London exodus??

[Newdonewhugh]

Has anyone else noticed that their Town has a lot of people moving from London?
Are local Town and village FB pages literally have 2/3/4 people a day joining and posting with the likes of “I’m moving to ..... from London next week, can anyone help me with X,Y,Z”
My Sister and others said they’ve noticed it too.
We live in South Coast.
I just wonder what this New World will look like. What will happen to London?

[quote notalwaysalondoner]@puffinkoala Maybe a lot of them were renting in London as they couldn’t afford to buy, but can do elsewhere in the country. Or if you downsized from a 3-4 bed family home and kept a 1 bed in London for work purposes you could definitely still afford an equivalent 3-4 bed home elsewhere in the UK.[/quote]
But if you downsized from a 3-4 bed family home somebody must be buying it, that's my point. So yes people are moving out, but others must be moving in.

@IcedPurple I can't stand Zoom either. I never said on this thread that wfh 100% would continue, I have simply said there will be more wfh.

I'll see you in 2 years!

Kurtain I don’t think it will change that much because we have client meetings every day and as soon as this switches back to f2f you have to be in. Also trying to work collaboratively by zoom is crap.

Hopefully companies will be a bit more flexible about start and end times though if you don’t have a meeting.

I still think people will want to show off with central nice offices for pitches etc

But maybe a bit smaller if flexible, but not much. You might have a day when most have to be in for meetings.

Big spaces might be used differently - airier, less formal (like start ups) that could be good .

So overall I hope for good change just not endless zoom and hubs.

@MarshaBradyo DHs doesn't work for Linklaters but I believe they already signed at the start of the year (pre Covid) for a more modern but smaller footprint building (maybe 20-25% smaller, I can't remember).

@MarshaBradyo daily client meetings are industry & role specific so actually you generally agree with me?

Yea! We live in a commuter village, so people moving from London is normal, but this year, house prices have sky-rocketed and many of the small number of houses to go to market here have sold without even being advertised.

[quote kurtainwoz]@MarshaBradyo daily client meetings are industry & role specific so actually you generally agree with me? [/quote]
I’m not sure?
Maybe we just have a huge amount of client meetings compared to law? How many generally do you have per day / week?

Ours run pretty much every day more than once and companies spend a lot on very nice spaces to help attract talent and clients

I live in London, plenty of us still here.

And as for people wanting to be back in their swanky offices once this is all over, DHs company (as in the one he work for, not ‘his’ company) have sold off one of their two big London offices and have already changed contracts to three days per week WFH. They are looking at ways to encourage the use of shared working spaces nearer employees homes going forwards, for those who don’t want to be at home. Even small incentives for these are cheaper than premium London offices.

I'm personally very invested in the future of office space in Central London as it affects my pension!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8953579/amp/Office-property-valuers-mark-London-rents-just-0-3-month.html

www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/deloitte-agrees-35000-sq-ft-manchester-move/

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-54413214

NRTFT. In the US most of the outmigration has been from New York City and San Francisco and seems to be slowing now. One economist had the opinion that it was merely advancing the timetable for people who had already decided to move.

@MissConductUS

NRTFT. In the US most of the outmigration has been from New York City and San Francisco and seems to be slowing now. One economist had the opinion that it was merely advancing the timetable for people who had already decided to move.

Indeed, that makes sense.

@Equimum it's clearly not my imagination then! 😁

@Equimum

And as for people wanting to be back in their swanky offices once this is all over, DHs company (as in the one he work for, not ‘his’ company) have sold off one of their two big London offices and have already changed contracts to three days per week WFH. They are looking at ways to encourage the use of shared working spaces nearer employees homes going forwards, for those who don’t want to be at home. Even small incentives for these are cheaper than premium London offices.

What sector is this out of interest

I'm personally very invested in the future of office space in Central London as it affects my pension

It did affect mine as I did have a few £££ in a commercial property fund but it was all moved earlier this year and it was a tiny percentage anyway. There are probably other funds with some exposure, but my pension is very mixed.

I live in Devon, on the main London line, have noticed exactly this as well

If it is a trend that lasts, its a goid thing. London is overcrowded, so it's good for us Londoners. Good for having less centralised everything. But not so great for rising house prices outside London. I must be the only person who would love to move to more central London.

Yup, in the Cotswolds and this is happening weekly.

We've had a steady trickle of Londoners moving here for years. I particularly enjoy the facebook community group posts asking for tips on how to improve broadband speeds. Followed by replies of " what do you mean 'improve'?" from locals.

I hope people keep wanting to move to London, we are planning on selling our house in the next few years and don’t want house prices to go down too much!

I find it baffling as pre this lockdown DH's company said everyone had to come back (I guess CV could WFH but it was pretty much expected) and my company were enticing people back in the office. Neither place are at all keen on long-term WFH

Yup. Small town in the SE. We always have a few but it’s been nuts recently.
It’s been horrific. One of the newbies puts a photo up of some fantastic walk they’ve discovered and then literally the next week place is completely over run with performance parents in expensive outdoor kit and their 3 children who ignore everyone because they’ve been taught not to talk to strangers ( which is fine but “ good morning” is what we do in a small town) . Bit outting but they ruined a “ secret” field of flowers nearby by tramping all over it. Local dog walkers had managed to avoid doing this for years.

I thought this was going to happen 20 years ago when the Internet was starting to make it believable for people to collaborate from anywhere in the country. I thought government departments and big businesses would soon be decentralised, with staff working from home or in small local hubs.

This would revitalise the poorer areas that have lost their traditional industries. Renationalised and much-improved rail services allowing speedy commutes for a couple of days a week or a month, if needed, and occasional get-togethers. Formerly overcrowded inner cities becoming pleasant to live in; ghost towns coming back to life. No more wealth gap between the north and south.

I don't really know why it never took off. Maybe the present disaster could achieve a result that didn't seem important enough during the boom years?

SE coast and huge exodus

Happy for people to move anywhere but prices are rocketing and ending up with '"local' people working in the small town being unable to afford housing as London exodus is inflating prices and people then will 'commute' to London and have much higher wage!

Also folk seem to love it here and yet still want it to be like London 🤔

Bit of a disconnect with 'local' folk too

@Leflic

I teach my kids to say a polite good morning when they see people on the footpath on our farm drive. Most people are nice and reply back but a few don't say a word.

My 6 year old then says loudly as we pass "they were rude not to say hello weren't they mummy