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?

@TheDowagerDuchess

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

I agree. What will happen is that houses in other areas will become too expensive for locals to buy (as has happened in many desirable areas anyway), rents will increase, then when the Londoners decide to move back many will rent out their expensive homes to fund their return and locals won't be able to afford them, either.

@vanillandhoney my expectation is people will not go back to " normal". My workplace is assuming most people will work from home at least half the time going forward.

I’ve noticed the trend too but I think it’s generally people moving out of the more central, built up areas.

I live in a very green, suburban part of London and all the neighbours have been so happy this year remarking what a great place during lockdown the area is...

@Catmads

I do wonder what will happen in Croydon. Such a mess!

@Thepilotlightsgoneout

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.

Yup. Making long-term decisions during a global crisis seems daft. Lots of people who were WFH this spring have already moved back to the office. Seems a bit premature to declare an end to the office.

It might push house prices up in the areas they are moving to and price people out who are earning local salaries (even more than has already happened)

The lack of stamp duty is driving the market in many areas. People trying to move before 31 March. If affects houses higher up the chain as people know they will find it easier to sell their sub 500,000 house now and are on the move.

Doesn't impact in London so much because 500,000 doesn't buy you very much.

I'm an hour and 45 mins from Paddington so hardly commuter territory but if you only go in once a week you could make it work I suppose

Yep! I work for letting agents, they and sales agents in my small, rural amrket town are far busier than they would normally be. All of those nice, large new houses, mostly built because the government says we don't have enough housing for the local population, are being sold to people who don't work here: London, Birmingham and even Manchester enquiries have gone through the roof! Not that locals could have afforded them anyway!

Many of the check ins I am doing are also for people who don't work her but will commute, or wfh for the foreseeable future! So much for rent being dead money! These people see our local cheaper rent as a way of saving money, so they can buy a big house here or a flat in London eventually - real conversations with real people who are using lockdown etc to make big changes to their lives! And they are pushing up ALL prices... My house, price has stayed within Zoopla estimate of about 10% of purchase price 5 years ago, is now standing at 60% increase!!

Second homes really are bad for rural communities. Our parents and their friends all had them, and it does seem wrong as it definitely prices out locals.
The excuse given by parents friends was
“Locals don’t want to live in 16 th cent that he’d houses”

Really??

I mean .. Can you be serious??

Thatched not that he’d

Yes, Wales, posting on Facebook for cleaners and houses going up ridiculously in price.

Catmads and Jojo. And this is on top of the town centre being run into the ground to make way for the new Westfield, which is never going to happen now.

Nope, they aren’t venturing up here

The average very nice 3 bed in my town is around 350K, the yearly high speed train ticket (40 min journey) is 7K. I don’t blame them.

[quote NeverTwerkNaked]@vanillandhoney my expectation is people will not go back to " normal". My workplace is assuming most people will work from home at least half the time going forward.[/quote]
But that won't be the case for everyone, surely?

A four hour commute each day is a LOT of wasted time. How does that work with things like school pick-ups, childcare and a decent work-life balance?

I mean, great if it will work for you but I can see a lot of people struggling with ridiculous commutes in the next few years.

Though fwiw, I live way out there in a rural area and I work in London and I plan to still commute in as usual once life gets back to normal. I work from home a few weeks a month anyway, but I definitely will still be in London. Actually, I'd love to buy a flat there. Shame now isn't a good time because there are a lot for sale.

We are on the Isle of Wight, on speaking to an estate agent friend the other day they said they're very busy at the moment with people looking to buy/long term let. The commute/ferries aren't such an issue now

People move out of the London area because house prices are far lower; you really do get more for your money elsewhere. I wouldn't have thought that was a particularly new thing, it has always happened. Also if people live in a not very salubrious area of London, they yearn to go somewhere nicer and who can blame them?

Not everyone does though. I'm staying put in London and so are many others.

We are in a rural area 1.5 hours from London and houses that come on the market are all selling to people from London.

Not Londoners but SE, a commuter town and we're moving further afield for greener pastures and a bigger house. I'd been WFH for a few years, but Partner now can too - that said, his workplace isn't doing that as standard, he has negotiated that.

My cousin moved out of London two years ago, doing lots of wfh etc. Now she’s lost her job - and trying to get a new London job while living a long way out is pretty disastrous.

I live an hour outside of Edinburgh, and our property market is booming too. The large detached houses are selling well. We have lots of Edinburgh commuters here anyway, but it takes around 1hr 30 to 1hr 45 in rush hour, so clearly more people figure they can do it if it's less days a week.

A four hour commute each day is a LOT of wasted time. How does that work with things like school pick-ups, childcare and a decent work-life balance? It's pretty standard round here!

Private schooling, SAHMs, Park and Ride, bachelor pads, etc etc etc

@WorraLiberty

I'm sure London will cope unless all 8.982 million inhabitants decide to move out.

Indeed 😂

@ProfessorSlocombe

Be interesting to see if a sudden influx of Londoners to less well served parts of the country starts an uplift in public service expectations. If not services themselves.

You'd have to match the same level of funding the capital city attracts to do that, which is about as likely as a fall in London property price. About zero.