Is it true that house-price history has been made?

Yes. Studios in the new development Beehive Mills start at £55,000. The selling agent, Knight Frank, believes that these are the cheapest new-build apartments for sale in Yorkshire since 2001. The word is that this could herald the start of a new realism in city- centre apartment pricing nationally.

“It's a very positive move for Bradford too,” says Mani Waheed, managing director of Square Foot Apartments. “If Bradford tries to compete on equal pricing terms with Leeds we won't win, however low the market in Leeds. But this means that Bradford can establish its own reputation for affordable living. It should bring more people into the city centre and help regeneration get going properly.”

Will these mean lots of cheap flats in Bradford now?

Other developers and agents are watching the progress of sales. Nine flats were reserved within two days of the launch on June 7; hardly a stampede, but there is nothing to see on site yet so this might be contributing to the caution. Waheed says that the cheapest he has previously seen Bradford city-centre flats on the market for is £69,950. So although the price of £55,000 is grabbing the headlines, it is only £15,000 less than the existing bottom line.

What's the thinking behind the pricing strategy?

“Prices were originally going to start at £70,000,” says John Paul McGinnis, of the Northern Ireland-based developer the McGinnis Group. “But when we looked at the market in Bradford, we said, ‘let's beat that'. We knew that we weren't going to make a huge profit, but we wanted to get the chain started again by offering first-time buyers a really affordable way in.” According to the Land Registry, the average price of an apartment in Bradford is £97,933, down 20 per cent in a year. There are a total of 5,630 new-build or conversion apartments either built, on site or in planning in Bradford. This is a fraction of the number in Leeds, so the issue of over-supply is nowhere near as acute, but realistic pricing will be vital to shift them all.

But isn't the developer mad to sell them so cheaply?

John McGinnis, the founder of the McGinnis Group, has a reputation for speedy delivery in Belfast, and was appointed OBE for his contribution to the construction industry. The company is small compared with the volume housebuilders, so it can be relatively flexible in terms of labour. This will save money on building costs, which can be passed to buyers.

The Yorkshire office was established in 2005, and has acquired several sites in Bradford and Leeds. The other major McGinnis project in Bradford is the proposed conversion of Manor Buildings, a former wool warehouse, into apartments and shops. “We're not in the market for doing anything back-handed or crafty, holding off until the very end to get the big profit,” says John Paul McGinnis. “We just wanted to get on site, get it built and, given the market, get it sold quickly.”

How many apartments are only £55,000?

Only four apartments are actually priced at £55,000: these are studios, ranging from 250sq ft to 450sq ft.

The rest are competitively priced. There are 32 apartments with one bedroom, priced between £55,000 and £75,000, and a further 75 one-bedroom apartments between £75,000 and £100,000. The remainder have two bedrooms, and are priced between £100,000 and £128,000. One-bedroom apartments are between 450 sq ft and 560 sq ft, and two-bedroom apartments are 610sqft to 780sqft.

The knockdown pricing strategy so far applies only to Block A of the development, which comprises 184 apartments and will be completed next year. There are three blocks planned, offering 517 apartments in total. McGinnis says: “We are not committing any funds to building the other two until we see how this one goes.”

Will buyers get anything better than a box for their money?

“The brief was to make sure we didn't repeat the typical boxy city-centre apartment,” says Chris Austin, project architect and director of the Leeds-based company Brewster Bye. “We have taken advantage of the change in fire regulations to come up with an open-plan layout and have got rid of the dark hall, so you go straight into the apartment. The windows are also larger than average, to make the most of all available light.”

What's to stop investors cashing in?

“There is nothing we can actively do to stop investors,” McGinnis says. “But as part of our agreement to obtain planning consent from Bradford City Council we had to designate 20percent of the apartments for first-time buyers.”

Case study

Adeel Hussain, 25, lives in Bradford, works in the motor trade, and has bought a studio for £55,000 in Beehive Mills. He is a first-time buyer but is also, potentially, an investor because he is thinking of letting it when he moves on. He is also considering buying a one-bed flat in the development purely as an investment. However altruistic the McGinnis Group's affordable approach, this proves that cheap pricing alone cannot conquer the possibility of future buy-to-let blight. “If you had asked me six months ago if I would be buying an apartment in June, I would have said no, what with the credit crunch and everything,” Hussain says. “But as I see it, this apartment is only £55,000 so I've got nothing to lose. What I've bought is a good investment.”

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