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?

The flats that have actually sold near me (quite a few sales have fallen through) are going for prices similar to last few years. They definitely stagnated but were high to begin with.

2 of my neighbours just left without selling & have gone to Scotland & Norfolk (they will rent their properties out). There are a number of factors but I think for lots of young people even if they are on the first rung of the ladder it's getting harder & harder to move up. People are buying later in life & it's getting harder to build equity. The days of making 200k in 2 years seem to be gone or very location specific.

Lots of my neighbours would love to stay & move up the ladder but unless they get help from family they can't do it. A house where we are is at least 1m. We only managed it because we were helped on the ladder young.

@HazelWong surely it's industry specific though. The people I know who already wfh or did a mix pre Covid would have the same opportunities at other companies because its standard in their industry. Lots of people already had this option pre covid.

there has been a steady small stream since the 1987 flurry and recently more so. Many friends commute to London frequently for work etc its a 1.20 hr train journey

The days of making 200k in 2 years seem to be gone or very location specific.

thank goodness, making this type of money on a home is obscene when there are more and more families that are homeless and we have a national housing crisis

@ivykaty44 I agree but that's how historically many people moved up the ladder. I know some people older than me (over 40) who made 1m in 10 years.

I think it’s a risk making a massive life decision like that based on the pandemic. This time next year (presuming the vaccines work) we’ll all be back to long commutes, churning out carbon emissions from our excessive flights and paying through the nose for a bedsit in Hackney. Guarantee.

Not necessarily. My DD's company have closed their offices as everyone is working just fine from home, and I suspect plenty of other companies will do the same. If productivity is the same or higher, why would they go back to paying high rents?

£200k in 2 years was certainly not something we have made on a home since 1984 when we first bough! We bought in 1990 and sold for just under the same price not even allowing for inflation in 1997 in London. (90s crash). Also if you always move up the market you never benefit from a price rise anyway - it just makes the next place even harder to buy. My parents bought their only house in 1961 and both died in it about 50 years later. It was irrelevant that even after inflation it had gone up in value and then the state took 40% of it when they died anyway which is probably the gain as it was in NE England! So if the state does not steal your money whilst you are alive they certainly take it when you die.

In the early 80s London's population decreased massively, so much so that lots of schools merged or closed. Obviously since then it's bounced right back. Waxed and wanes.

UK property prices are so fucked up, in London and the South-East especially.

Also pre-Covid was also Brexit which caused prices to stay lower than usual for a while.

Does anyone remember the big dot.com ‘bubble burst’ in the early 2000s? I worked for an online retailer at the time. I remember going on a date and when I told him what I did, getting a confused look and ‘A dot.com? But they’ve all gone bust, haven’t they?’

No, we did not live happily ever after - and no, the entire internet retail sector had not ‘gone bust’. Look at the world we live in now. I think of that man when I hear people talk about how ‘Everyone’s moving out of London now because everyone’s working from home’ - and I think they’re also jumping to massive conclusions based on a very small sample.

Investors. Bolt holes.

But if suddenly everyone wants to live ‘somewhere lovely by the sea’, as one poster put it (ignoring the fact that many coastal towns have massive issues with services, facilities and seasonal unemployment), what are these investors investing for? Surely if London is going to be empty, no one is going to want to invest there to benefit from the rental market?

My parents bought their only house in 1961 and both died in it about 50 years later. It was irrelevant that even after inflation it had gone up in value and then the state took 40% of it when they died anyway which is probably the gain as it was in NE England!

Must have been a bloody palace if it was worth the thick end of £500k in the north east in 2001. You really do make it up as you go along @Xenia.

The biggest threat to London isn't a few 10s of 1000s people moving out, its the loss of its status (over time) as a world financial centre.

China, the USA and the EU will focus on their own cities as financial hubs, not London, with ties to nothing now.

@Catmads

South London's Croydon Council has been declared bankrupt and must cease all non-essential spending, with debts of £1.5 Billion and a Section 114 notice being served.

There are going to be some pretty massive cuts to services there.

The already fortnightly bin collections are going to become once every three weeks.

I should imagine a lot of people will be looking to get out while they can.

Here in North Wales, most of the councils went to three or even four weekly years ago.

China, the USA and the EU will focus on their own cities as financial hubs, not London, with ties to nothing now

Depends what tax breaks we offer to tempt people.
A bit like the film industry. I think there is some tax breaks if a film is made in the UK. Ever noticed in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters how many have a scene or the film set in Britain do they can claim their tax break.

I live in London and houses on my street are selling in under two weeks at the moment, it’s mad. So yes, some people are moving out, but others are clearly moving in!

