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.

And the equity would be meaningless if you stayed in the same area anyway. You wouldn't be taxed on it but it would reflect the local house price increase so really, you haven't benefited at all, have you?

So, why would it prevent individual's from wanting to move? Refusing to go because they don't want to lose that precious equity (which they shouldn't have in the first place) despite it being worthless if they stay put?

Obviously, the tax would be completely different when it comes to businesses.

If somebody had 300k purely in gained equity, taking about 50% would leave them with an extra 150k on top of the value of the house when they bought it,

Very few people from the south east would be in this position unless they were approaching retirement.

The people who might be in this position would be the kind of people who make decisions about business locations, and without the lure of a better life style they will stay put.

OP that is sort of what stamp duty is.

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, decided to have a stamp duty holiday (so people didn't have to pay the tax) at the start of the pandemic. Unsurprisingly it's made a bad situation worse. Pushed the house prices up.

It was a bad idea.

Effectively you are suggesting a tax on business relocation.

Stamp duty isn't quite the same but it's based on a similar premise. It's based on the purchase rather than sale price.

Can we just get to the point where we all agree that their are losers in expensive areas and losers in the cheaper areas, and the problems of housing economics inevitably spill from one area to another one way or another?

But it isn't an even playing field is it? Yes there is poverty in London but there is more of it in the north

And could we then sympathise with each other? This tribal ‘north v south, this city v the other city...’ stuff is really old hat and it doesn’t help.

I'd like to agree...

I have huge sympathy for anyone, anywhere struggle to buy or rent adequate housing in a convenient area

But we have no housing to spare. Where is this housing going to come from?

Someone up thread mentions that London had seen immigration form allover the world. Well so have we in the North.

I'm so sick of being preached to by Londoners. One minute we are all "thick racist gammons" who voted the wrong way, then the next it's "oh but we are overcrowded now and need a cheap house". Well join the club.

Housing here is cheap because labour here is cheap and always has been. Whole rows of old miners or mill cottages in ex industrial/now suburb areas, many knocked through, go for second homes or so someone can rent them off to Londoners working in Leeds, Manchester or Sheffield. Where do those local people expected to go? London?

NRTFT but if the place you are referring to is the place Dh worked for a while in the 80s then to be honest there hasn’t been a massive house price rise. It was more expensive than a lot of London even then. We couldn’t afford to buy there in the 80s.

I have never considered that part of the North West cheap and I really have never got the fuss about it.
Friend I met in London worked for the BBC and it was near to his home town. He took the redundancy

Are you sure the people bragging about how great their house is are not just doing that to convince themselves they haven’t cocked up their lives or to stem the homesickness.

@merrymouse

Well, let's say a young professional has a studio flat in London and they paid 160k. I've found a few in a good condition on Rightmove, I had a look just to base my argument. Let's say they managed to get a graduate salary of 50k so got the mortgage and had help with the deposit from their parents. Of course, it's absolutely ridiculous they needed to earn that much in the first place. Let's say they stay 2 years and it goes up to being worth 200k. Said young professional has decided they'd like to go back to their town up north to go back to their roots and settle down, where they could buy a 2 bed semi detached for 150k. They are getting that house for LESS than they paid for their starter home, and still taking the London earned equity with them.

That's a thought, people are saying that those who have come to London from elsewhere for opportunities have benefited from London. If they buy a property in London and then decide to go home to their cheaper area, why should they get to take the equity home with them if it was earned by the London housing market? That benefits London no more than it benefits the northern town that will eventually see rising prices. Shouldn't it go to the local authority (though would likely have to be pooled between all of the Greater London boroughs because of space etc) and be used for social housing? The taxation would benefit London by keeping wealth that was earned through the London market in London, to be used for social housing. The northern town would benefit because it isn't have people coming up from London with large amounts of equity causing the local house prices to inflate. It would be a very gradual process but if the tax could at least help contribute to the building of social housing and affordable housing (I know it wouldn't fund it purely on its own), would the pressure in London eventually ease over the years?

