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?

Exactly, I am not against HC but effectively its adds 7-10k per year onto my costs. Now in terms of my mortgage if I could afford an additional 200k on a house then I would not be moving out, but seeing as I don't then I also cant afford the HC.

Essentially until season tickets change - the cost of moving out for us is the same as staying put for similar properties per sqm.

two-hour commute each way for both parents even three times a week is actually quite a lot

It is indeed but you’d have to move out a long way for a two hour commute. We’re approx 70 miles from London and 45 minutes from King’s Cross. It’s two hours if you travel from York.

@VinylDetective - i know but unless you literally work in kings cross and live above the station at the other end then in practice its 15mins min at each end and that's if you work in kings cross. so ok its probably more like and average 1.5hrs but thats still a lot isnt it? i dont know as my current commute door to door is half hour

My commute to central London was an hour and ten minutes from getting on the train. It was hardly onerous to sit and read for 45 minutes.

@VinylDetective so how long was it in total? door to door? thats sort of my concern - i.e. what time will I have to leave to drop the kid off and still make a 9am meeting?

at the moment - I need to leave at 8 at the earliest. thats not every day but something like three times per week once covid is done and dusted.

Some like east finchley and some Hitchin or St Albans. Neither is right or wrong.

Most people who move out of inner London (but who still work there) move from a flat to a freehold house with a garden. A pretty traditional move would be 2 young professionals buy a tiny flat or studio each. meet, marry and when babies start coming would quite like to have a garden as they had one when they grew up and they don't want people living above or below them. Plenty have no problems with flats. We all just differ.

For us we live here in zone 5 on the tube because my children's father (teacher) works out here and back when we first bought and even now we could not afford anything but a small flat in the middle of inner London so made sense to buy a house out here. Then in 1994 I started working from home. The 3 older children were in full time school by then and the twins not yet born. However I was in London 2 or 3 times a week as I deliberately kept all meetings, committees, talks going to maintain my professional reputation. Now we have covid 19 rules etc it is a different world although for how long no one knows.

I cannot remember if I mentioned this above but I spoke to a letting estate agent today who said no one wanted the one bed flats but there was huge demand for 2 bed cottages with gardens at the moment.

Some like east finchley and some Hitchin or St Albans. Neither is right or wrong.

Exactly.

@Oliversmumsarmy obviously you like the outer zones. For me personally it's not what I choose so pre Covid I would stay in Z3 with a house & garden a bit smaller than I would like but the pros outweigh. However post Covid we defo consider Bristol/St Albans as they have lots of amenities. Obviously outer zones have amenities but it's not the same. I grew up in London & am far too used to walking to everything.

Also sometimes I think I would prefer a 45min train ride with a seat than a squashed standing up tube journey. I already wfh anyway so it's not relevant.

@Xenia I wasn't really saying that it was bad or good to buy in HC or in inner/outer London.i had a garden growing up, but also grew up in singapore where pretty much everywhere is urbanized so i cannot really imagine not having a reliable and cheap bus route at your doorstep (neither can DH who grew up in z3 london and says he always imagined he would be able to buy something more central as an adult). my experience with buses in beaconsfield was not a good one!

It makes sense to move to an area if you like the area and where it makes sense for your commute/life circumstances. What I find problematic is people saying that I would save money/have a better quality of life by moving outside London (and commuting). When it is doubtful whether I would, because me spending an extra £8k a year on rail tickets is not good for my bank balance and also decreases my disposable income. Unlike a mortgage which could be spread out over more years or eroded by inflation, a rail season ticket would only increase in cost until i find a job that will allow me wfh flexibility for the next 40 years.

Maybe for some people, paying £8k a year is worth it for a garden. They must really like gardening. But I wouldn't assume so or offer it as default advice

I do agree with this @hopingforonlychild it's about finding something that works for your lifestyle. I probably wouldn't move further out than I am as being on the fringes of London with tube access suits my lifestyle and work.
I do imagine that those who have left London must have accounted for future changes though. I hope so.

