What Makes Doncaster Such a Good Location for HMO Investment?

August 12, 2026

We have been operating in the HMO sector in Doncaster for over 34 years. We think that says an awful lot about the city.

Property investment is full of developers who move from one location to another, chasing whichever town or city has become the latest investment hotspot. A market becomes fashionable, investors pile in, stock gets built, competition increases, and eventually the same developers who promoted it as the next big thing quietly move somewhere else.

We have never needed to do that.

After more than three decades, we are still buying, developing and operating HMO properties in Doncaster. We have not been forced elsewhere by oversaturation. We have not had to reinvent our investment model because the local employment market disappeared. Doncaster has simply continued to produce the combination we want: sensible property prices, substantial employment, professional tenant demand and continuing investment into the infrastructure surrounding the city.

For us, that track record matters far more than whichever location happens to be fashionable this year.

Doncaster is becoming an industrial and logistics powerhouse

One of the biggest reasons we continue to invest here is employment.

Doncaster houses some of the UK’s largest logistics and industrial developments, and the scale of what is happening around the city is easy to underestimate if you only look at house prices.

Take iPort. It is already one of the UK’s most advanced multimodal logistics hubs, with infrastructure planned for up to six million square feet of logistics space. Amazon, Lidl, CEVA Logistics, Woodland Group, Maritime Transport and other major operators have established facilities there. iPort also has its own strategic rail freight terminal, connecting the site into the national rail network and international freight routes.

That alone creates an enormous employment ecosystem, but iPort is only one piece of the picture.

There is also the huge Unity development close to Junction 5 of the M18. The 618-acre scheme is planned to deliver thousands of homes, commercial space and around 7,000 jobs as it develops.

Then there is Doncaster Sheffield Airport.

The reopening programme is progressing, with FlyDoncaster established to bring the airport back into operation. Current plans are freight-led, with cargo activity expected before substantial passenger operations. The wider airport proposition is not simply about putting holiday flights back into the sky. It is being developed around cargo, aviation, logistics, commercial activity and the broader Airport City concept.

The economic projections are substantial. City of Doncaster Council’s business case has previously estimated more than 5,000 direct jobs and around 6,500 indirect jobs once the airport proposition is fully operational.

For an HMO investor, jobs matter. A lot.

People sometimes become distracted by population statistics, university rankings or city-centre regeneration announcements. We prefer to ask a simpler question: where are people going to work?

Because when major employers invest hundreds of millions of pounds into warehouses, logistics facilities, aviation, manufacturing and supporting infrastructure, those businesses need people. Those people need somewhere to live.

That is exactly the type of underlying demand we want around our HMO portfolio.

Doncaster’s location cannot be recreated

There is another advantage Doncaster has that no regeneration scheme can manufacture: geography.

Put a crosshair over the UK’s major north-to-south and east-to-west transport routes and Doncaster sits in an extraordinary position.

The A1(M) runs alongside the area. The M18 links directly towards the M1 and M62. The East Coast Main Line puts Doncaster on one of Britain’s most important rail routes. Major population centres across Yorkshire, the Midlands, North West and North East can be reached quickly.

At iPort specifically, the operator states that 91% of the UK population can be reached within a four-hour drive.

That is why the Doncaster area makes so much sense for distribution.

Amazon does not build enormous fulfilment centres somewhere because the location happens to be fashionable. Lidl does not make logistics decisions based on property investment brochures. Large industrial operators choose sites based on labour, road access, rail access, land availability and the ability to reach their customers efficiently.

Doncaster ticks those boxes.

The airport adds another layer to that proposition.

Freight is expected to form an early part of the airport’s return, with FlyDoncaster openly positioning Doncaster Sheffield Airport around both passenger aviation and commercial cargo operations.

There is already substantial infrastructure and development planned around the airport and the wider GatewayEast/Airport City area to support commercial activity. In our view, connecting that freight proposition even more closely with rail would make enormous sense. A proper rail solution capable of moving freight efficiently between aviation, warehousing and the wider national network could make an already strong logistics location even more attractive.

That last point is our own view rather than an announced project, but we would love to see it happen.

The capital appreciation story is getting harder to ignore

Rental income is obviously important with an HMO. Capital appreciation still matters.

