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?

Masses ofLondoners buying in better areas of Bristol..
We moved here as 20 somethings from London as a 3 bed Victorian house cost as much as rent on one room in Richmond ( where family still live).. but no way could we have afforded to live there.

just wonder what this New World will look like. What will happen to London?

It will come full circle and once this bloody virus is under control the city will return. All those companies that think WFH is the best thing since sliced bread now will slowly realise that what they are saving in office space they are losing in effective collaboration.

The company I work for introduced homeworking in 2000, ten years later they had 13000 home workers before slowly reversing this way of working over the next ten years, they really are not that keen on it anymore other than occasionally and to suit them like now. All new recruits are only in one of a small number of strategic office locations.

Another 10 years? they will probably have done another full turn.

These people seem to be buying the most expensive houses

Well yes, but a modest home in London would buy practically a palace in many other areas
Unless they save the difference in the costs it just worries me what happens if they ever want to move back - because that may not be easy

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.

Renting is dead money.. but sadly now Bristol is getting expensive for first time buyers.

From my local station to London Victoria is 1hour 38 minutes with on average 43 trains a day.
I don’t see this being a major hardship for someone who just has to attend the odd London meeting.
When we first moved down here over 20 years ago my husband used to commute to London daily. He did this for a number of years until he transferred to a local office. A lot of people pre COVID did the commute.

DD 24 has just moved out of London to Chelmsford. In London she was in a house share and found the first lockdown claustrophobic and was working all day in her bedroom. All four of them were working from home so it wasn't practical for them to use communal space.

Her office have indicated that they may not fully reopen until next March an attitudes to working from home have changed so they may find they are not stuck at the office until 1am in the morning as frequently as before. This made her rethink living in the capital and she knew she wanted her own space.

She looked at 1 bed flats rentals in London and predictably most were quite small but expensive or affordable but dingy. She did however notice that many rental prices were being reduced due to surplus stock but many where still over £1100 per month.

She found a spacious 2 bed flat in Chelmsford in a gated development a few mins walk from the station with regular trains to Liverpool Street Station, the journey is about 35 mins. Her commute (when her office reopens) will actually be 10 mins shorter than when she was living in London itself. She moved in last week and is loving the space with separate kitchen and living room, two double bedrooms with fitted wardrobes and two bathrooms.

A friend is selling a 9 bed Georgian grade 2 listed house with workshop for £550lk - Shropshire. A lot of house for money, unlike London

Yep, flats going up everywhere in my part of London too and have been for the last 5+ years.

No sign of slowing down either and as a PP said, they're mostly sold before being built.

Yes OP and our lovely villages and surrounding farmland is being sold to greedy developers building luxury houses for people moving from London, which locals can't afford.

New Yorkers are moving to the New England states and Massachusetts. Maybe the foxes will reclaim London and the rats will take back New York City. If they haven't already!!

What will happen to London?

I moved away from London for schools, and have regretted it every single day. I live 25 mins away in one of those towns that are supposedly middle class nirvana, but in reality, are small minded, suffocating and isolating. If London house prices drop because people are moving out, I'll be very happy, as this will help my plans to return, as soon as I possible can, to one of the most exciting places on the planet.

London will always be London. The bars, history, theatres, restaurants etc will always attract people. (I realise that we can't enjoy these fully atm.) Prices may drop, people may leave but it will remain to house the majority of these aspects of British culture.

There will be some wanting to live permanently in more rural settings but that doesn't appeal to everyone; certainly not 7 days a week. I sit somewhere in the middle I think.

Lots of new builds around me too. I just hope the people buying them don’t want a doctor, dentist or school place as well as we don’t have enough of these for the people already here.

I live in London and a fair few people I know are taking advantage of wfh to move back 'home' - Wales, Kent etc. But their houses are selling almost instantly so it's self replenishing! We're in a very leafy green part of outer London though.

I live in Suffolk and an estate agent was being interviewed on local news. He said he hadn't been so busy since the 80's.
I think houses in the pretty villages are more in demand, which makes it even more difficult for locals where they are already priced out by second home owners

Nothing will happen to London. There are loads of reasons why people want to live there. This pandemic won’t last forever!

No-one I know is leaving so that should leave a tiny little random community...maybe we can roam the empty streets looking for and fighting with other groups who haven't left Walking Dead style.

@Newdonewhugh

We are about 2 or more hrs away with n train so I don’t imagine these people moving see themselves doing much commmuting at all. I’m Guessing they think they’ll be working from home now

I really hope that people doing this aren't being too shortsighted. It seems crazy to base massive changes on what happened during a pandemic.

Realise there's jobs elsewhere in the country, obviously, but I work in a London-centric industry and have seen a lot of people move 2-3 hours away on the promise of WFH and no commute.

We are about to move and our estate agent was moaning about londoners, apparently they all seem to be rude, very demanding and unrealistic on what offers to put in, that said he had sold multiple houses to them, some unseen (just a virtual tour). In fact a londoner tried to gazump us but our vendor didn't bite as they wanted to move before Christmas and we had no chain.

Yes,.live 5 minutes from the sea and 90 minutes by train from London and houses are selling so fast!

What will all these people do if things go back to normal and they're expected to commute 2+ hours each way to work everyday?

Am glad we bought our family home a couple of years ago when things were much slower!

@Newdonewhugh

The people in the big houses are all moving to the little fishing villages near my parents according to them, they were not pleased

Yes, well, if the property market is anything to go by. We've been trying to buy for a year and the past 6 months have been a nightmare (we live in a desirable rural area a few hours from London). We had a house purchase fall through in Lockdown 1 sadly and it's been impossible to buy since (and we are quite comfortable with a big budget). One house we lost out on last week sold for at least 100K over guide price (our offer was 80K over guide price, so we know someone must have been willing to pay a lot more). The house was a 'project' with no kitchen or central heating and a lot of damp. It's not the first time we've lost out on a house in similar circumstances in the past few months. Someone is coming from somewhere and willing to pay well over the usual value of property to live out here. And it's really annoying.