The reason St Albans is more expensive or the same price as Finchley could be because the service into London especially if you work in Farringdon, Blackfriars or London Bridge is quicker than getting the tube from some random London postcode.

boboroll
Actually I would prefer to live further in than the outskirts but it just isn't practical plus we can’t afford where I would like to live and buy the size of property we need so it was a choice of spending my life bemoaning the price of property in Chelsea and the fact we couldn’t afford to buy a 4 bed place there and spending thousands each month on rent for ever more or actually look at alternative areas where we could afford to buy.
Where I live isn’t ideal but it is practical

Because we have the space we have an annexe and rental from that covers any commuting costs many times over. Plus businesses I have had over the years just wouldn’t have been practical living in a 2 bed flat with 2 children.
Friend who lives in Essex turned a part of her garden over to parking as she is near to the station and sometimes rents out her spare rooms at the weekend. She has just converted her detached garage over lockdown into a studio apartment and is going to be renting that out as well on a more long term basis.

I have seen so many threads on here where people are bemoaning the fact they cannot afford to buy in Central London or in the area of their choosing and are considering that they should never have children or only have one because they can’t afford to rent or buy something with an extra bedroom, when someone suggest they move out to buy a small terrace house in the HC they look down their nose on it.

A few months ago there was someone bemoaning the fact they couldn’t afford Central Oxford.
We worked there in the 80s and even then we knew no one who could afford Central Oxford. Everyone commuted in from Didcot or Banbury or one of the villages around Oxford.

If you are renting in Central London then even with an extra £8k per year it could still make financial sense to buy somewhere like Hitchin or a place further out with good transport links to where you need to get to if you don’t have the deposit for a place in London

For me and lots of people I know we are fully aware we can't ever afford Chelsea. It's not always a tie between a flat & no dc vs larger house on the outskirts, there is a middle ground. I don't think me saying I wouldn't like to live in outer zones is turning my nose up, I wouldn't like vast countryside either. People have different priorities, some people would hate my small garden.
You seem a tad defensive & annoyed that posters don't think the same as you.

@Oliversmumsarmy - not that everyone is against HC is that literally moving to the HC plus 2 train fares is the same as quite a hefty London mortgage, so I dont understand how people can afford to move. We would move to the HC but say Hitchin (less fancy than St Albans) is 4k each so that's 8k per year before we even get a mortgage on a v small house. Might start another thread to ask how it is that people can afford to move to the HC and travel back to London.

Lots of people don't choose the HC to save money (obviously others do). Plenty of people like the HC - and prefer them to London. Everybody has different preferences and priorities when it comes to lifestyle and where to live.

@tjamaoe The people I know that have moved out have this set up; One parent working in London, generally 3/4 days a wk (rest at home) &/or flexi hours so can travel off peak. The other parent either wfh or mainly wfh/works locally/doesn't work.

[quote hopingforonlychild]@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.[/quote]
Perhaps some with an entrepreneurial spirit might look to the bright side. Set up stalls selling food and drink - and then there will be the booming portaloo business.

@tjamaoe as i mentioned upthread, dont actually know anyone who pays the £8k full whack.

my DH's ex colleague used to commute to London from Reading (over £5k), his girlfriend worked in a Reading hospital. They shared a car and she dropped him off at the station everyday. If she had Pilates in the evening, he would walk the 1.3 miles home.

a colleague who lived in Hitchin had a wfh husband. I have another colleague with 2 kids who bought a beautiful new build house with 4 bedrooms in Milton Keynes, her husband works in IT and also wfh (previously worked in Hatfield). I knew a guy who commuted from Hampshire but he was abroad a lot, so didn't need a season ticket but he said it was manageable as his wife was a housewife. A colleague who commutes from Hemel Hempstead has a wife who works locally.

there are an incredible number of people who can wfh or whose jobs are not tied to London. It is quite common for people to have a spouse like that and once your spouse works in such a field, the HC is open to you even if you work in London all your life. Teachers, doctors, nurses do not need to work in London.the 4k a month season ticket is equivalent to what my DH and I spend every year commuting from Z3 to Z1 (£162 for each of us) so a couple can easily afford 1 person's commute.

If i think about it, my company has an office in Reading so I guess if I got a job there, we could technically afford to move to Reading and upgrade. my DH would work in London and pay £539 to commute per month , its £200 more than what we are spending now but thats not a huge deal. I think people who want to move to the home counties rearrange their lives to afford the costs but if thats not possible, then you can't move.

