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.

Most Londoners leave because they can’t afford to buy property in their own home cities it’s not their fault they have to move somewhere cheaper. Sounds like you’re going to have to do what they’re doing and move somewhere cheaper too I just hope the locals don’t feel the same about you.

@Grilledaubergines

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.

Well put

YABVVVU. Why do you think London property prices are so high? It's because people have been moving here from other areas for decades, mainly for work. Is it only OK when Londoners are being disadvantaged?

I don't get this possessive 'my town stay out' attitude. I can understand second home buyers but when it is their main home and putting down roots. Why should I not move and settle in an area just because I wasn't born and bred there?

A lot in your example weren't given much choice either move or lose your job.

All of the problems you list are a result of piss poor planning by local and national govts, not the BBC employees.

@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.

As a northerner, that's total bollocks.

Which town - one in Salford (as you mention the BBC/Media City)? Or Didsbury?

@Honeycombskl

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.

Given that it seems there are now lots of jobs that can be done remotely there is nothing to stop the 'locals' from also accessing these jobs and therefore increasing their wages. Or are you suggesting that 'locals' are somehow entitled to benefit from a lower cost of living than others in the UK?

I can’t wait to sell my SE England house when my DC fly the nest and piss off back up north.

Born and raised Londoners have been priced out of living in London for years due to loads of people from the rest of the country coming here for work, and we've been told to put up with it because it's the fault of everything being so Londoncentric. Now there are moves to redress that, it's only natural that other areas are going to suffer similar problems. It's not the fault of people who are having to move themselves across the country to keep their jobs, it's the fault of successive governments for failing to ensure we have affordable housing.

Why have “relatives who previously bought had to leave”? Doesn’t make sense.

@Honeycombskl

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.

But the locals who are selling their houses to these people aren’t complaining that they are offering well in excess of the asking price. Your annoyance with the situation should rest equally with the sellers who are selling to such high bidders. They don’t have to sell to them. They could just as easily sell to local Mr and Mrs Blogs from down the road who offered what they could afford.

I’m sure the Spanish feel the same way about us inflating prices by retiring there.

The fact of the matter is, you don’t own Manchester!

Surely people can live where they want

I lived in a town where this happened when I was a teenager, the main problem was that anyone who had spent 5 minutes in London would consider themselves a londoner. Sepnd a lot of time informing everyone that they were in fact a londoner. Tell us small town folk about how we were small town folk, who had no experience of the world but they did because they were a londoner. How perfectly normal xyz in the town was quiant or cute. This small town is boring, not like london etc. If we ever did go to London, a londoner would have to show you how london worked. Particularly the tube. Even though you had been to london many many times and tbh the tube really isn't that difficult

School mums formed the london cliques and would only interact with other london mums. They would form london groups which would then commandeer town events. Tbf this did significantly improve town events which became much more upmarket affairs

I genuinely went to a gig where there was a group of people all chanting dfl at each other.

It made me, probably unreasonably, hate londoners. And assume anyone from London was a knob. I am sure it was probably because I was a teen/young adult and so everyone was just trying to prove they were cool, and the implications that I wasn't cool also stung more

People complain if everything is based in London
Exactly this. You can't win. Do people want things to be London-centric or do they want work/culture etc more spread across the UK? And where are people meant to go if their job moves? Or do you think they should take redundancy and the disadvantages that come with that, so 'outsiders' don't come to your town?

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 are you on about? I live in London but wasn't 'born and raised' here or go to uni here. Many London residents are the same. An awful lot of people like me moved (from shithole home towns/the sticks in my case) for work. Not to mention to live somewhere where people don't resent you because you haven't lived here since the year dot.

Half the kids in my kid's school's parents are from London and they love to make sure you know that. I don't really believe this, as someone else has said. Honestly, your whole post reeks of chip on your shoulder. I find it hard to have sympathy.

And to be fair my parents house is worth a lot more than it would have been, just I cant afford to buy there anymore

Just wanted to add that as a British person, I feel entitled to live wherever I want. I used to live overseas and got a lot of stick for being a foreigner. I won’t put up with that crap in my own country.

@Fauvist

YABVVVU. Why do you think London property prices are so high? It's because people have been moving here from other areas for decades, mainly for work. Is it only OK when Londoners are being disadvantaged?

Exactly! Yes of course it’s ok for Londoners to be at a disadvantage. Just don’t let it spread anywhere else.

I swear to God, the attitudes in here make me think people are studying The Daily Mail at night school.

Let’s just replace the “Londoners” with, oh I don’t know, Italians:-

“I think it’s outrageous that those smug Italians are coming to my love town and buying a home here”. How very “modern thinking” of you.

Maybe they are being priced out of London?

Also for familys on low income. People with housing issues are being moved by London councils to places such as Manchester.

It's a fucking cheek people complaining about 'Londoners' moving to a new area.

First, because most are not Londoners. They are people from your home towns, cities, and villages who moved to London - pricing out Londoners (rent as well as buy). They're simply moving out again, either back home or elsewhere.

Second, because priced out Londoners have to go somewhere. You don't get to move somewhere, price the locals out, then stamp your feet when the priced move in.

No one has been more priced out than Londoners. As if they want to move somewhere else, to be amongst insular hypocritical 'locals'.

You don't get to have double standards.
Traffic isn't one way.

People screamed for London's 'investment'. Well welcome to the reality.

It happens in London too. I grew up in a not so desirable area of North London which then became very desirable and I couldn't afford to bring my kids up near their grandparents. Happens everywhere

@WokeFest

I can’t wait to sell my SE England house when my DC fly the nest and piss off back up north.

Oh that’s a shame, sorry if you’ve been unhappy in the south east.

Jesus Christ. I’m so fucking sick of Londoners being blamed for everything. Half of the people coming to your area probably came from there originally anyway.

Why not crack on with your own life and stop focusing on what ‘Londoners’ are doing. I’m sure you’ll be far happier.

Even if all Londoners committed mass suicide and the city sank into the sea, the haters would still complain that ‘that London’ was in the news.

@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil

Jesus Christ. I’m so fucking sick of Londoners being blamed for everything. Half of the people coming to your area probably came from there originally anyway.

Why not crack on with your own life and stop focusing on what ‘Londoners’ are doing. I’m sure you’ll be far happier.

Even if all Londoners committed mass suicide and the city sank into the sea, the haters would still complain that ‘that London’ was in the news.

This made me laugh, it’s so true.