If the young professional wanted to stay in London to settle down, admittedly it's a difficult one as they wouldn't be able to afford a house. But yes, maybe getting London's maybe homeless house should be the priority first? I admit I was ignorant as to just how bad it was there. It could be argued that the young professional could move to a city closer to home where they can afford a house. Proper investment in the north would make them more likely to want to do this.

Well no. As per the article I linked upthread, London is the capital of homelessness.

I simply do not believe you. Just like I do not believe the London biased media.

When BBC moved some of their productions to Salford (not Manchester as has been pp). What happened, after the whining and complaining about having to move. They moved into gated communities and complained that locals had access to museums and galleries. This actually happened

I have a lot of sympathy for working class Londoners, even though they get more funding. But this isn't about them. This is enclosure by rich people pushing out the poorest in this country

Anyway, I'm going to bed.

People have stated that many of the people who are able to do well in the property market in the north because they've bought equity up from London are simply people who have moved home. I didn't consider that enough, so I put my hands up and admit to it. I did base my OP on personal experiences I have of people who did happen to be London born and bred. So I apologise, I'm glad I started the thread because it's been interesting to think about it all. I do hate how this country is going though, and I wish there could be a solution that would ease the pressure in the wider country and London. I still think the equity tax is a potential thing that could contribute to improving the situation, nobody should see property as an investment. It's horrendous.

People have stated that many of the people who are able to do well in the property market in the north because they've bought equity up from London are simply people who have moved home

And you believe this why?

@Flaxmeadow Well, both are clearly very prevalent. The people who are now returning home went to London when it wasn't quite as ridiculous as it is now, and have made £££££ from the property boom and so now fancy coming home with all of that money and getting a nice cush house.

But, I still stand by what I originally made the thread about. There absolutely are people from London who also managed to buy in London back when it was still somewhat reasonable, made ££££ from the boom and now see the north as purely free fodder for a nice big house, which I still think is disgraceful.

Anyway, both demographics cause the same issues.

[quote thesecondnamegame]@Flaxmeadow Well, both are clearly very prevalent. The people who are now returning home went to London when it wasn't quite as ridiculous as it is now, and have made £££££ from the property boom and so now fancy coming home with all of that money and getting a nice cush house.

But, I still stand by what I originally made the thread about. There absolutely are people from London who also managed to buy in London back when it was still somewhat reasonable, made ££££ from the boom and now see the north as purely free fodder for a nice big house, which I still think is disgraceful.

Anyway, both demographics cause the same issues.[/quote]
Why is it 'disgraceful' to make a bit of money from property or is it only 'disgraceful' if you can't do it? I always thought it was normal, even desirable. People buy a little flat and struggle for a few years, maybe inherit along the way or start to earn more so can buy some thing bigger. When the kids are adult they downsize and help them purchase their own homes. Hopefully they will do the same for theirs.

Speaking as a South Londoner, surely no true South Londoner would move to Manchester, or anywhere else north of the river, unless there was truly no alternative?

@Egeegogxmv

successive gvts have failed to deal with our dysfunction housing market....that's why:(

IF you're so clever, what exactly do you expect the Government to do? Any Government for that matter?

It's just market forces surely.

Went to refuge from London and couldn't cope so went home and back to violent partner cos so frightened locals hating Londoners. Get told being paranoid and making excuses not to leave but I'm not and lost my voice literally when in refuge cos didn't want people to hear my accent so no way out cos no housing in London.

What a nasty thread. Migration to where jobs are is a normal part of life. Where I live (in London…) we have people from across the UK and beyond, and I’ve always seen that as a good thing.

@FaceyRomford

Speaking as a South Londoner, surely no true South Londoner would move to Manchester, or anywhere else north of the river, unless there was truly no alternative?

Ah yes, now we come to the other North - South divide. Those who think South of the river is effectively "here be dragons territory" due to the paucity of tube stops, versus those who know the wonders of Morley's.

Tealightsandd
Oh they know. But complain they will because they like to. Puffed up with spite and ignorant insularity, with more than a whiff of racism too. Londoners are 60% non white British, and I strongly suspect some of the hostility about Londoners moving to 'local' areas is about that.

