Investment and sourcing
What is a good rental yield?
Last updated 4 July 2026 · Reviewed by Nick Thorpe, founder
The short answer
Most Yorkshire landlords treat a gross yield of 6 to 7% as solid and anything above 7% as good. Huddersfield HD1 typically runs 6 to 7%, Barnsley about 7%, and well-run HMOs beat both. Net yield, what is left after fees and running costs, is the figure that actually matters.
What rental yield actually is
Rental yield is your annual rent as a percentage of what the property cost you. It is the quickest way to compare one deal against another, or against leaving the money in the bank.
There are two versions. Gross yield is annual rent divided by purchase price, times 100. Net yield starts from the same rent but deducts your running costs first: management, safety checks, letting costs, insurance, maintenance, mortgage interest. Gross is the number investors quote at dinner parties. Net is the one that pays for dinner.
What counts as good in Yorkshire
Across our patch, 6 to 7% gross is a solid single let and anything above 7% is good. That is what Huddersfield HD1 typically produces, it matches the Barnsley borough average of around 7%, and well-run HMOs sit above both.
| Area | Typical gross yield |
|---|---|
| Huddersfield (HD1) | 6 to 7%, well-run HMOs above that |
| Leeds student HMOs (LS4, LS6) | 7 to 9% and higher |
| Leeds city-centre flats | 5 to 6.5% |
| Barnsley (borough average) | Around 7%, with S70 and Worsbrough at 7 to 9% |
The rents behind those numbers are moving. ONS figures put the average private rent at £759 a month in Kirklees (March 2026, up 10.5% in a year), £1,133 in Leeds (April 2026, up 2.6%) and £670 in Barnsley (March 2026, up 5.1%).
Harrogate is the exception in our patch. Rightmove put the town average at about £1,547 a month in March 2026, roughly double the North Yorkshire average, but purchase prices are high too. Buyers there tend to be after reliable tenants and long-term growth rather than headline yield.
Gross vs net: a worked example
The gap between gross and net is where deals quietly go wrong, so here is the same property both ways.
Take a house in Barnsley’s S70 letting at £750 a month. That sits inside our current S70 letting range of £550 to £775, which is a working estimate maintained by our lettings team as of July 2026, not a formal valuation. Entry prices in Barnsley run roughly £125,000 to £180,000, so we will use £125,000.
Gross: £750 a month is £9,000 a year. £9,000 divided by £125,000 gives a gross yield of 7.2%.
Now net, using our published fees (all plus VAT, full schedule on our fees page):
| Line | Annual amount |
|---|---|
| Rent at £750 a month | £9,000 |
| Management at 10% of rent, plus VAT | £1,080 |
| Gas safety check, £80 plus VAT | £96 |
| Letting costs spread over a 24-month average tenancy | £312 |
| Rent after Livdin fees | £7,512 |
The letting costs line is find tenant £400, referencing £35 for one tenant, inventory £55 and deposit registration £30, which comes to £624 including VAT, halved because our average tenancy runs 24 months.
£7,512 divided by £125,000 is a net yield of 6.0% after our fees. That is before mortgage interest, insurance, maintenance and any empty weeks, all of which vary by property, so build your own numbers in before you offer. Two things work in your favour on the last two: we charge maintenance at contractor cost with no markup, and we work to a 7-day void target from checkout to move-in.
The pattern is the point. A 7.2% gross became 6.0% before the mortgage was even mentioned. Any deal that only works at gross is not a deal.
Check the numbers on your own property
Two tools do the arithmetic for you. Our yield calculator turns a price and a rent into gross and net figures using our real fee schedule, and our rent estimate tells you what a specific property should let for, based on what we are actually letting nearby rather than what flatters a valuation.
If you are weighing up a specific purchase, send us the address before you offer. We let and manage across Huddersfield, Leeds, Harrogate and Barnsley, and we would rather talk you out of a thin deal now than take over a struggling one later.