Manchester has a special place in my heart as the city where I went to university, way back longer than I care to imagine. Having continued to visit regularly since then I have seen the buzz around the place, cranes everywhere and general growth of the city during Andy Burnham’s reign as Mayor of Greater Manchester.

For landlords, the Manchester story is not just about growth. It is about scrutiny. Rising rents, stretched affordability and uneven standards have pushed housing up the political agenda. That means the market may still be attractive, but it is becoming more regulated, more visible and less forgiving.

Growth has brought pressure

Manchester’s fundamentals remain compelling: strong employment, graduate retention, regeneration, transport ambition and better value than London or much of the South East. That has supported values and rents across the city centre and well-connected areas such as Salford, Trafford and Stockport.

Yet success cuts both ways. New apartments and cranes make good headlines, but they do not automatically solve affordability. Burnham’s pledge for 10,000 new council homes by 2028 underlines the political direction of travel: Greater Manchester wants more housing, but it also wants more control over what sort of housing is delivered.

Landlords should take that seriously. Where rents rise faster than local wages, intervention follows. The question is whether policy improves supply and standards, or simply makes responsible landlords think twice.

The landlord test

The Good Landlord Charter was launched in Greater Manchester this time last year and is the clearest sign of this new approach. In principle, it is hard to object to distinguishing good landlords from bad ones. The sector has needed that for years. Responsible landlords who provide safe, well-managed homes should not be lumped in with rogue operators.

But charters and enforcement schemes only work if they are fair, practical and properly targeted. Too often, the easiest landlord to find is the compliant one. The worst operators are harder to catch and more costly to pursue. If councils lack resources, good policy can quickly become bad practice.

That matters because many landlords in Greater Manchester are not institutions with deep pockets. They are individuals with one or two properties, already dealing with higher mortgage costs, tax changes, licensing, energy efficiency pressures and national rental reform. Raising standards is right. Pretending there is no cost is not.

What should landlords do?

First, assume scrutiny will increase. Keep records, stay ahead of compliance and treat property standards as a core business issue, not an admin task.

Second, watch local policy as closely as national reform. Devolution means mayoral priorities, council enforcement and local standards schemes will shape the day-to-day reality of letting property.

Third, engage. If responsible landlords stay silent, the debate will be led by those with the worst examples and the simplest slogans.

The verdict

Manchester remains a very strong property market. Demand is real, regeneration is visible and the city-region still has momentum. But landlords should not confuse a strong market with an easy one.

When Andy Burnham shortly makes the leap from King of the North to Prime Minister of the UK, Manchester may look less like a local experiment and more like the template. Replicating the growth across the whole country will not be an easy job. Expect more emphasis on local governance, public housebuilding, landlord standards, tenant protection and local enforcement across the rest of the country.

That should focus minds. The real landlord question under Andy Burnham as PM is not just whether standards can be raised without choking off investment. It is whether the same policies can be rolled out nationally and whether they will have the same effect on a much wider scale. I look forward to seeing what changes, if any, there will be under his leadership and remain hopeful that the experience of growth and development in Manchester can at least, in part, be replicated across the rest of the country.

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