The UK is only the 15th best place in Europe to enjoy high returns from buy to let according to currency company World First – and it trails Bulgaria, Slovakia, Latvia, Poland and Romania amongst others.

The analysis shows the Republic of Ireland as the best location, with an average rental yield of 6.54 per cent. Then comes the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria and Malta all on over 6.0 per cent.

The UK average yield is only 4.91 per cent – although its 15th position in the league table is actually six places above where it was placed six months ago.

However, the UK figures were calculated before the latest announcement by the Bank of England that it was tightening buy to let mortgage criteria further, and of course the league table comes in advance of tomorrow’s Autumn Statement which may – or may not – herald new measures affecting the private rental sector.

Sitting at the bottom of the table, Sweden, Italy and France provide the lowest returns on buy to let with high property prices and rents that fail to make the investment worthwhile.

Sweden continues to rank last place for buy to let investments from April – when the data was last tracked – with an average yield of just 3.0 per cent. Italy on 3.26 per cent and France on 3.55 per cent make up the bottom three countries.

The analysis also shows the gap between rural and urban investment for buy to let in Europe and identifies which areas will see their stake go further.

The rural-urban gap is most prevalent in Turkey where average yields in rural areas are 6.70 per cent but drop to 5.71 per cent in areas outside the city. In contrast, investors can see the least significant variances in Greece where the average yields are similar in urban (4.48 per cent) and rural (4.41 per cent) areas.

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