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.

But this is exactly what's happened in London, people are being priced out. Don't blame them, blame gentrification.

This is not new my DM grew up in South Kensington in the 30's and 40's moved to Chiswick in the 50's because she couldn't afford South Ken, at the time she felt she was moving out of London. Im mid 50's and was bought up mainly in Richmond On Thames I simply couldn't afford to live there when I got married in the 80's so moved to SE London as it was at the time cheap as chips. I left friends family etc to move there. Eventually we moved out of London to Kent better schools cheaper house prices etc. 20 + years down the road I now live in rural Scotland similar reason we wanted a house by the sea, peace and quiet etc we loved Scotland and could buy a much bigger house than in England.
I don't consider myself a Londoner or Scottish or anything else for that matter if pushed I guess as much as Id like to say Im a European and I would have to say Im British.
I firmly believe boarders whether they be countries counties or those around towns and cites are created by man and reality are meaningless we're all part of one creaking groaning planet.

@Madcatgirl

The smug London’s are in my village too. We call them urban emigres. It’s priced most everyone who was born there out. We’re the other side of manchester, on the Derbyshire border. We see some of the celeb emigres describing their homes as in Derbyshire, nope it’s east manchester.

Returning the favour perhaps... After the 'smug Manchesters/Derbyshires' did it to London.

It’s priced most everyone who was born there out

Yep. Been happening in London for several decades.

Traffic goes two ways.

Unless you are the Duke of Westminster or one the other large landowners of the UK, you don't own the village, town, or city where you were born.

Freedom of movement works both ways.

You are being unreasonable of course

firmly believe boarders whether they be countries counties or those around towns and cites are created by man and reality are meaningless we're all part of one creaking groaning planet.

Yes. And we never seem to think about the animals. We humans have been pushing them out for a very long time. To the point of extinction.

Horrible humans forcing out the local animals.

It really is a problem actually.

Change the word London for Muslim, Jew or Eastern European and this would be a completely unacceptable post.

If your relatives who had bought have sold up, surely they would have made a tidy profit??

Londoner have the right to move where they want within the UK and your neighbours could be seen to be totally unscrupulous by having hiked up the prices to fleece said Londoners out of their hard earned cash.

I understand the annoyance but I don’t think you can’t really compare yourself to say seaside towns like Salcombe which have been destroyed by rich families buying second homes and, pricing lovas out of their own towns and then gutting the town of life by never living there or buying locally.

I don't consider myself a Londoner or Scottish or anything else for that matter if pushed I guess as much as Id like to say Im a European and I would have to say Im British.

I sometimes describe myself as human on forms (under the nationality section).

YABU. House prices are going mental everywhere and it isn't because Londoners are swanning in and buying them all it is because demand is massively outstripping supply. And because pensions and savings in bank accounts are largely obsolete, so people saving for their retirements are investing in property.

@sambaa

“Levelling up” needs to happen. I think I read the average house price in the U.K. is £250k or thereabouts? Where I live in London (a suburb that spans Zone 2 into Zone 3, so I’m not talking about Mayfair) that would buy a single garage in crap condition in an iffy alley. I know this as DH just bought a garage.

This kind of disparity is not sustainable and I’m surprised it’s persisted for so long, to be honest.

Tbh levelling down would be better.

Levelling up doesn't help London's 165,000 homeless. It simply creates more homeless across the country.

We need to buy and build lots of social housing. It gives everything we need. Affordability, stability, and freedom of movement.

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.

This isn’t exactly true for everyone and I’m not sure what a ‘London salary’ is in your eyes but I only earned 5k more than I do where I live now. I couldn’t save much in London (the only people I know who do couple up and live in tiny flats in dodgy areas to save money) and even though I had a 20k savings pot (not accrued in London) I still couldn’t have bought anything there. I bought a 3 bed house with a massive garden in a fairly nice (not ‘naive’) area in the midlands though.

I still agree that it sucks for you though and I wish more was done to make housing affordable for all and to keep areas diverse instead of segregated by wealth.

