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.

I can see it would be annoying.
I wonder how many people would love stable house prices? I would. I think a house should be a home and not a means of making a fortune.
I live in a very cheap part of the UK and I can see it starting here when it never has before. I bought my house 30 years ago and am happy with it.

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. They had the opportunity buy a shoebox in London, stay there while it builds equity for a year or 2, then sod off up to Manchester and buy a 4 bed semi-detached without batting an eyelid because it's "Oh so cheap compared to London!"

I bought a shoebox 1 bed in London, stayed there and the equity rose. I used that money to buy a 3 bed house out of London after I had a baby.

My choice was to bring up a child in a 1 bed flat (and not have any more children) or move out to a place where I could afford a family home. What would you have done?

Also, I know loads of people in London who are graduates but can't afford to get on the property ladder. The days that you could assume you've able to buy property in London on a graduate salary are long gone. There are schemes for "starter homes' where they cost £450k! Have you got the idea that everyone on London is rich or something?

They had the opportunity buy a shoebox in London, stay there while it builds equity for a year or 2, then sod off up to Manchester and buy a 4 bed semi-detached without batting an eyelid

It’s significantly harder to get on the property ladder in London.

As I've no doubt OP knows, no one has suffered from pricing out more than Londoners.

London is the capital of homelessness.

Two thirds of all UK families in temporary accommodation are in London.

That's the reality of the much resented 'investment' London gets.

People have been coming from all over to London for years. They don't get to go all insular when priced out Londoners move elsewhere. Not that most leaving London are Londoners. They're people from Manchester or Cornwall or Suffolk or wherever else moving back home or on to somewhere else.

If Sadiq Khan moved to Cornwall or Yorkshire or Manchester, most locals wouldn't consider him a Cornishman or Yorkshireman or Mancunian. They'd view him as a Londoner living in Cornwall, Yorkshire, or Manchester. If he then moved on somewhere else, they wouldn't see it as a Cornishman or Yorkshireman or Mancunian moving out.

No one owns their village or town or city.
And most certainly what's definitely the case is traffic cannot be one way only.

What do you think a solution is? Do you want to build up the regions and not have London as the wealth capital of the country. Or would you rather London continues to grow and thrive and the regions continue to falter and shrink in economy?

Yabu.

Londoners have been priced out of their home town. Where would you like them to live? Or do you think you’re superior to them.

I actually never believe it when people go on about Londoners telling you where they’re from etc etc, it’s bloody nonsense. Just another opportunity to bash people London and it’s tedious.

If you want to have a go, blame foreign investors, not people who believe it or not, OP, are pretty much the same as you, but are made unwelcome everywhere else other than their home in London.

All the “come here, we’re dead friendly” that you hear on mums etc. Not true, is it.

Aim your distaste elsewhere and stop looking down your noses at Londoners.

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

Do you know how completely out of touch you sound? Do you not understand how much poverty there is in London? You seem to think everyone is Dick Whittington.

Altrincham? Wilmslow?

@BirthdayCakeBelly

They had the opportunity buy a shoebox in London, stay there while it builds equity for a year or 2, then sod off up to Manchester and buy a 4 bed semi-detached without batting an eyelid

It’s significantly harder to get on the property ladder in London.

And huge numbers of Londoners are on low incomes or disabled. They struggle to even rent. Thanks to people from Manchester coming to London and pricing them out.

Altrincham?

I’m from London and want to stay. My grown up children can’t afford to rent, yet alone buy, in London, so they will have to move. Dh and I will probably follow them and help them buy their homes with the money we gain. I really pity young people who have parents who can’t afford to help them financially . Things are just not fair.

I think you’re in my town. You can’t buy 4 bed detacheds here for the same price as a shoebox in London. Houses here are really expensive (and have been for years). Londoners are not what’s wrong with the housing market.

