Why are there never any threads about averagely earning northerners moving south with a budget of £200k ?

[Helenpshapiro]

It’s like the Escape to the country programme. It’s invariably individuals or couples leaving the south east to get that barn conversion for half the price and ‘the quieter pace of life’. The traffic seems to be all one way and northerners, unless in a really well paid profession, will never get the opportunity to move to the south east just because they can.
How can the whole of a country develop and prosper if the wealth imbalance is so great ?

Because you can't move south with a budget of £200k, at least not without a massive downgrade.

For most people, moving to the south east isn't an 'opportunity' unless you're going to earn shedloads of money in a really interesting career. Otherwise you're just making yourself poorer.

Plus many people are perfectly happy living in the north so wouldn't want to move away.

In Yorkshire you have large cities and all the culture and opportunities, plus real wilderness close by and everything in between. Most people don't aspire to trade their support network and financial security to move to the south. Hence very few threads asking how to do it.

There have been a few. People offered a job in London and wondering if they can afford it.

It’s not a wealth divide really is it? It’s a cost divide for most of us. They don’t give you money for being born in the SE. I am in Surrey and would bloody love a bigger house. Won’t get one until I retire and leave my London job. I am in my 50s and have hugely compromised on every house I have lived in. As a public sector worker I get about £3k more for working in London. The team in Manchester all have amazing houses!

The traffic isn't one way, it just happens at a different point of life. I know quite a few young northerners who went in their early twenties, very ambitious career driven types who've done very well for themselves.

The only way you can really do it is being in a house share situation, hence why you can only really do it when young!

You generally move to the SE for work when you are young and asset poor.

After a decade or two of increasing your wealth with the higher wages you head north for peace and traquility.

Because you couldn’t do that

But northerners do move south all the time at the beginning of their careers, and just rent on their salaries and they buy and stay or move and buy. So the traffic isn’t just one way.

People saying "because people can't move south with that budget" etc., that's the OP's point, surely. The pattern of people moving north with that kind of budget but it never happening the other way around is an illustration of the wealth divide.

Not many northerners on MN

The cost. You'd get a one bed flat ( if your lucky) down south for the same price as a four bed detached up north. So to move to the south would actually be ‘downgrading’ in terms of lifestyle and housing for most people. Very unappealing for anyone over 30 or with a family, Unless you have a load of money saved up or an inheritance.

Some of us actually like it up here and don't view the South as aspirational 🙃

As one of those ex-northerners, I was going to make that point.

on my first graduate job in London there was a group of around 30 of us. Of those, there were 2 who were living with their parents and commuting in to work. Everyone else had moved from another part of the UK (not commutable to central London) and had to rent in house shares.

I'm a northerner living in the south, maybe they don't move south because they like the people in the north 🤣

I lived in London in my 20s. Worked with loads of young northerners. When I moved back north I worked with loads of people similar age to me who had worked in London in their 20s.

It’s only a wealth divide at retirement when you aren’t tied to where your job is and your dcs school is though. Before that, it’s a cost divide. The standard of living on the same or similar wage is so dramatically lower in the South East. (This is why it’s hard to get public sector employees in many roles in the SE like teaching because why wouldn’t you move and have a better standard of living on a similar wage?)

Wages seem high because living costs are high. They need to be for the same standard of living.

if house prices in the South East (and rental, both housing and business) could be brought down, it would be beneficial for the whole country and make mobility at all life stages easier. (Although it would screw up my long term plans as a SE owner)

One of my mates who I went to uni with who was from a really crap area in Yorkshire got on to a graduate training programme for PWC. Roll on 28 years and doing very well. That’s the time to move. They won’t move back as met their partner there and love London. I lived in London briefly and hated it.

Because £200k will probably just get you a garage to live in…

My DH is from the north - moved south for uni and now we live in London for our careers. I don't imagine he'll move back, but he definitely moved down here!

This is one of the reasons why I think work from home was a good move - Covid showed that many jobs don't have to be open only to those who can afford to live/move to the South East.

I know there are moves in some quarters to get people back into the office but I think this disadvantages many people who could easily do the job, but only if they can WFH and maybe go into the office a couple of times a month.

Young people should be able to stay in their home areas without sacrificing their dream career.

It still happens. Lots of young people move to London or the SE. I think maybe less threads from them because they're often renting as can't afford to buy.

People don't tend to post about moving somewhere when renting as much. Either because they're young and renting is planned to only be temporary, or because they're on low incomes so have limited options on where to live and therefore no point posting for suggestions.

I think to an extent though it's come full circle. In the 90s loads of people moved to London and the SE. That pushed house prices up.

Now lots of the people who moved there when younger are moving out. Some are just at an age where they want a less fast paced way of life or want to be closer to family, so are selling up to move back home or somewhere else.They're the ones with a massive budgets.

Others have been renting for years and finally move out to afford to buy. That's both people who moved to London/SE when younger and people originally from London/SE.

I know quite a few from up here who have settled in the South but they left when young and a while ago. Does seem mich harder to now unless you have a lot of money. X

Most people don't aspire to trade their support network and financial security to move

This

Appallingly this is what's happening - forcibly - to Londoners. I don't suppose many people (often very vulnerable people) affected by the social cleansing post here about it though.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24565195.vulnerable-people-moved-london-county-durham/

I’m from neither the North, or the SE
i love where I live, moved here by choice, but I would much much rather live in Yorkshire (lovely prospect) than London or Home Counties. Missed whole pint of the thread

Angela Rayner really should get on with abolishing the right to buy social housing - that would help a bit with the housing crisis.

Because we dont want to?
We like it up here.

Because it wouldn’t happen very successfully, there’s not many places in the south where you can buy something decent with £200k. It wouldn’t make a very good tv show.