People can live where ever they want - what a awful post I'm surprised its been allowed. I'm wondering if there are racist undertones to this as well as Manchester is not as cosmopolitan as London. When places regenerate is needs people with more spending power to keep on that regeneration

@arithanaggerton

Buying schemes are a complete and utter scam and clearly a Tory distraction.

Hypothetical couple Steve and Jane are a 25 year old middle class working couple can now afford a new build family home in a semi-rural area with ridiculous prices because of Help to Buy. Good for them. How does that ease the pressure on the thousands stuck in temporary accommodation in the local city? Meanwhile hypothetical single parent Maria who is stuck in a 1 bed temporary accommodation flat with a baby and a toddler has to hear about how the housing crisis is being fixed just because the likes of Steve and Jane have managed to buy their nice family home because of a buying scheme. But what is being done for Maria and her children?

Steve and Jane of course, SHOULD be able to have housing that they can afford to buy. But shouldn't the priority at least first be housing people like Maria?

Yes this.

Also Maria's taxes (from her minimum wage job and VAT) go towards buying Steve and Jane's overpriced poorly constructed new build. The money should instead be used to help fund (genuinely) affordable well maintained social housing. Tax money should not be used to prop up the housing bubble and worsen the homelessness crisis.

@CarlaH

Well thats what happens when people moan that everything is based in London and job should be shared around the country.

💯

@korawick12345

I see you are one of the 'friendly' northerners that people from the north love to bang on about!

@housework1977

Wow what a chippy nasty small minded post. Tarring an entire city of people with the same brush because YOU can't afford to live in the "naive" part of Manchester! I assume we are talking about Didsbury. Seriously get over yourself. What about the huge amount of employment the BBC has brought to the area snd all the linked business and trade that goes along with that, improvements in infrastructure and so forth? Perhaps stop thinking about how hard done by you are and resenting random peoples good fortune, and think about the bigger picture and the many people who may well be less fortunate than you whose lives may have been improved by the changes.

Wholeheartedly agreed. I’m a northerner living in London

I feel sorry for the poor Londoners that have to move to Manchester

@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 imagine the Londoners would prefer the locals not to put prices up too?

[quote JassyRadlett]@sue20 Sorry I wasn’t clear, I was agreeing there was no particular kudos to being from London and most of the people the OP complains about who ‘love to make sure you know’ they’re from Londoner are probably innocently answering the question ‘so where have you moved from?’[/quote]
Oh cool, and good point.

Born and raised in central London and I’ll be leaving when I buy. Can’t afford to buy here. What are we supposed to do?

Not everyone who buys in London is privileged, I came to the UK as a child, we were poor, I went to university, but dropped out when my dad died and brother had mental illnesses. I’ve been working since I was 15. My house with DH is my only asset.

@shamelesschocaholic

I feel sorry for the poor Londoners that have to move to Manchester

Please don't. It is a wonderful place to live and most people are very welcoming. OP is a negligible percent of the population; ignore.

YABU why do you have to move if you already live there?

That’s good to hear, reading a lot of these posts is quite an eye opener. I live in Greater London and I’ve heard the jokes about southerners and northerners not liking each other. Always thought was just that, a joke but seems not.

I’d hate to move somewhere and think everyone hated me just for where I was born - like someone above said if you swapped a few words in OPs post it would be racist or homophobic!

I’m from Manchester originally and am desperate to know the town the OP is referring to.

I can’t trawl through all 38 pages!! It’s in Trafford I presume as she mentions grammar schools?

Sorry op but you sound very bitter and angry. Your solution with taxation is not feasible because it goes against citizenship rights. People in a country should be able to move wherever they please. What happens if someone has family some other city? If they want to marry with someone living somewhere else? Want to change job? Similarly, would you propose someone's house purchase is subsidised if they moved to a higher price area?
Also, your problem sounds like a class clash and a bit xenophobic...every city would have high, average, low earners, some who would be closer to your worldview, some not. I'd suggest befriending some Londeners even if you don't like the accents. You'll see you have something in common.