I love the way London brags about being the most ethnically diverse UK city, when it's actually Birmingham

Parts of the North (urban pop about 12 million) are just as diverse as London. The racism isn't northerners, it's the opposite. Its Londoners. Just look at where the properties are being hoovered up by them in the north. It's never "a nice house with a garden" in Batley, Bradford or Rochdale they want is it? Why is that?

VashtaNerada
What a nasty thread. Migration to where jobs are is a normal part of life

What jobs? What houses? What Schools, hospitals, transport and infrastructure.

There are too many people. In London and in the North. England is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, if not the most. You can't move for people. The roads are jammed, supermarkets packed out all the time, empty shelves all the time, they can't restock fast enough. Queues for everything. No wonder covid has ripped through this country the way it has

@lonelyplanetmum

A load of Londoners came up after the BBC moved to Manchester.

As a Northerner turned Southerner who then became a Londoner I'm confused about this. One of the things that successive governments should have done is invested more in the North. So employers like the BBC moving up North is a good thing isn't it?

Pre Covid distractions I used to think it would be a good idea if Westminster relocated to a Northern city -at least whilst it was being refurbished. This would help with local employment and get MPs to focus on the difference. But relocation of employers like the BBC is no good if it causes local resentment.

On the Londoner point I also find it confusing. I was born up North but moved aged 6 and went to primary and secondary school in Sussex. Then worked in London until a couple of years ago when I moved back to a village 5 miles from where I went to school.
I actually heard people in one of the village club things referring to us as DFLs invading. ( Down from London). The people having that conversation were born and schooled in Kent and Austria and they knew I went to the local comp- unlike them !
Despite the fact I grew up 5 miles away and know the area better than either of them - I'm the one not allowed to be here as I left and moved to London previously before returning.

It did make me realise that if you live in London you are damned by many. I think it applies even if you don't profit on property prices.

I do wonder how long you have to live in London for the label to happen? Five years would make you a DFL. One year -you're probably still a DFL for ever? Six months? Eventually I decided a couple of months probably makes you a DFL. So now I proudly refer to myself as I Londoner even though I went to the local school here, and the others in the village didn't.

I think hostility to individuals who move from any different village, city ,county or country should be resisted. Blame governments for regional wealth inequality not those who have to move to avoid redundancy.

Yes, quite. As a Mancunian who moved the other way to London for work I'm finding the OP's opinions rather whingey and parochial.

^IF you're so clever, what exactly do you expect the Government to do? Any Government for that matter?

It's just market forces surely^

I expect the government to make policies and laws and run the country, and not just leave it to "market forces." They could build some fucking council houses for a start, to replace all the ones that were sold off in the 1980s and started off a housing boom.

I don't sleep with the stress and fear. So scared more scared he'll leave me homeless than kill me sometimes think. Wasn't allowed to work then got ill so trapped. Have to let him do what he wants to me injury rape whatever. Can never tell police lie say was accident if neighbours call and never will call them myself cos can't be homeless. If homeless my council puts you outside London cos no housing so too scared to ring police if emergency cos can't risk being moved to where horrible locals hate Londoners. Too scared. Refuges was some that didn't want Londoners some understand cos only money for locals but others I can tell how they don't want me as soon as I have to say from London they change in behaviour to me. In refuge got panic attacks cos of people not wanting outsider Londoner. Wanted to lie where I'm from but my accent can't hide it. Kno partly mental health have PTSD but fear of angry locals as bad as fear of him killing me and sometimes worse cos he'd do it quickly and so terrified of bad locals.sorry to post just so frightened of it all and feel hopeless and no way out.

This thread has been a wild ride! So people shouldn’t move house now, or shouldn’t be allowed to use their equity to buy a bigger house, or, or something? I’ve moved loads of times, into London and out of it, and to different countries, is that allowed?

And yet if I had stayed in my home town I would be able to afford a massive house as it’s cheap as chips there (NI)! I couldn’t get out of the place quick enough though, and now I have a lovely big house in Oz instead, but I’m guessing the OP wouldn’t approve of that at all.