A working method for comparing destinations

Ranking countries is a sport. It is also how readers get stuck. A number one market for a retiree on the coast is not a number one market for a fund buying logistics, or a family that needs a particular school.

GRIP compares markets with eight questions: access and operations, value, jobs and public money, infrastructure, the letting market, daily life, title and tax, and what may still matter in a later decade. The answers stay in prose. They are not scored.

How to use the questions

• Write the job of the property in one sentence.
• Answer each question in plain language for two or three shortlisted cities.
• Notice which answers you cannot complete. Those are research gaps, not minor details.
• Only then look at individual buildings.

The point of a method is that it still works when the directory grows. The current set is a starting list; the questions travel further than a list.