Good WiFi and Broadband Helps Bristol Come Top for UK House Shares

Bristol and Nottingham have come top in a new table of the best ten UK cities for house share investments, which was conducted by broadband ISP Glide (formerly CableCom). This examined various factors such as local connectivity, house share opportunities, rental cost, job prospects, amenities and affordability.

A house share simply reflects a general term that is most often used to describe the act of renting out (sharing) one of the rooms in your house or flat to another individual, with all occupants typically then sharing the property’s communal areas (e.g. kitchen and lounge). The increasingly high prices of property have seen this type of property become much more common, although it’s often more associated with student accommodation.

Apparently Bristol, which lies between Somerset and Gloucestershire in England, came top of the list due to the number of house shares available (945), strong University rankings, job opportunities (229 advertised per 10,000 people), good coverage of public WiFi and general broadband speeds. On the flip side it was the third highest city in the list for rental costs, which nearly stopped it claiming the top spot.

James Villarreal, Director of Glide, said:

“With so many students and young professionals choosing to house share, we wanted to find the best cities across the UK to suit their needs. When looking for a new house share, there are some important considerations to think about before signing, including location compared to your university campus or workplace, transport links and monthly bills.”

Sadly London didn’t make the top 10 and instead came 17th, which was predictably due in no small part to the city’s extremely high property costs (e.g. the average rent in London is £3278 per month, compared to just £499 in Bradford).

Top 10 UK House Share Hotspots
Bristol
Nottingham
Birmingham
Manchester
Liverpool
Derby
Southampton
Brighton and Hove
Leicester
Portsmouth

Unfortunately it’s not clear how much of a weighting the study gave to the broadband and WiFi side of things. In terms of Bristol, we know that “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) is almost at a universal level of availability thanks to Openreach’s (BT) FTTC network, while ultrafast broadband is available to the vast majority via Virgin Media’s cable (DOCSIS) infrastructure. Full fibre (FTTP) coverage is also on the rise via Openreach and various other operators. In fairness most of the cities listed do quite well on this front.