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?

Don't worry too much you have 2 advantages. You are young (in your 20s iirc) & not at peak earnings so you have time to over pay/save.

I personally would choose somewhere like Sutton or Bromley probably & not all FTB can't save up stamp duty or have parental help.

don't have

@VinylDetective Before the stamp duty holiday, you didnt pay any stamp duty for the first 300k. You had to pay the tax for the next 200k. I paid £4600 as my flat was £392k. But if your property was more than £500k, you are paying the same level of stamp duty as a second time buyer.

Plus you only want one child 😁

They are money sponges!

[quote hopingforonlychild]@VinylDetective Before the stamp duty holiday, you didnt pay any stamp duty for the first 300k. You had to pay the tax for the next 200k. I paid £4600 as my flat was £392k. But if your property was more than £500k, you are paying the same level of stamp duty as a second time buyer.[/quote]
I know.

@hopingforonlychild I agree - I have a friend who is better off than me and managed to keep a nice flat in London whilst buying a house further out. I am not so fortunate but she always says when it come to it she will sell the bigger house and keep the nice flat in London - Ach - as I say - it is preference.

In my area I do not see people exiting London. In fact over ( a long time - not just recently ) neighbours have sold big houses elsewhere and prefer a little house / flat in London for retirement . Very convenient. But then that is probably a stage of life thing - to be able to get a good size house / garden for children outside London I can see that. I also see retired people who no longer have to worry about children moving back into London for the facilities ( albeit smaller accommodation )

Depends on their hobbies too - I like having the big garden here in the suburbs which I would not get in inner London and I doubt there will come a time unless I am bed bound aged 90 when I would not want the garden

I have two friends who are moving back to Scotland from London next month. Partly because of wanting to be closer to family due to Covid and lockdown and partly because of Brexit and the shambolic way Boris Johnston has led things and the split between the majority of England wanting to leave EU and them voting to remain.

They are both hoping Scotland can vote for independence now.

Estate agent told my friend up here around 40% of their sales to our area in the last 6 months is people relocating back to Scotland.

@hopingforonlychild

Altrincham and Didsbury aren't as expensive as London, probably a third of the price. They are very expensive compared to the most other parts of Manchester, those areas are about three times the price of others.

The transport network is good, like in any other city. Also great facilities close to the city. Not as much as London, but much more than a small town or countryside. A lot of friends have moved further out of central Manchester into Cheshire and more rural areas to get more space. There are pros and cons for either city centre living or moving further out. Lots more space with bigger houses and gardens if you move, with losing out on being close to the city and its amenities.

I'm more central and it's pretty diverse. My friend who is BAME used to live a few miles away just over the border in Cheshire and she said she did experience racism, but didn't experience it in central Manchester. She found it was a problem in the more traditional, small town areas. I was shocked as she lived less than ten miles from me, but found the atmosphere was very different. Didsbury is probably more diverse than Altrincham, it's more small town there and Trafford is known as pretty conservative. It has good schools which attract a lot of families, there are state grammar schools.

@Feelingsupersonic1 Yes if you are scottish, scottish independence can be a draw. But 1 reason why i wouldn't move to scotland even though i love glasgow/edinburgh is cos i think its a matter of time independence would happen. Its probably not a bad thing in the long run but there would be a lot of upheaval/uncertainty.

@Feelingsupersonic1

I have two friends who are moving back to Scotland from London next month. Partly because of wanting to be closer to family due to Covid and lockdown and partly because of Brexit and the shambolic way Boris Johnston has led things and the split between the majority of England wanting to leave EU and them voting to remain.

They are both hoping Scotland can vote for independence now.

Estate agent told my friend up here around 40% of their sales to our area in the last 6 months is people relocating back to Scotland.

The polls haven't shown a majority for leaving the EU at any point since 2017. Even Farage has admitted that if there was another referendum - now the lies have been exposed - the leave campaign would lose. In England the majority want to remain, not just in Scotland. We are all being screwed over.

