To think London will become a ghostown

[dearreme]

People of my parents age could get a nice house in zone 2 on one wage. People of my age if they bought 10 or so years ago could get a little flat on two full time wages. And of my friends any that didn't buy have now left for other cities or are planning an exit.

Younger people I work with now are planning on never even moving to the city as they know the quality of life is so much better in other cities.

What will happen to london? It seems like much of K&C has been purchased by people as a store of money and is left empty.

Less jobs are apparently being created now, with employers favoring other locations in europe or the UK.

Does Op mean more that it will be a cultural / residential dead zone. Yes it will always be busy, but if neighbourhoods and communities don't exist then it's pretty sad. I don't really know London, but the cost of living there is unfathomable.

Lots of parts of London used to be very affordable less than thirty years ago - parts that are now beyond the reach of all but City workers. Had a friend who owned a lovely maisonette in Putney bought for £60K. Now worth night on £1million. Battersea, Balham and around Ladbroke Grove all examples to areas that have smartened up considerably (with house prices to match) in that time-frame.

nigh on (not night)

I don't think it will become a ghost town but it will become much more culturally boring. Rich people have boring lives. Artists, musicians and creators will come from other cities. Maybe they'll live in London when successful, but it's not where up and coming scenes will be.
I think overall it's a good thing, London has been too dominant over the rest of the country for decades. It's about time there was more diversity and perspectives from other places.

Prices were crazy even before the financial crisis, and have shot up to even crazier levels since about 2010/11. In an area I watch, far from the most expensive or fashionable, the price of flats more or less doubled.
However, they are now beginning to come down a bit, maybe not in every area, but certainly in some.

I don't know how fairly ordinary people can afford to buy now, but they still seem to manage somehow. I dare say BOMAD is often a major factor.
We live in outer SW London,. It's always heaving everywhere when we go further in, and I don't see any signs of that lessening.

And the Underground is definitely getting busier and busier. There used to be a time when 8pm-10pm travel was quiet and trains very empty by the time they were heading towards end of line destinations. Not any more.

The other thing is that the global financial crisis made a lot of wealthy people want to stash their money somewhere stable. London property is seen as exactly that. A lot of the property is seen as an asset (whether occupied/lived in or not) rather than a house or office or whatever.
The government turned a blind eye to Russian/Saudi etc money coming over to be parked in UK property in this way from the 90s onward. On paper it boosted the economy even if the practical effect was to price normal people out of their own city.
Now the Russians have shown they are still a hostile state I think the government is looking again at letting all those foreign investors own the capital.

I think the OP has a point. It will never become a ghost town but families will move out. I think there's evidence of this - apparently more people than ever managed to get first choice of primary school this year because less pressure on places.

I'm a lone parent got offered a job paying 35k + in London. I couldn't afford to take it - after rent for a 2 bed, full time nursery and tax I'd literally have nothing left. Not enough money to buy either obviously, even with a good amount saved.

I'm moving to the midlands. My income will be average wage and I can afford a mortgage on a tiny 2 bed and nursery fees. Next to no transport costs either as everything within walking distance.

I even know single friends in their 20s who are becoming commuters! This also seems to be due to more flexibility in workplaces where they can work from home a couple of days a week. I wonder if this will also change things.

I do mean a ghostown as in much of cornwall is, busy at times but yet dead at others and no real community.

Some great posts here!

I've already posted how other parts of the UK are having more "city" jobs than london and the time of london as a hub for creatives I think is already over. London is rapidly becoming undesirable and uncompetitive.

OP I agree with you. Last summer my son and I went down to Imperial Wharf for a change to our usual riverbank walks. It was like a ghost town - hundreds of expensive flats that have been bought and left empty (this was confirmed by a lone resident we got chatting to).

Parts of London will end up like Imperial Wharf. Those of us living in social housing will be pushed out (it's been happening in NW London for years - first the West Hendon regeneration, where nearly all the council tenants were assured new flats and were then booted out. Then Graham Park, and now the Brent Cross regeneration which has just missed our housing association estate - for now). Some of these new properties will be bought by people living there, but many of them won't. I wish it wasn't true, but it is. The future for some of us in London is looking pretty grim.