Savills’ residential research has been particularly positive about the more affordable northern housing markets. Its forecasts have pointed towards the North of England having some of the strongest capacity for price growth, including potential annual growth of around 6% to 7% across northern England during parts of 2026 and 2027. Affordability is one of the major reasons Savills expects these markets to outperform more expensive parts of the country.

That broadly reflects what we are seeing on the ground in Yorkshire and the Humber.

We buy more than 40 properties a year ourselves, so our view of the Doncaster market does not come from occasionally checking Rightmove. We are negotiating purchases constantly.

In some parts of Doncaster, our own purchasing experience suggests capital appreciation has been running closer to 7% per annum.

That does not mean every street in Doncaster will rise by 7% every year. Property does not work like that. But when you are buying repeatedly in the same market, year after year, you get a very clear picture of what vendors are accepting, what comparable properties are selling for and how quickly acquisition prices are moving.

We are seeing meaningful growth.

And importantly, Doncaster still begins from a much more affordable price point than many of the larger northern cities.

Why Doncaster stands out within South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire as a whole can work well for HMO investment. We simply think Doncaster has the strongest combination of factors.

Sheffield has an enormous HMO market, for example, but a considerable part of that market has historically been connected to its student population. Student HMOs can work perfectly well, but it is a different investment model.

Our Doncaster HMOs are focused on professional tenants.

That distinction matters to us.

Doncaster has substantial employment in logistics, rail, healthcare, manufacturing, engineering, warehousing, construction, aviation-related industries and professional services. The tenant demand created by those industries does not disappear when university terms finish.

Sheffield also presents practical difficulties for developers. Property values in many suitable areas are substantially higher, which affects conversion economics before work has even started. The terrain can make certain development projects more awkward too. Anyone who has spent time driving around Sheffield knows how different the city’s topography is from Doncaster’s comparatively flat landscape.

With an HMO, every extra acquisition and construction cost has to come from somewhere.

Doncaster frequently gives us more room to produce the size, specification and communal space we want without pushing the completed property beyond sensible investment economics.

So why aren’t more investors looking at Doncaster?

That is a very good question.

Part of the answer is that property investment has always had its trophy cities.

Manchester. Liverpool. Leeds. Newcastle.

They are names international investors recognise immediately, and that makes them extremely easy to market. A developer can produce a glossy CGI of a city-centre scheme, put photographs of skyscrapers and restaurants into a brochure and sell the idea of investing in a major UK city.

The quality of the investment underneath the marketing can be a different matter.

Our concern with markets such as Manchester and Liverpool is the sheer quantity of investor-focused accommodation that has been developed. HMO investors can find themselves competing against a large amount of existing shared accommodation, apartments and purpose-built rental stock, while some developers continue adding properties because there is still an investor willing to buy them.

We have also seen overseas investors sold poor-quality HMO propositions on the strength of marketing rather than the fundamentals of the street, tenant market or finished property.

We would rather buy where the numbers work.

Newcastle presents a different issue. Parts of the wider market can look exceptionally cheap on paper, and that inevitably attracts investors searching for the lowest possible entry price. But cheap property is not automatically good property.

If a low purchase price is the result of weak employment, deprivation or limited professional tenant demand, an investor has not discovered a bargain. They may simply have purchased a property cheaply for a reason.

For a professional HMO, we want employment nearby, good transport, desirable rooms, tenants with stable incomes and enough underlying housing demand to support the property if the investment strategy ever changes.

That is where Doncaster starts looking very different.

We would rather follow employment than hype

There is a fairly simple reason we have stayed in Doncaster for more than 34 years.

The fundamentals continue to make sense.

The city has major motorway and rail connections. It has one of Britain’s most important logistics developments at iPort. Unity is bringing another substantial employment and development area forward. Doncaster Sheffield Airport is progressing towards reopening, with freight, aviation and passenger activity forming part of a much bigger economic plan for the surrounding area. House prices remain comparatively accessible, while our own acquisitions are showing strong appreciation in parts of the city.

Most importantly for our HMO model, people come here to work.

We are not trying to predict which northern city will appear on the front cover of the next investment brochure. We are looking for employment, infrastructure, tenant demand, acquisition value and the ability to build genuinely good shared accommodation.

After more than three decades doing exactly that in Doncaster, we have yet to find a reason to leave.

If you would like to see the HMO properties we currently have available, take a look at our HMOs for sale in Doncaster and South Yorkshire.