Who is supposed to be buying up all these London properties if so many are leaving?

@cardswapping

Who is supposed to be buying up all these London properties if so many are leaving?

People buying second home bolt holes, and investors.

It isn't just a London thing.
I am in Scotland, a friend who is an estate agent is saying there is a serious exodus to 'nicer but still connected' places. A mix of Edinburgh, Glasgow and folk from south of the border.
I have four new neighbours

• one family who moved here from London on the strength of the secondary school. They have a 3 year old.
• one couple from edge of London as they could buy a house without mortgage, both work remotely already.
• one family from Edinburgh as they can have a house and garden, not just house and concrete yard.
• one family looking to stay permanently having turned down jobs south of the border in preference to staying north.

It isn't new though - I moved up over a decade ago from Lancashire in search of a nicer life outside of a city. I am sure there are some folk happy to stay and benefit from city life.

@SheepandCow Interesting, thanks. There is some serious cash about then, because London property is not cheap and banks are tightening their lending now.

It's often cash buyers. Downsizers after retirement or people buying a flat after selling a house through divorce.

And then, separately, there's the super rich. International wealth - people with multiple homes around the world. Sometimes cash buyers, sometimes buying through tax efficient offshore companies or trusts.

Lots don't even let the homes out. They keep them empty - with the plan to benefit from long-term property increases. It seems a bit wrong...all these empty homes in a city with such an acute housing and homelessness crisis.

The people who bought our friends' house (they swapped London for the New Forest after losing their jobs because of covid) are a London family who just want a bigger house.

A lot of people have engaged in self-soothing regarding living in London. London will never be the same--not the theatre scene or restaurants or shopping or, most importantly, jobs (so long, the City of London). The pressure to wear a mask everywhere is unbearable (not to mention visually repulsive). I mourn the passage of the London way of life but am lucky enough to have had a chance to leave it behind. Am now busy embracing the joys of walking in muddy fields, taking my kids to sailing lessons on the local lake, learning how to rake the leaves and grow vegetables in my garden in the countryside.

TBH London has been becoming less attractive for a while, fewer police means that crime, and especially street crime, is on the increase. Two out of three of my DC have been mugged in the park outside our house. A friend was burgled at night while she was asleep and the police did not even send anyone out. Drug use is everywhere and unchallenged.

There are a lot of petty inconveniences like the congestion charge which effectively make large areas of London a no-go area for anyone not having their fees paid by work.

Now my job have agreed I can wfh full time I am relocating to a market town a couple of hours away from London where I have friends. I will not miss London.

I’m calling a degree of bollocks on the London exodus. Lots of articles about this week about how there was the greatest number of departures from London since... 2016. That’s not very long! Lots of rural estate agents are strongly motivated to encourage a sense of boom - and there is an uptick but not much.

@2020quelhorreur

I’m calling a degree of bollocks on the London exodus. Lots of articles about this week about how there was the greatest number of departures from London since... 2016. That’s not very long! Lots of rural estate agents are strongly motivated to encourage a sense of boom - and there is an uptick but not much.

Completely agree. There may have been an exodus from flats without garden, but in London itself houses were flying off the shelf. I am happy in zone 4/5, have a decent garden, close to countryside but in Central London within half an hour train journey. Also, at some point in the hopefully not too distant future things will hopefully go back to normal, now that we have started vaccinating people. I suppose there won't be a return to the office full time but I can imagine people will go back to the office several days a week. Even for three days a week I wouldn't want a commute if 1.5-2 hours each way.

@Puffthemagicdragongoestobed quite. And as soon as companies start following the new Facebook model - sure, you can go and live somewhere cheap, but we’ll be stripping out the San Fran weighting of your salary - I think people will start remembering that the office is ok really. I was astonished by that 2016 figure. The amount people were banging on about it, you’d have thought it was a game changer!