To be irritated by the Londoner exodus to my town?

[thesecondnamegame]

I've been priced out of my Greater Manchester town by the London diaspora. Anybody who knows the area will know which town I mean. My tatty council town centre terrace is worth 300k. A load of Londoners came up after the BBC moved to Manchester. Half the kids in my kid's school's parents are from London and they love to make sure you know that. House prices have become ridiculous and are in a different world to the rest of Greater Manchester. It's ridiculous as it used to be a very unremarkable market town (albiet with not much to it) and now it's gone all 'naice' and I'm having to move 10 miles away because it's reaching the surrounding towns and I simply cannot afford to live here and I want to buy a property. It annoys me, I keep imagining somebody who had a London salary and bought a house in London, sold it, and came up here and bought a house 3 times bigger for the same price as their smaller London home. It just seems like they cheated. There are no school places either, because a lot of the Londoner's chose this particular town for the schools. The catchments are bloody tiny, I know somebody who lives in a village about 4 miles away. The schools in this town are the closest schools. No school would take her child and she ended up having to home educate for months.

All my relatives who bought properties or private rented have had to leave, even those who went to uni and got great jobs.

It happens everywhere. It always has. Get over it. Be a part of your own diaspora and go somewhere else that's cheaper, if you need to upgrade to a bigger place. If not then be happy that your property price is rising. That's how it works. No-one has a right to live in the town they grew up in. When I first bought a house, I couldn't afford to live in the exact area I wanted to be in either. It took me about 12 years and three house moves to get somewhere that wasn't rougher than the place I grew up.

These days commuting as far as possible from the nearest major city in order to be able to afford a decent sized house has been replaced with just going anywhere you like, working reomotely and just travelling in for the odd day for meetings.

I wonder how many people will have read this and thought 'what's so good about Altrincham, maybe I'll consider moving there!'

Blame govt policies starting with Thatcher, not individuals.

academic.oup.com/cdj/article/56/1/79/5942922?login=true

I'm really tired of the open season on London and Londoners tbh. Not going to reiterate the points that have been well-made already about the fact that the vast majority of Londoners are also priced out of their home town.

I'm just tired of feeling that being from or living in London is something you have to apologise for all the time on here. And I would be furious if I'd had to leave London for any reason and people were looking down on me and judging me because of my accent or where I came from. If the same trope were applied to people from any other part of the country it would rightly be regarded as lazy prejudice. The UK is one of the most inequitable countries in the world, largely becaue of deliberate policy by a series of governments. London has become the focal point of this and its absolutely right to question why the UK has become so inequitable. Not so to tar 8 or so million people with the ruining of the UK.

Blame those governments for this, not people who by an accident of birth or job happen to live in London.

Rishi Sunak added fuel to the fire.

His stamp duty holiday has further inflated the bubble. That lost tax income could've been used to increase social housing or housing benefits, so that Londoners and people elsewhere aren't priced out of having a home. Instead he pushed the prices up.

Taxpayer funded help to buy is another problem. Tax money goes to developers to knock up shoddily constructed overpriced new builds. Pushing the house prices further out of reach.

Despite the acute housing crisis in London (that is starting to spread elsewhere) Right to Buy is still not banned in England.

But surely there are many people who benefitted by Londoners buying their property, just it wasn't you, unfortunately? More people means more active community and economy. Not everything is negative, I would imagine.

Most of the people working & buying property in London aren't from London!

Young people from all over the country world move to London seeking better job opportunities. They then often choose to move on when having a family, as London is an expensive place to live.

My friend sold her London property for £800k and bought a house in the greater Manchester town you are talking about OP. But you know what? She grew up in that town and left it at 18 to go to university, afterwards building her career in London.

If you want London money OP, go and earn it. Those jobs don't require a birth certificate proving you were born inside the m25.

@Macncheeseballs

Pinkpapaya - and who's selling those cornish cottages at over inflated prices?

They have usually changed hands a few times since original sales. Of course locals sold them but I think the issue is that there have been such migrations to prettier parts with easy equity money in the last year that it really is unbalancing lots of places - not personally bothered if people have more money but it does have a massive effect on places like Cornwall which struggles with school places/GP's/Dentists/a single County hospital/teeny weeny roads etc. Many move there having been on hols then whine that it isn't like London after the summer is over or worse buy up housing then let it sit empty. I don't object to people moving to an area but I do object to 'investment buying' when local working people simply can't compete financially. The whole system needs a reboot because it is the same story with foreign investors buying off plan as somewhere to park their money in London and pricing people out.

Always remembering that London is more pro Labour and anti Brexit than most of the rest of the country.
I think you'll find Manchester is pretty leftish and anti - Brexit, too. Apart from Trafford, of course which is totally up its own arse.

Always remembering that London is more pro Labour and anti Brexit than most of the rest of the country.

I don't get the relevance, but if you want to look at the EU or Labour vs Conservative, remember that significant numbers of people living in London are not Londoners. Also many of London's outer suburbs voted Leave and Conservative.