Younger people I work with now are planning on never even moving to the city as they know the quality of life is so much better in other cities.

Not true at all - I know droves of people graduation age all flocking to the city.

@spanish

After graduation sure. But after 5+ years of paying 800 for a room in zone three without much to show for it people get tired.

I'm 27 and me quite a few friends are now moving out to get mortgages, even singles. Like I said, there also seems to be more flexibility in quite a few work places (most I know working in public sector/ charity) meaning people may not have to commute quite as much.

Spanish that is true of the people I know!

I wonder how long many people you know will spend living in a crampt houseshare without a lounge and travel costs that eat most of a graduate wage. Then see people in other cities that get to walk to work and live in a nice spacious place for way less for only a small wage reduction.

I think I know what you mean, OP. I was born in London and is plain that ordinary people with families can't afford places in London like they used to, so the communities and culture have just trickled away. London is indeed packed but with business workers, tourists and shoppers. It's hard to see how much more traffic could be absorbed. Property is sold for investment around the world and development decisions are based on free market finance - the ordinary person hasn't a hope.

I agree about other cities, I think they have much more going for them.

I suspect what will happen is that people in London will rent much more and people who inherit property will either sell (proportionately to BTL landlords) or will rent out themselves.

Private renting is growing rapidly and projected to reach parity with ownership in 2025.

It is now much cheaper to rent in London than buy

Ghost town? I couldn’t get a cm of breathing space on the tube at 11am yesterday let alone a seat. Not rush hour or school hols... bloody heaving!

And there is no evidence that foreign buyers are leaving flats empty.

LSE did some research into it and found that 13% of buyers of new build property were "foreign" this includes british people living abroad and there was no evidence that they leave flats empty any more than any other BTL landlord.

Predominantly (just) flats cost less than £500,000 and just over half were bought with a mortgage (so need to rent out to cover costs).

I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing but it's not as big a problem as people imagine.

Your post on growth in London of city jobs v other places I think you're misreading, growth on a huge base v growth on a small base and it's much easier to percentage grow on a small base. The absolutes are smaller. Bottom line is London is huge and it's still seeing growth in city jobs. That says something.

To explain a ten percent growth on a hundred jobs is 10 jobs. A 5 percent growth on a thousand jobs is 50. The percentage is higher in the former, at ten percent v five percent, but thr absolute is way higher in the latter, with five jobs versus 50. So you need to look deeper. London is still by far the biggest and still growing.

Not likely

My other issue with London is that its got so huge and everyone becomes scattered. Especially after having a baby, it takes hours to get across the city to see friends or attend things. I felt really isolated after having having DS, even in London!

Still going to miss it so much though.

I think it's always been the trend for graduates to flock to London and then move away when they are more senior and want to have better work/life balance (and be able to afford good housing stock at 'average' salary affordable prices).

Of my friendship group (wide) I'm the only one left living here.

Understood its relative the growing, but it is showing the reduction in new jobs and a pattern thats mirrored across so many industries. Long term this may have a big impact, but its too early to say.

In mine often the jobs in london aren't being axed, but with natural attrition they aren't being replaced in london as other places have more to offer.

I don't think many buisnesses would choose london as somewhere to set up now.

In addition if you look at London population trends, it's growing and growing much faster than the rest of the U.K. THey are literally developing and implementing strategies to develop infrastructures to cope with the accelerated growth.

It's not becoming a ghost town, it's the opposite. It's growing faster than they can literally manage.

How people afford it is a different question, but affording it is exactly what they are doing. The population is increasing, not decreasing.

New in the past lots of people flocked to london and some stayed there, not so much the case now when even a banker cant afford even fulham.

Agree that what has changed is that there are fewer ordinary families who can buy as more areas become gentrified and taken over by the rental industry. What were once fairly unremarkable areas where for eg postal and shop workers bought houses and raised their children are now full of houseshares and high earners and for all that you can buy bubble tea I think that a great deal has been lost in the process, not to mention the personal cost to those workers now living in quasi-slum conditions in private lets. Of course Johnson being hellbent on turning entire swathes of the place into money laundering vessels hasn't helped either. It was always a city of contrasts but now the divisions have become almost grotesque.