[quote NannyOggsWhiskyStash]@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?[/quote]
The UK definitely needs (a lot) more social housing. Not to be sold off (especially not at knock down prices).

I think there'd be less desperation to own a home if the UK had a similar renting set-up to much of Europe. You have secure tenancies and rent control, I believe? In the UK private renting is extremely insecure and very expensive (often poor quality too).

Lots of people don't choose the HC to save money (obviously others do). Plenty of people like the HC

Yep & when my parents bought in London the HC were definitely considered the more desirable option.
My dad had a very good job & loads of his colleagues thought it was odd to not want to live in Surrey or similar. My parents are immigrants though & only decided on that particular part of London because that's where my dad was housed by his company when he started working over here so it was all he knew. Plus my mum was very lonely & nervous & took comfort that my dad could walk home from work if needed.

@SheepandCow when I was buying, everyone recommended the HC to me as a cheaper option. people always pushed the place that they chose. I got very confused trying to work out how it was cheaper!

yes, same. lots of people keep telling us that we should move out but I just dont think we can afford to and am amazed that swathes of londoners can. though it probably depends on whether or not people's work really will be mostly from home

@tjamaoe

@*@Tessiot* - the problem with comparing London to Singapore, Zurich etc is that these are v. small countries. So effectively the gains from the financial sector needs to be re-distributed amongst a tiny population. Now the UK is still a small country but it's not 10million people like all the places you've mentioned.

So the problem for London is not just WFH but essentially losing its global standing and the UK not being able to make up the shortfall through de-regulation. The social contract in places like Zurich, Geneva, Dubai, Singapore, Bermuda is pretty strong, in the UK it's only to its shareholders/Tory party.

Potentially, it would be the opposite of a problem for London? It being a rich person's playground has had devastating consequences for normal Londoners.

Priced out - away from family and community - and to make matters worse, facing hostility from resentful locals in their new area.

Until the late 90s London was more mixed. Not the extreme it's becoming - very rich or beds in sheds. There's always been a few expensive areas, but the rest wasn't that far off being like the rest of the UK. Full of normal lower or average income working families.

There really is a north south divide. I do not envy you all in the London/ HC rat race.
A pity more business doesn’t settle around the country and spread the wealth/ jobs and burden those bring.

boboroll

Not defensive but I don’t like sweeping statements that are clearly false.

If you work in London and live in the HC then you have to have a nanny or a SAHP

Or that trains don’t run on time so you can’t guarantee that you can pick your child up on time

I know quite a few people who live in the HC and work in London and are single parents without family/support and who aren’t wealthy, or have a nanny and manage just fine.

Might start another thread to ask how it is that people can afford to move to the HC and travel back to London

What is the alternative if you need 3 beds.
£8k is £333 per month per person.

When you look at the cost of renting a 3 bed compared to a 2 bed in Central London and then look at getting a mortgage on a 3 bed place outside of London in a cheaper area with good transport links and maybe stretched over more than the standard 25 years plus having to pay for the train fare depending what you buy it ends up working out at about the same.
You can then always pay more to the mortgage as and when you can afford to. Just because you have taken out a longer mortgage doesn’t mean you are stuck with it for the term length.
Even the standard 25 year one wouldn’t make it too much more.

Don’t forget even if you stay in London transport isn’t free and if you buy a flat there are still charges that are extra as opposed to buying freehold.

It all depends where you buy and what you need.

:@Oliversmumsarmy my service charges are £1750 per annum. My monthly season ticket is £162 so over £300 for me and DH. Really doesn't add up to £8k per annum. B

I understand that some people really value things like guest bedrooms, gardens and off street parking and countryside and that may make the commute really worth it for them.But I disagree that everyone who would like a bigger house in London would automatically get ttheir problems solved if they moved to the HC? If they can't even afford the £8k to commute and they don't want to make any other adjustments to make it work, then its a non-starter to begin with.

Maybe if you said a couple who works in London can get a cheaper house BUT have to pay £8k commute fares (which also equate to £200k mortgage over a 25 year term on a 2.02% interest rate).