@Oliversmumsarmy

China, the USA and the EU will focus on their own cities as financial hubs, not London, with ties to nothing now

Depends what tax breaks we offer to tempt people.
A bit like the film industry. I think there is some tax breaks if a film is made in the UK. Ever noticed in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters how many have a scene or the film set in Britain do they can claim their tax break.

Finance is worth Trillions of dollars/euros etc Holywood isn't, its more accurate to look at all the films not made in the UK?

Also, you assume other countries won't look at "tax breaks" to boost their own financial sectors, the EU are not going to have euro clearing done in a non eu country , too much money and prestige at stake.

All cities eventually wane, perhaps CV and Brexit will end Londons dominance and those seeking to leave London now, can see that?

I moved out to work in Norfolk a number of years ago. For the last three i have spent 3/4 days a week commuting into London, which is 1 3/4 journey. Going forward, like most companies we will be working two/three days from home permanently. This is in no way altruistic. The company I work for is cost cutting, and London office space is expensive. If you need a desk, it will need to be booked.

All of this comes down to choice. In the post covid world, there will be somewhat less commuting (I would say two or three days rather than five). Question for movers to answer is around the trade off between a life outside of London and the commute. I love living here in the rural Norfolk in the countryside, but there are disadvantages. Good shops, but not for five miles, and in a village for better or worse, everyone knows your business and I mean everything. If your kids are young you will be driving them everywhere, and longer distances than in urban areas. Think carefully, but not a bad choice IMO.

@StillCoughingandLaughing

Does anyone remember the big dot.com ‘bubble burst’ in the early 2000s? I worked for an online retailer at the time. I remember going on a date and when I told him what I did, getting a confused look and ‘A dot.com? But they’ve all gone bust, haven’t they?’

No, we did not live happily ever after - and no, the entire internet retail sector had not ‘gone bust’. Look at the world we live in now. I think of that man when I hear people talk about how ‘Everyone’s moving out of London now because everyone’s working from home’ - and I think they’re also jumping to massive conclusions based on a very small sample.

I reckon so too a good comparison

We’ll see but I’m more positive about the changes and I don’t think we’ll use zoom as a substitute longer than necessary. At the beginning it was ok but many people are fed up with it.

I don’t think we’ll use zoom as a substitute longer than necessary. At the beginning it was ok but many people are fed up with it.

I agree, Zoom is shit. And I don’t believe people who say that companies have had a marked increase in productivity through WFH either. I work about half the hours at home as I did in the office because I get distracted so much easier!

I fucking hate Zoom.

I think Zoom/Teams is OK - but no more than OK - for brief, to-the-point meetings between a small number of colleagues who have already built up a good working relationship. But it's crap for larger groups, and/or when complex or controversial matters need to be discussed.

I simply do not believe that Zoom will be routinely used when it's no longer neccessary. It's an emergency stand-in, no more than that.

I live in S London - leafy, loads of parks, large character houses etc. No one I know is moving away.

DH works in the City. His firm is most definitely not downsizing office space. Whilst they acknowledge people may WFH for 2 days a week, the actual expectation is by the end of 2021 they will pretty much be back to pre Covid working patterns. The talk has actually also been that people who choose to move away and cannot commute in regularly can still work for them, however, their contracts will be renegotiated and their salaries will likely take a hit (after all lower living costs, no commuting costs etc). I hope people who have moved away have factored that in.

Places like Tunbridge Wells (where I grew up) are similar prices as London - and have been for several years. So the move out will have to be much wider for people to benefit from lower property prices.

I can see some people who live in smaller flats in zones 1-2 with little outdoor space may look to moving further out after lockdown experiences. Other families may have accelerated plans. But overall I think post-Covid won't change working patterns quite as much as people expect/hope.

Facebook etc are asking their employees to let them know where they are living - and reducing salaries if it’s away from eg expensive San Francisco. People who think they are going to have their cake and eat it at home will have to adjust expectations.

Are you sure this is just all about money though? Lots of talk about not being financially better off because of the trains or property prices plus trains etc. However I would have thought that for many this is about something else if there has been a significant increase in movement since covid?
As I said, we are on the Coast. Our rarely used beaches were jam packed in the Summer. I live 5 minutes away but barely used them - this Summer we were there nearly every day. For the first time I felt really lucky to live here.
Perhaps COVID and this weird year has given people a different perspective on what they want from life? I’m going to guess that if you move from London to say Birmham that it’s probably about price and money. I don’t think those making the move here are moving for that reason necessarily.
As crappy as I think this Town is.. it’s got a beach, decent schools, hardly any crime, you can park your car practically on the beach in some places or near enough . Nearly all houses have driveways and you although south east you can still probably do a decent swop (size wise) for London to here.