Manchester (including its expenses loving mayor) is very anti Brexit and also very much Labour. Likewise Liverpool. And, whilst more SNP than Labour, Scotland is very anti Brexit.

The op isn’t saying she wants London money

She wants to be able to stay living in the area she always has and earn a wage that allows that

Many of us in London are on an average wage (I’m slightly higher) which would have allowed us to buy a small terraced house that is a pipe dream now

I did get on the housing market lucky to at the time before prices went through the roof and have a two bed flat but I can’t move beyond this. My job is valuable to society (nhs mh) it’s never going to make me wealthy as so many average paying jobs are

So it's acceptable that young people growing up in London, should have to forever live in a shoe box or leave the area they grew up in to afford a more comfortable property? Which is what many have to do.

But you're complaining that you have to move 10 miles away due to property inflation.

Londoners don't all have great salaries, mine is lower than the national average. I would love to be able to buy a property at the prices in Greater Manchester.

How do you know they are Londoners?

And what about Londoners who are priced out?

OP are you in Stockport? It's probably been the last area to the south of the city to experience rocketing house prices. Generally viewed as not as hip as Didsbury/Chorlton, not as well-heeled as Hale and no grammar school catchment to drive up prices, so there's a long tradition of canny Stopfordians shipping their DCs over the border to Trafford schools.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong and obviously everyone is free to move and live and do what they want but it's sad and a little unfair that people have to leave the area they grew up in, their parents and their friends simply to be able to afford to live.

Londoners have been experiencing this for years.

It’s not quite London but my husband and I bought a property in Hertfordshire a few years ago and the price has literally tripled. I’m originally from the midlands and will also be buying there soon. I might sell my Herts property when I hit retirement and then go move up north somewhere.

Didsbury has always been overpriced although it seems to have excelled itself recently

Don't get the hype about Altrincham. Some lovely houses in the centre and like you said the grammar schools are a real attraction to those that want to be posh but can't afford the private schools but it's a bit beige.

Where are you Moving to OP?

house prices has risen everywhere -seriously - even in East Anglia on the coastal areas & the countryside
Prices rise when the number of people who need houses increase above the number of houses - simple maths. These people may not have WANTED to leave London - they (as several pp have stated) have not had the choice. Most people starting in London have managed to purchase their property on help to buy or shared ownership. If the situation was reversed op & you were moving out of an expensive shoebox would you not be expressing pleasure? The downside is that for local people the prices increase rapidly. OpI suspect a little patience may be a good idea - I suspect next year we will have a price drop & you may find the houses may become more affordable again

Somebody born and raised in London who was able to go to uni and go into a job on a London salary is incredibly privileged.

So they deserve it less?

And the ones who don't go to uni or have normal jobs?

Aren't there quite a few football types too? So that's Londoners, bbc employees and soccer all on the barred from buying lists.

The op isn’t saying she wants London money

London money for many is minimum wage. Huge numbers of Londoners are in the lowest waged jobs. Forget buying. These people struggle to rent.

Talking from experience, I have met smug Londoner's who like to go on about how lovely and big their house is and how they are so glad they left London because they got it all nice and cheap.

Born & raised Londoners or people who moved there for a few yrs? If it's the latter then in a few years they will be Mancunians anyway.

Tealightsandd I know I am one of them

But I am also aware that there are many Londoners who earn £80k plus a year

Also OP I think you’ve got an unrealistic perception of “London salaries”. Not everyone is on 6 figures, even in professional industries, especially media and creative, there are plenty of people earning under £30k. Full transparency: I actually work for the BBC and they’re currently trying to move my team outside of London. I’ve just bought a very expensive shoebox in SE London for £200k. I want to stay here! I don’t care about getting more for my money elsewhere because my friends and life is in London. But it’s really fucked that, earning 45k (I’m sure some people consider that a pittance, personally I think it’s a good salary) all I can afford is a tiny one bed flat. And I’m one of the lucky ones! What are the service and retail workers, healthcare assistants, hairdressers, cleaners, chefs, social workers, TAs born and bred London meant to do? I honestly don’t give a fuck about my equity, I’ve already decided when I sell my flat I’m going to put it on for what I bought it for and no more and I won’t sell to a landlord. I’d prefer a managed socialist approach to capping house prices but that ain’t happening any time soon so i actually hope the market crashes or at least goes backwards.

Sorry, OP just realised that you're in Alty. I agree with you to an extent, about crazy prices I mean but not that it's driven by Londoners. We couldn't afford to buy a family home here now (2 full-time earners) and didn't understand where/how people get the money to do so. Then I realised that I'm probably the only person I know who hasn't got the money already from family via inheritance or family money/trustfund/business interests. A lot of apparently well-heeled people don't own their house round here; it'll be owned by a family company not least because, as I understand it, commercial lending is cheaper than high street borrowing.