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?

I am zone 5 too and when I commuted every day I knew where to stand on the platform and when to get a seat all the way into London so it was basically sit down, read newspaper for 35 minutes, get out (but an hour door to door). Also unlike the poster I think in Hackney the prices are cheaper and her children living at home might want to consider zone 5 or even end of the Met line where my son bought for £325k (long expensive tube journey but cheaper house prices - I suppose that is always the way and factored into the house prices or has been whilst many of the jobs are in London and the same out in places like Newcastle where I am from - depths of Northumberland cheaper than close to work.

@jojoSM2 very similar experience here in the past with a difficult commute from Zone two/three periphery to one, although I guess it must be quieter nowadays.

@Oliversmumsarmy Hitchin is quite pretty with ok schools but also expensive esp if you count in rail fares. And whr they rearranged the timetable, the rail journey became much harder and difficult to get. hatfield is really ugly. I live in a lovely area in London (walking distance to highgate woods and hampstead health and 5 Ofsted Outstanding schools) so if I am going to compromise and move out of london, why would I compromise and go for something with a worse environment in the home counties? It's not like it would even be cheaper due to the rail fares, if I wanted to reduce living costs cos I found it difficult with a child, it would be more practical to move to a place like Manchester with buses, jobs in the city and also £12k per year private schools (rather than spend £8k a year on substandard rail services).

To each their own, but I personally find z5 and z6 not worth paying for as I am living on the outskirts of the city. It may be worth it if your child gets into a Sutton grammar school, or if your child gets into North London collegiate/habs and you live right next to it. But from a lifestyle point of view, I would.rather move to a city like Manchester or Bristol which is what many londoners have. As dolly alderton once said, when you are in stanmore, you are neither urban or rural.

A lot of Londoners moving to where we are in the North (a posh town in commuting of major city and on a direct train to London).

I don’t have a problem with people moving but I do have a problem with the wages disparity. DH works for an organisation with several offices, including one in the large city near us and London. The london staff get paid a 30% uplift which is fine if you work and live/commute daily to London but not if you are living in the north and WFH.

Providing the wages are equalised so the staff who have relocated lose their London weighting they can WFH wherever they like, but being paid 30% more for doing the same job is not fair on the locals as it will price them out. We have been looking to move, and a 3 bed detached house has gone from c£425K to over £500K since March and it’s not the locals buying them!

I think there will be a disparity for a while, but sure as eggs is eggs, no firm is going to pay a London salary to someone working in Truro. So unfortunately it will benefit those already in high-employment, but not those coming along afterwards or those locals competing for housing with the new wfh-ers.

Saying that, I have heard of several redundancies lately of (expensive) 50-somethings who thought their jobs were secure. Ds's friend's father was completely blindsided - no idea. People don't know what plotting goes on behind the scenes and if you are wfh you may be a bit out of the loop concerning any "restructuring" (scheming).

@amispeakingenglish

Dongdingdong also a lot to do with what you said earlier as well - they assume all Londoners are posh toffs who can afford million pound properties, when that is actually very far from the truth. Yes some can, but the vast majority of us cannot!

Absolutely, I moved to L many years ago, never intending to stay, don't actually like it that much, dirty, noisy, and tube is expensive to go to any of these amazing cultural places. However house prices where I live were nothing like they are now. My house was about £60,000 in 1994. I have met people in Hackney who have lived there for generations, bought their own council house years ago and will now get caught out in death as they have no idea about inheritance tax as they find themselves as retirees on basic pensions living in houses valued at over 1.5 mill. They don't see their homes as cash cows but their home near friends and relatives and their history. They don't want to sell up and move somewhere else. Yet they will be penalised and not able to pass on their homes to their kids

They won’t be penalised at all. Their estate will be taxed on the obscene profit from an asset bought with a substantial discount at public expense. If you bought a house for a song why on earth wouldn’t a six figure profit be taxed?

London has been in existence for 2,000 years.

It's survived the Black Plague, The Great Fire, world wars, bombings and countless other upheavals.

It will be just fine.

@decoratingnightmare

London has been in existence for 2,000 years.

It's survived the Black Plague, The Great Fire, world wars, bombings and countless other upheavals.

It will be just fine.

Sure but it won't be one of the worlds financial hubs, outside of the EU (and any other trade bloc) there is no reason for it to be.

We’re all moving to Kent

London's going to swallow all the Home Counties anyway. Starting with Essex.

We are originally from the sticks, moved to London for work but moved out ten years ago when we wanted to start a family and couldn’t afford the sort of house/area we wanted. Best thing we ever did but jobs are not easy...I freelance from home which works but my husband hasn’t got much choice ref alternative employers as the majority of jobs in his sector are still in London and we chose not to go the route of commute/stay in town during the week. Personally I think it is better to commit properly to the place you move to if you can. We sometimes have to travel for work and the 6 or 7 hour round trip is a killer.

hoping it is a personal choice. In 1984 we could only afford a flat in Ealing or else a house a bit further out here in zone 5 and obviously any even more inner zones were far too expensive so ended up in these suburbs. We had our first child just after we bought the house in 1984 and wanted a garden etc. In some ways these London suburbs are the worst of all worlds - close to nothing other than some very good private and state schools but not even in the countryside which you can achieve in the Chilterns even but it has worked out fine, a reasonable compromise.

