Leaving London - is there a promised land?

[ilkleymoorbartat]

With the mass exodus from London at the moment, aibu to ask whether there is some promised land that people go when they have kids (whatever the location).

Ie, are those of us in London missing out on a life that is lovely and idyllic which if you're in the London bubble it's impossible to imagine?

Do we have Stockholm syndrome basically?!

@couchparsnip

It's lovely out in the suburbs but it's sad that people moving out of London are contributing to house prices going up. I don't blame them at all but I do feel sad for my friend. She saved up for her dream detached house near her mum and now can only afford a terraced house in a crap area.

Just console her by telling her how lucky she is compared to the Londoners who also saved up but can barely afford to rent, because of people moving from where your friend lives and everywhere else to London. She, unlike people in the capital of homelessness, has her own home. Not her dream property but most people don't get everything they want, that's part of life. Main thing is, although she didn't get what she wanted, she got what she needed.

There should be no double standards or expectations of one way only traffic. People move to London, others move out of London.

@MargaretFraggle

I live in a leafy county. Lovely, but a bit boring. I don't completely understand why Londoners with enough money to enjoy it would leave, especially if they have a garden. Pluses for me would be subsidised public transport, huge parks, theatres and free museums. Where I live it can cost £5 to travel a few miles on a bus, which will be late, not turn up, or drive past you!

Why not move to London? If you find your leafy county boring, it's obviously not for you. Leafy counties are not cheap and it's very possible to get a London home for the same cost (often less) particularly if you look at some of the outer suburbs.

Separate from the priced out, every family and individual has different preferences and priorities.

Sorry but sympathy thin on the ground here for all ll those complaining you’re priced out of your own towns and villages, especially in England, I doubt you or your parents shead any years when it was happening in Welsh villages back in the seventies and eighties. What hours around comes around is the phrase that springs to min .

As someone who's been gentrified out of three London neighbourhoods I really loved, I do feel terrible for everyone in other parts of the country now getting priced out by Londoners moving in. I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it? I know that's just how the market is but god it sucks.

This is why we and people like us couldn’t live anywhere else.

Of course you could live somewhere else. You could live plenty of places if needs be, as I’m sure your new HK expatriate neighbours will be able to elucidate for you, if you ask. It really does make London and real Londoners look ridiculous when this chirruping about not being able to survive elsewhere gets bandied about

I read her post as using 'couldn't' in a positive enthusiastic way. She's very happy in London, she loves her neighbourhood, and doesn't feel the need to move elsewhere. Of course she could live somewhere else if she had to, i.e. was forced out, but she's responding to posters querying why anyone would choose to live/stay in London.

@Tealightsandd

This is why we and people like us couldn’t live anywhere else.

Of course you could live somewhere else. You could live plenty of places if needs be, as I’m sure your new HK expatriate neighbours will be able to elucidate for you, if you ask. It really does make London and real Londoners look ridiculous when this chirruping about not being able to survive elsewhere gets bandied about

I read her post as using 'couldn't' in a positive enthusiastic way. She's very happy in London, she loves her neighbourhood, and doesn't feel the need to move elsewhere. Of course she could live somewhere else if she had to, i.e. was forced out, but she's responding to posters querying why anyone would choose to live/stay in London.

I saw her post as a response to posts suggesting London was a gang ridden dystopia.

Sorry but sympathy thin on the ground here for all ll those complaining you’re priced out of your own towns and villages, especially in England, I doubt you or your parents shead any years when it was happening in Welsh villages back in the seventies and eighties.

Unless you think that the people currently unhappy about being priced out are the same people who came and snapped up properties in Welsh villages in the 70s and 80s, or you have evidence that they knew about Welsh people being priced out and were unsympathetic, I don't understand how this is relevant or particularly fair.

@dreamingbohemian

As someone who's been gentrified out of three London neighbourhoods I really loved, I do feel terrible for everyone in other parts of the country now getting priced out by Londoners moving in. I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it? I know that's just how the market is but god it sucks.

They're not being priced out by 'Londoners' moving in. Many (possibly most) are not be Londoners. They are people from other parts of the UK, who moved to London and are now returning home or going on elsewhere.

I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it? I know that's just how the market is but god it sucks

Well for a start we need to keep Rishi Sunak away from the job of PM. He's shown us we wouldn't be in safe hands under him. The man singlehandedly made the issue a million times worse with his ill thought out inflate the house price bubble stamp duty holiday.

The solution is to build and buy more social housing AND stop inflating house prices (whether using taxpayer money to fund Help to Buy schemes on overpriced shoddily constructed new builds, or stamp duty holiday).

We could, perhaps, use stamp duty to help fund affordable housing - to rent and to buy.

@Roxy69

Londoners, moving to the country, ousting the locals from where they want to be and now can't afford it. There's no freedom for us, thanks.

People from the countryside moving to London, ousting the locals from... a home full stop. London is the capital of homelessness.

@WelcometoJam ‘people like us couldn’t live anywhere else’ ? How small minded...