We had to move out of London as we couldn't afford to buy even a studio anywhere within commuting distance. We are two public sector workers (doctor and teacher). I understand your frustration but your image of rich londoners doesn't apply to most. We received a London weighting in our salaries, yes, but it doesn't make up for the shortfall- our tiny 1 bed was £950pcm to rent, and public transport so expensive but so is keeping a car because of the parking permits. The people you should be angry with are the government for allowing these ridiculously inflated house prices everywhere and failing to invest in public services and amenities, especially in the North.

What do you expect people to do when their jobs move?

@thesecondnamegame

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. They had the opportunity buy a shoebox in London, stay there while it builds equity for a year or 2, then sod off up to Manchester and buy a 4 bed semi-detached without batting an eyelid because it's "Oh so cheap compared to London!" When lots of people are doing that it then unnaturally inflates the local house economy and so they all benefit even more. The issue is, it doesn't work the other way round. All that happens is house prices sky rocket and the locals have to leave so the town just becomes London away from London with the ridiculous house prices and pathetic school catchments to go with it.

How do you know they are all born and raised in London? It's far more likely they moved to the capital for work and are now moving back closer to family.

YAB massively U

What are people supposed to do? Stick with over-inflated prices in a London they can't afford so you can buy cheap?

Good on them if they make the most of relocating. They are just as entitled as you are to have a decent size house.

All my relatives who bought properties or private rented have had to leave,
An increase in the market has no effect whatsoever on an existing mortgage or property, why did they have to "leave"?

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

Thousands of graduates from all over the country come to london every year, that in turn puts demand for rent etc up which helps push house prices up! As another poster said most of those moving out of London are not Londoners they are mainly people who came to London after uni and are now heading back to the areas they came from. I don't know a single person from London who has moved out to somewhere like Manchester voluntarily unless they had to for work.

Happening in an area near me too. Nothing to do with the BBC.

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

What, to be from the capital of homelessness - so no chance of social housing if they get ill or are disabled or single parent and/or in a low income job. Yeah ok. How about you swapsies with one of them, if you think it's so great. You too could be in a deprived estate surrounded by gang crime or a falling apart HMO or on the streets.

From what I’ve seen the majority of mumsnetters are all for the freedom of movement around Europe. But unable to cope with it in the country they live in.

Perhaps if no one from the rest of the UK comes to London, demand for housing will decrease, snd prices will drop. Works both ways. Yet (and I’ll speak for the Londoners I know, as I’m born and bred) we’d hate that. What makes it a great city is the fact that anyone is welcome. Do I want to work with only Londoners? Or have only Londoner neighbours? Do I duck. My neighbours are Welsh and Irish and I love that. I work with people from all over the UK who have made their homes here. I don’t want them to go back to their home towns. And it’s fucking did appointing that parts of the UK are so unwelcoming. Any, that was a digression.

Oh and to add, neither of us are 'Londoners' - we grew up in the North too but went to London after uni. Hardly any of my 'London' friends are actually from London, they came there for the opportunities and to enjoy the capital. By your logic, should we have all stayed home and left the jobs amd craic for the Londoners?

*disappointing

I guess you’re against migration in general then?! F*#! anyone who moves out of their hometown, right?

It's not just a London thing. Since lock down ended we've had a mass exodus up to the Scottish Highlands and Moray of people who have sold in really wealthy parts of the south of England who want to 'live the Highland dream' or 'escape the rat race'. They can pay way over the asking price of homes and can now work from home, earning wages far far higher than most locals, and are buying up properties without even coming to view them. Locals literally aren't getting a look in and are having to move away and it's causing real resentment. I get that people can move and live wherever they like but surely it's got to be understandable that people are going to get fed up of it when they can't get a home where there family are or where they have lived for most/all their lives, where their kids go to school and where they work.

The other thing that doesn't help is "new build executive homes" going up, all squashed together, with the cheapest semi-detached ones costing about £350,000.

It just means that the houses that were built in the 70s or 80s with more space and bigger gardens are now being put on the market for £600,000+. They're perfectly nice, but not that nice!