Investing
Are abandoned properties a good investment for developers?
Published by Gbaf News
Posted on September 19, 2018
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Gbaf News
Posted on September 19, 2018
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
After research by The Liberal Democrats discovered some shocking results from their study, which discovered the number of abandoned houses in the UK, Pure Commercial Finance looked into why nobody has invested in these properties, and, whether abandoned properties are really worth investing in.
The Study
The Liberal Democrats has recently undertaken research from 276 local, British councils that looked at the amount of homes in the UK that have been abandoned over the past decade.
More than 216,000 homes in the UK are currently abandoned and have been for the past six months or more. Furthermore, there are 60,000 homes that have been empty for at least two years, while 23,000 have been empty for five years. Plus, 11,000 houses have been abandoned for over 10 years.
The areas that had the highest amount of empty homes are:
The research also found that the councils were not utilising Empty Dwelling Management Orders, which is a scheme to allow councils to overtake the properties that have been abandoned for six months plus.
However, if these abandoned properties were for sale, would they provide a good opportunity for developers?
Are Abandoned Properties a Good Investment for Developers?
If homes are left empty and not looked after, they will degrade with time and may prove to be more hassle for investors than it is worth. However, if these properties were sold, they could help fight the growing UK housing shortage.
Deciding on whether a house would be worth investing in does depend on the property in question. If a property, for example, was structurally sound, then there may not need to be much ‘doing-up’ to focus on. It would be easy to renovate it and stick it back on the market for profit.
However, if is the house has any major issues, then it may not be worth it – unless, you investigate gaining planning permission, knocking the house down and starting from scratch. It may prove to be a great investment if you could knock the house down and build multiple homes on the same plot.
Explore more articles in the Investing category
