popular.

Centre for Cities, a UK economic thinktank, believes that job roles in cities are also having a huge effect on the popularity of two-bedroom apartments.

A big pull for young professionals has been the growing number of high-skilled, high-paying office jobs available.

“In big cities, more than half of the people living in the centre work in high-skilled, professional occupations, reflecting the growing importance of sectors like financial and legal services to the UK economy.”

This means that affordable apartments with easy access to high-skilled jobs are like gold dust. This is why commuter-friendly towns such as Slough, Basingstoke and Bicester are also performing above average, providing excellent accessibility to areas such as London and Oxford while remaining much more affordable.

It’s the flexibility and extra space that is proving to be so decisive when it comes to renters choosing two bedrooms.

For couples that want to live together but not commit to a mortgage, an apartment represents the ideal stepping stone, especially as the average age of someone in the UK buying their first home is now 30 years old. As the rise of Generation Rent shows, for some, renting is also fast becoming a permanent solution.

When an extra room is added into the mix, it opens up the possibilities – the second bedroom can suddenly become an office, guest room or used for extra storage.

With the addition of a second income stream, two-bed apartments also put less financial stress on the occupiers, allowing them to comfortably opt for something more spacious.

It could also be argued that two bedroom apartments provide better value for the owner – encouraging longer rental periods and shorter void periods thanks to the unprecedented demand the market is experiencing.

This is definitely the case in recent research from Upad, who found that two bedroom flats offer the best rental yields.

Rental Yields Table

As more people flock to city centres and the surrounding areas for both the employment opportunities and lifestyle, it’s no surprise that two-bed apartments are in demand, providing the space that many young professionals want while remaining affordable and in an excellent location.

Investment Case: 2 Bed Oxfordshire

Development: Graven Hill Apartments – 2 Bed

Projected rental income PCM: £1,200** (Total annual income £14,400)

Total annual expenses: £8,033

Total capital appreciation to 2022*: £107,867

Total cash employed: £69,486

Total return over 5 years: £126,959 (182.7%)

View Graven Hill Apartments

*Capital appreciation projected growth based on Rightmove data
** Projected income based on Rightmove best price guide data OX26 07/01/2018-08/09/2018

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