To ask what will happen to the housing market in two years?

[elmouno]

I want to move in a couple of years to a larger house with a bigger garden, with more space for kids and a veg patch. We can't move now because we are locked in to our mortgage for the next couple years and because we changed jobs, it means we will have to wait. Our jobs are WFH permanently and we have no attachment to our location.

I'm wondering, will it be too late to move somewhere remote by then? Will all areas of housing be equal? So it won't matter if you live in greater London or an unpopulated area up north?

I'm mostly just curious about other people's opinions.

For AIBU purpose

YABU: House location will always be priced as it is now.
YANBU: Location won't matter anymore and all flats, semi detached, and detached will eventually cost the same in accordance to their size within the next few years.

I suspect location will matter less, though hardly won't matter at all.

All crystal ball stuff, really.

How can anyone tell you this?

We are not building enough houses, so prices other than in a few locations I expect will go up.

Although wfh will become more commonplace, I expect it will not immediately lead to loads of extra house moves, given a need to go into the office occasionally for most people, and schooling.

House prices can only go up and up. It's mumsnet

It won’t be as quick as two years. Think of all the people in London in a similar position to you, or who can’t WFH; the entire city isn’t suddenly going to flee. People may want to stay near family, or where their kids are settled in school – for prices to balance out completely so location no longer matters, we’d all have to be WFH, we’d all have to want the same things from a location, and we’d all have to have the money to move.

(Disclaimer I bought a shit house in London in February and now WFH permanently, more fool me.)

I am not expecting the market to rise, purely because we have a recession beckoning. Combine that with deflated office rents (a lot of companies are talking about hotdesking and space reduction) and reduced demand from overseas students for housing - it's going to get interesting for the city centers.

Having said that, we definitely don't have enough housing to meet demand and I can't see any Government allowing the housing market to simply crash. Although the present one appears incompetent enough to engineer it and look surprised.

My guess is static prices, localised dips and not a lot happening.

I suspect that in two years the novelty of working from home will have warn off in some and some companies will go back to no longer allowing it.

There is absolutely no way of knowing what will happen in the future. On MN people talk about a housing crash but have been talking about that for years, but on the BBC at the moment they’re saying house prices are at an all time high.

I can’t see that upping sticks to remote areas will be that practical for most families what about schools and family networks or aren’t they important anymore, there is more to life than just wfh.

Who is going to be buying all of the city centre / London houses and flats that are to be offloaded as everyone runs for the hills etc?

City centre may lose its appeal... but nice weather won't.

Interesting responses. So perhaps the cities will suffer, but not the regions?

The clue is in how much government is intervening. In 2008, govt left the housing market to its own devices while bailing out the banks. This time there is so much intervention in the market in different ways. I think the prices will stabilise to more COVID levels and then rise steadily at the average rates that we have seen in the last few years.

Is there not a clause in your mortgage that allows you to sell/move? You can surely port the mortgage to a new home? worth making enquiries with your bank.

Location will matter less in the future - so if you want a remote country pile now is the time to buy really (before a London based buyer who takes a paycut to wfh permanently does).

I think location will always matter but now we're not all tied to the office desk, the cities will be less popular and the rural areas more popular.

@elmouno

Interesting responses. So perhaps the cities will suffer, but not the regions?

What do you mean by this? Does "regions" mean 'places that aren't London'? The opposite of cities is rural, not regions.

A number of factors will come into play. Yes, more office workers are likely to WFH more often, and many employers are planning to downsize office space. However, most office workers will still need to physically travel in to work for a percentage of their workdays, and won't want to travel too long to do so (although this will be longer than they would accept for a daily commute).

Also, a large proportion of the workforce (including many 'professional' middle class folk) are not doing jobs where WFH is possible. Many science jobs, for example - these are centred in certain locations (e.g. Cambridgeshire), and those workers will need to live near those locations. Doctors will still need to live within commuting distance of hospitals, which tend to be in cities. Etc. Etc...

