Forget the stereotypes: Glasgow is a gorgeous, welcoming city – and a fine investment, says Gary Parkinson

You probably already have an image of Glasgow. It’s possibly personified by Billy Connolly, or Alex Ferguson, or Rab C Nesbitt – and it’s probably wrong. 

Glasgow can at times be all these things but is always so much more: a city of gorgeous architecture and bottomless culture, one which made its mark on the world during the industrial revolution and has now cleaned itself up to welcome that world in. Lonely Planet once named it among the globe’s top ten tourist cities. 

Glasgow has the UK’s fourth-largest economy – £27bn a year, if you’re counting. It has enjoyed decades of regeneration with plans for much more (including a city-wide tram system). And yet it is still underpriced: by some calculations the UK’s cheapest city, its average property price half that of Edinburgh’s and a quarter of London’s. 

But by the same token, its prices are rising faster than most, so now might be the time to hop aboard. Whether you pay top dollar for West End properties, sample the variety of neighbourhoods on the Southside, keep it real in the East End or explore the further-flung commuter villages, bear in mind (if you’re from south of the border) that Scotland has some different laws for both renting and buying. Read on, read up and you may one day be welcomed as a ‘Weegie’...

Starting out Home to the University of Glasgow, the West End is busy, popular, pretty and (relatively) expensive. There’s a one-bed flat in a Kelvinside sandstone for £850pcm or a basement one-bed in Finnieston for £125,000. 

Great for families.... Growing families often move south of the Clyde, where there’s more choice and value. Shawlands is a typical destination: there’s a spruced-up three-bed mid-terrace for £295,000.

Just won the lottery? Balmory is a distinctive Arts & Crafts detached in the West Pollokshields Conservation Area. You get six beds, two baths, a morning room, a drawing room, a library and a music room on the mezzanine for your £975,000. 

GLASGOW AT A GLANCE

Connections: Glasgow is at the west of Scotland’s central belt, containing around three-quarters of the population; at the other end, Edinburgh is an hour by car or train. Newcastle is three hours away, Manchester slightly more; London is a seven-hour drive or four and a half on the train.

Amenities: 5/5 Culture abounds: shows at the Royal Concert Hall, City Hall, Theatre Royal (featuring ballet and opera), King’s Theatre, Pavilion Theatre and more; Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, McLellan Galleries; thriving gig scene including King Tut’s and Barrowland; Sauchiehall Street and the Style Mile for fashion shoppers.

Festivals and events: Festivals include Celtic Connections (folk music, Jan), film (Feb/Mar), books (Mar), comedy (Mar), Glasgow International (visual art, Apr/May), Southside Fringe (May), TRANSMT (music, Jul), Pride (Jul), Doors Open (architecture, Sep).

Open space: 4/5 The name Glasgow is thought to mean ‘dear green place’ and the city has around 100 parks and open spaces like Glasgow Green, Kelvingrove Park, Botanic Gardens and Pollok Country Park. And 40 minutes north is the heartbreakingly beautiful Loch Lomond.

Landmarks: The city abounds with humanised must-sees: the People’s Palace, the (Charles Rennie) Mackintosh House, the traffic cone-topped Duke of Wellington statue, the huge industrial Finnieston Crane, the hilltop Necropolis.

Schools: 4/5 Scotland doesn’t do Ofsted-style league tables, but judging by exam results Jordanhill is regularly Scotland’s top state secondary, with Hyndland also impressive. 

Crime: 2/5 While safer than at its worst, Glasgow City still suffers 71.7 crimes per thousand of population, the highest in Scotland (where the average is 45.3). 

Famous faces: Too many to mention but comedians Billy Connolly and Frankie Boyle, actors Peter Capaldi and Robert Carlyle and musicians Lewis Capaldi and Paolo Nutini.

THE COST OF LIVING

Average rent: The one-bed average of £650 includes a range from £300 to £2,000 (serviced). Four-bed houses average £1,282  – there’s one for a tenner more in family-popular Bearsden.

Average house price: One-bed flats average £88,000, although there are some around £30,000 in less sought-after areas. There’s a notable jump in the average between three-bed (£177,000) and four-bed (£307,000) houses, and the latter can still rise: a four-bed first-floor Victorian apartment in the Park district of the West End is £595,000. 

Average rental yield: A November 2019 study found 6 percent yields in G1 (city centre), G13 (West End) and G32 (East End), and 5 percent in G11, G12 (both West End) and G43 (Govanhill).  

Average house price rise: The current average value of £193,666 is up 2.94 percent (£5,541) on 12 months ago.

Average salary: Glasgow City’s £23,541 is below the UK average of £30,629 but comparable with Newcastle, Worthing and Suffolk. The 67.8 percent employment rate is below the British average of 75.7 percent. 

Average price of a pint: £3.79, fractionally above the UK average.

Council tax: £883.33 to £3,246.25.

HEAD FOR RURAL BLISS IN… 

Eaglesham: A 3,000-soul village in East Renfrewshire, 10 miles south of Glasgow, Eaglesham dates back centuries but was rebuilt as a planned village in the 1760s by the local earl, around a central green space. Eaglesham is now a conservation area with a heritage trail. 

Gartcosh: A pretty village about eight miles east, Gartcosh was at one time mostly owned by two strict Presbyterian spinster sisters who refused permission for any pubs, bookies or Catholic churches. What it does have is its own nature reserve and Johnston Loch.

Tarbet: Tarbet is an hour north but worth every second of the journey. Nestled between Loch Lomond and Loch Long (the name means ‘isthmus’ in Gaelic), within a National Park, it is understandably a tourist favourite and a venue for squirrel wars: the reds are resisting the greys...

Originally published in the Metro newspaper, 25 February 2020