Well her feelings are hardly surprising given the level of insularity (and ignorance) displayed just on this thread alone from some of the 'welcoming' locals of elsewhere.

The whole issue of "pricing out" is a systemic issue with our housing market, and nothing to do with Londoners or non-Londoners, English or Welsh.

I do get sad when I see people pointing the gun at the completely wrong folks.

Our housing market is just one feature of our "renter" economy, with inadequate control. As someone has already said, Rishi Sunak is doing his best to keep it inflating, like every other Chancellor has. Its a massive problem for us all.

Yes Rishi Sunak did a lot to exacerbate the problem.

As an aside. I bet if Rishi Sunak moved to a village in Cornwall or Suffolk or Lincolnshire, it would be framed as 'a Londoner pricing out the locals'....Rishi isn't a Londoner. He's from Hampshire.

The whole issue of "pricing out" is a systemic issue with our housing market, and nothing to do with Londoners or non-Londoners, English or Welsh.

It’s to do with all those groups and more.

Multiple generations and areas have been impacted by the same pattern repeated, precisely because it’s a systemic issue.

Central government continue to make bad economic and housing policy.

@DaddyCool60

Sorry but sympathy thin on the ground here for all ll those complaining you’re priced out of your own towns and villages, especially in England, I doubt you or your parents shead any years when it was happening in Welsh villages back in the seventies and eighties. What hours around comes around is the phrase that springs to min .

That doesn’t make much sense. Why did people have to cry before they were alive - or even conceived - about phenomenon X, in order to get your permission to be upset about the same phenomenon later? That’s nonsensical. Parents and children being responsible for each other’s thoughts is an even weirder notion.

There are lots of 20 somethings and 30 somethings struggling. It’s not tribal. What’s the creepy winking about?

Born and bred Londoner. Moved to Manchester in my 20s never looked back. Still got the city vibe with good access to peaks and countryside if you want. Now I've been to the Cotswold this month and dreaming of the countryside life!

@lazylinguist

Sorry but sympathy thin on the ground here for all ll those complaining you’re priced out of your own towns and villages, especially in England, I doubt you or your parents shead any years when it was happening in Welsh villages back in the seventies and eighties.

Unless you think that the people currently unhappy about being priced out are the same people who came and snapped up properties in Welsh villages in the 70s and 80s, or you have evidence that they knew about Welsh people being priced out and were unsympathetic, I don't understand how this is relevant or particularly fair.

Well obviously not the same people. That would be rediculous but the sentiment is plain. English pricing out the Welsh. Londoners pricing out the rest of England. Can’t bring myself, as a Welsh person, who witnessed the lack of concern from the rest of the UK back then, to feel any real sympathy for the complaint. Get over it and all that. And I speak as someone who’s sitting on a fat profit from a London house who could choose to buy the almost any of the most expensive houses back where I came from, and would without guilt. But then I probably won’t as after more than 40 years in London I’d no doubt get withdrawal symptoms.

loads of Londoners moving into villages near me. Personally lived in a city when younger (late teens) hated it, far too noisy, i love peace and quiet.

I’m having a poke. Don’t take it to heart. Call it schadenfreude.

My DS and DIL are moving to Surrey from London primarily for the outstanding schools. Also they can get much more space in a better house. I'm sad they're going and think that a lot of people who are moving may regret it in future.
WFH may not continue at its current rate and commuting is getting more and more expensive.

It used to be a promised land round here in this part of our county. Lovely villages, countryside, picturesque small towns. Good roads, rail links and other infrastructure.

Such a shame the whole area is being carved up by developers building huge new estates with tens of thousands of properties to house all the people who want to come and live here. And even more of a shame that the young people who already live and work here can't afford to get on the property ladder because everything is way out of their range.

Please don't come here.

I still love London.

When I retire I'm moving to Soho!

@Barney60

loads of Londoners moving into villages near me. Personally lived in a city when younger (late teens) hated it, far too noisy, i love peace and quiet.

Don't believe you. I bet at least half of those 'incomers' are not Londoners.

Londoners pricing out the rest of England.
Wrong way round. The rest of England (and the UK - including Wales) has been pricing out Londoners. Which you yourself are part of.

You say you're Welsh - yet you're someone who’s sitting on a fat profit from a London house aka someone from Wales who priced out a Londoner.

People can try to claim otherwise all they like (out of spite, ignorance, or both) but the facts speak for themselves....It's London that is the capital of homelessness.

There are lots of 20 somethings and 30 somethings struggling.

Whereas in London, the crisis is even more serious. It's not just 20s and 30s in London.
People way older are struggling.

@Welcometojam
We left London some years ago when our children were ready to leave home, so that we could help them with places to live. We went to a city which we loved but found that we missed our children and missed London. We've now downsized back to Greater London living in a lovely spot, and I'm guessing that lots of other people will come back when they're older - living in the city is great for those of us who are retired and have more time to enjoy it.
We were not originally Londoners but had been here for over 40 years before we left and have realised that we really don't want to be anywhere else.