It is very hard to know where to live. I know my adult children have had to make those decisions too in the last few years. One bought a house right in the middle of London this year (completed just before lockdown) and is very happy there. Another bought in Oxfordshire - he first bought in Chesham and got more for his money in Oxfordshire and likes the country and lives near work so that's fine. The other is in London thinking about where to move to or live and the others are students.

@SkedaddIe i feel sorry for Kent as some parts are going to be turned into lorry parks. and also a toilet for the drivers due to the long queues post Brexit. I hope the people there who voted for Brexit are happy now.

I’m just outside of Greater London, 40 minutes to Waterloo on the train and we are getting letters from local estate agents asking if we want to sell because they have such a high interest from people moving out of London!

I still have extended family in Greater London. They are all in social housing and so are their children and young families. Southwark and Bermondsey being the main areas. None of them could afford to remain if they they were not in social housing. These are people who are born and breed Londoners who were either not in a position to move out and buy or just didn’t want to. The rest of the extended family covers pretty much everywhere from Cornwall to the north and north east. All would have spent their childhoods in London. Lots of different reasons for the moves.
I was born in London. My parents sold that house in the late 60,s for under £1k. A house in that road now goes for £1 million.

Forgot to add that house in Brixton is a small 2/3 bed terrace without parking.

The country is not as friendly as London. People much more judgmental and much less privacy; everybody knows everything about you. From how tidy you are to how you are as a parent/wife. Cool people in London are not so cool in the countryside; nobody cares what your job is/was. Just whether you are a good citizen and joiner inner..

If anyone sees any amazing houses in their non London area on rightmove for sale please post the link here. Detached. Good schools. Walking distance to things like a pub. Lovely community. We’re looking for the non commuter belt lovely easy life house too. What’s in your area? Max price 750,000

@Muchadoaboutlife

If anyone sees any amazing houses in their non London area on rightmove for sale please post the link here. Detached. Good schools. Walking distance to things like a pub. Lovely community. We’re looking for the non commuter belt lovely easy life house too. What’s in your area? Max price 750,000

Have a look at West Sussex £750k will go along way on the south coast. Example of what is available www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/98894543#/

@VinylDetective Could not agree more. Social housing should not be sold, its paid for by tax payer, and given that there are huge housing shortages, its unfair. I live in Holland now and most people rent, what is the UK obsession with owning a home?

@NannyOggsWhiskyStash for me its fine that social housing is sold but it should only be sold to people who can't afford to rent or buy on the private market. I come from singapore and we inherited our public housing system from the british. It used to be for rental only but in the past 50 years, the government has expanded it and now 85% of singaporeans are owner occupiers of public housing flats (over 92% home ownership). Even though they are leasehold, it means that once the mortgage is paid, singaporeans can live in their flats rent free, and they can also downgrade their flats to a smaller one, releasing their equity. And of course they don't have to move every time their landlord sells up. This kind of high level of home ownership was achievable not because our social housing wasn't able to be sold, but cos the social housing is not allowed to be sold to landlords, foreigners or people who earn above 12,000 (£6000) a month. I can no longer buy a government flat as a singaporean as I own a flat in London, which is correct as only people who don't own second homes should be allowed to take advantage of government subsidized homes.

I have asked this question on Mumsnet before and got a lot of flak. Basically people don't want to pay rent in retirement and dont want to move when the landlord sells up. Which is fair enough

@hopingforonlychild This would work if more affordable housing was built but why should tax payers pay for cheap housing to be bought, its like gifting random people with 100k.

[quote NannyOggsWhiskyStash]@hopingforonlychild This would work if more affordable housing was built but why should tax payers pay for cheap housing to be bought, its like gifting random people with 100k.[/quote]
Exactly that. It’s morally repugnant. It wouldn’t be so bad if the housing stock had been replaced.

@NannyOggsWhiskyStash well in singapore, the government made that decision because they thought that every citizen should own a stake in the country and so if another country invaded, everyone would defend the country rather than run away.

In a UK context, i guess because allowing people to own their own homes may mean the state doesn't need to pay private rent for them in their old age so it could be cheaper? Giving people housing benefit to pay some random landlord is worse in my book than building public housing for people, ensuring that only people with lower incomes can buy or rent it and ensuring that it stays in the system.Also council housing is dire because they rightfully give it to the people with the most problems.And then you get the no go estates, people are even less willing to invest in housing for the poor and the poverty cycle is worsened cos its incredibly hard for children from poor backgrounds to work their way out if their environment is bad.

People in the uk naturally all want to buy non council houses with gardens, that is the aspiration of most singaporeans too (most would want to buy private condos with swimming pools even though some public housing blocks in singapore do have sky gardens, tennis courts and swimming pools and jacuzzis but its the prestige of owning a private condo). But what happens when they or their children can't afford it? This is happening to more and more people and it would get worse as the years go by. People now have the illusion they can afford to buy a house cos i guess they can move to the countryside if they can afford london, but where are their children supposed to move to?

Private developers wouldn't build enough housing as it goes against their interests so I guess it would be the government or the uk would not solve its housing shortage.

in singapore, public housing is very clean and well maintained and there is literally 0 stigma- 85% of the population live in it so you get all types living in 1 block.

People in the uk naturally all want to buy non council houses with gardens

A lot of post war council houses were really well built on enormous plots. There’s an estate of about 50 of them here. They’re all now in private ownership and highly sought after, they’re snapped up within days when they (very rarely) come on to the market.