In addition, some areas will continue to be desirable for other reasons - proximity to restaurants/theatres/nightlife, weather, or beautiful countryside/scenery. None of that will change, and will be as much of a factor in where people choose to live as it has always been. Same for transport links - commuting isn't the only reason that people need transport.

So the idea that house prices across the whole of the UK will somehow equalise is obviously nonsense. It won't happen.

You think MNers are all psychics?

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

When I say regions, I mean areas of the country (i.e. North East, North West, etc) that had a different price point in their rural villages than villages within commuting distance of London. Basically village vs. village, rather than village vs. city in price point.

@NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite

I don't expect anyone to know, but it's interesting to see other perspectives. For example, do people think that a large number of people would be willing to move away from extended family? And if so, will that make all house price areas equal. There are some good points in this thread though that not everyone can WFH still.

There are some good points in this thread though that not everyone can WFH still.

Frankly, I'm amazed that anyone needs this pointing out to them.

OP - you mention in your first post that you're looking to move somewhere "remote", "an unpopulated area up north". Where exactly are you thinking? Are you including Scotland, or just England?

There is almost nowhere in the UK that is literally unpopulated (small islands off the coast are the only exception I can think of). None of the north of England is really "remote", although parts of the Scottish Highlands are. We aren't going to see the population of greater London upping sticks and moving en masse to Wester Ross anytime soon though.

Or are you just thinking of northern England, in which case you might be surprised at the current price of houses in the areas that have nice scenery and good schools! Prices in some areas of North Yorks aren't that different to much of the south east.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

When I say "up north" it means the Scottish Highlands as well. I know not everyone can work from home (i.e. teachers, NHS, etc) but there were certain industries that were London exclusive or had a massive pull towards London. If you have a lot of people uprooting, it will change property price drastically. I don't think house prices down south will drop, but areas that weren't expensive retirement property areas but were cheaper than the country's average will probably go up considerably (i.e. remote areas around Scotland, villages in North East and North West, etc). The only thing I can think that would stop this is if employers ask for their employees to come in once a week or something, but I don't think that will happen. I think a lot of middle managers will be made redundant and there will be more reliance on Zoom, Slack, etc. I wonder if what I suspect is true or if there has been some push to get people back in. If there isn't any push, then I think the house prices "up north" will start to match the ones around the M25.

@GrumpyHoonMain

Location will matter less in the future - so if you want a remote country pile now is the time to buy really (before a London based buyer who takes a paycut to wfh permanently does).

Yes indeed many I know in senior corporate international city roles have long been perusing the likes of Countrylife etc with aspirations of cashing in on (tiny) luxury core central London apartments and penthouses for a nice county pile with land and preferably some sort of hunting and gaming leisure on tap in the likes of Scottish Highlands etc. However climate, international transportation connectivity plus locality of decent boarding schools etc is an important consideration. Yes London is no Rome weather wise but it's slightly more manageable especially with (still) plentiful high end bars, restaurants, galleries, theatres, sporting venues etc. Some are wondering if a couple of million will be suffice as a starting point as that's the going rate for a respectable pad in some parts of town (prime central London) despite Covid and Brexit down pricing.

@Sssloou

Who is going to be buying all of the city centre / London houses and flats that are to be offloaded as everyone runs for the hills etc?

The usual wealthy and geographical footloose international buyers will always be on tap to buy in "cheaper" central London. I am of course referring to the regular cash investors from Far East, Russia and Middle East. In particular those who may need to convert finance into international assets and possibly either want to go the anchor baby family planning route for additional travel documentation options (or even dual citizenships) or have a university family student member studying in London needing accommodation etc. International demand has always helped to keep core London real estate pricing high with ripple impacts across outer London boroughs and Home Counties etc.

It's far too soon to say. No one knows yet how much things will lean back towards normal, especially with limited knowledge of when covid will be less of a problem.

We also don't know what else is round the corner, no one knew this was coming after all.

I will say one thing though...if everyone did flee London, London would improve so much that many would want to come back.

We live in a beautiful part of London but usually lots of traffic etc. At the peak of lockdown it was so quiet, we could walk around and get a unique opportunity to see it without so much pollution and noise and with clear roads.