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.

When you sell OP, will you be sure to specify your buyer must be local and not from “That London”? In doing so of course you’ll want to keep your sale price low for affordability.

Or were you planning to benefit financially from the “very specific bubble”

It’s rhetorical of course. We all know the answer.

Also, if you want to rebalance the economy and make London less of a centralised placefir jobs, culture everything then you need to accept people moving around the country!

Londoners have been putting up with this shit for decades!

@thesecondnamegame

You can't go on about "You wanted Northern investment so here it is", when the investment is going to very specific bubbles of Manchester and Liverpool. Perhaps if some investment was put in the likes of Preston or god forbid the north east, those areas would appeal more to those moving from the south east and would take some of house price and school place pressure off the likes of south Manchester.

So why don't you move to Preston and invest there? You are really deluded if you think Manchester is really the place of choice for people moving out of London! The Cotswolds, Cornwall as another pp said Edinburgh all have their own allure but I suspect those 'Londoners' coming to Manchester are either compelled to for work or are originally from the NW. Why would anyone trade in an amazing world city for a small parochial city with a terrible climate even if property is cheap.

I honestly really wouldn't have a problem if it was more equally spread out over Greater Manchester and the north as a whole. But it isn't. People are coming to very, very specific areas and creating London-lites. I admit my area doesn't help itself because it kept grammar schools, which I believe it what got it the attention.

my son is at Salford uni i blardly love Salford and great to see the once scruffy area benefiting from it

Though I suppose in this context, it did help itself by keeping the grammar schools.

@TiltTopTable

I understand the issue with being a ftb but why do your relatives who bought properties have to leave?

To make money, selling their house to Londoners.

The posters who continue to refer to 'the Londoners'.

At this point people who continue to falsely claim it's Londoners, when a huge proportion are NOT Londoners, are clearly just very hungry for biscuits.

Would you prefer London staff to be axed when companies move up north?

Ah I see, you don't specifically object to Londoners, you just object to people on good salaries.

Either you're deliberately missing my point or you're someone who's planning on or has moved to the highlands or a similar area on a wealthy salary and can't understand the impact that masses of people doing this at the same time, not working within the community but preventing those who do from staying or buying homes there, is having on these areas, or why it would bother people. As I said, people have always moved here from all over, including extremely wealthy ones, the issue is it is currently being done en-mass by people making big city wages, whilst not actually working within the local community and so forcing out those who do. These are not big busy places, homes and opportunities are limited. So many people doing this at the same time is seriously detrimental to these communities and those that live in them.

My mum lives in Cornwall and the influx just this last year has been crazy. Nobody minds where people are from but they do mind when the local mundic cottages that were worth £40K are now going for 8 times that! Also when people don't take time to settle into the pace of life and start whinging about the neighbour's chickens/church bells etc. Usually they last a year or two after finding out that Cornwall is like the UK was 30 years ago in terms of nightlife, shops and opening hours with gridlocked roads in summer and non-stop Cornish mizzle rain in winter and there isn't going to be much of the sea shanties down the pub with fishermen, sunshine and cream teas. I should point out that those who transplanted to Cornwall a couple of years ago are usually the most vociferous about 'incomers'.

small parochial city
Er, no not really.

@sadperson16

small parochial city Er, no not really.

iIn comparison with London = yes really!

@JaJaDD

I live in Greater Manchester. I think you are wrong to blame the BBC or Londoners, and I think you are wrong to think that any particular one area of Manchester is having its house prices pushed up! I was very surprised by someone guessing Ramsbottom- I’m guessing you’re Altrincham or Didsbury.

This is just the general tide of gentrification wand nothing to do with Londoners.
Didsbury was up and coming, then became too expensive so people spilled into Chorlton. Then chorlton got too expensive and it has spilled so large swathes of south Manchester are unaffordable.
I remember as a kid seeing men knock seven shades out of each other outside the Whalley Pub- then it got converted to £250k a piece flats not so long ago!
I grew up in south Manchester but could not afford to buy there- I bought a house in north Manchester. When we were viewing all the other young couples were also renting in south Manchester but couldn’t afford to buy there or had been continually gazumped.
Now the tide has spread and my house value has increased by 40% in 3 years...the affluent buy and the lower earners are pushed out.
Highly recommend watching Manctopia.

It was me. I am guessing OP is South Manchester- Didsbury way. However, have you seen the prices of Ramsbottom and some of the surrounding villages? A lot more expensive than South Manchester, 'prettier' areas, but obviously not as close a commute. Plus folk are moving Ramsbottom way from more central Manchester areas/Didsbury.

So now the Brexiteers have had their wishes, attention is turned to the bloody Londoners to “get back to where they come from” too

I don’t think there’s any problem with people within the U.K. moving around the country. It is what it is. It’s not their fault that house prices increase as a result. What I do have a problem with is people abroad buying properties in London, but then they barely visit, just using the house as an investment, with it lying empty most of the time.

They cheated by taking advantage of better house prices? Ridiculous.

It could easily be argued that you have benefited from accessible decently sized housing from the get go, whereas those on more southern areas have not, and have consequently had to move a lot over a longer period of time to afford a house of a desirable size.

You still haven't answered the question, OP – seeing as you're so riled by this, will you be taking a stance and refusing to sell to anyone moving north from London?

I believe she was referring to Preston as a parochial city, in which she'd kind of have a point (though not properly). Referring to Manchester as one would be utter stupidity as we have 10 boroughs.

@thesecondnamegame

I honestly really wouldn't have a problem if it was more equally spread out over Greater Manchester and the north as a whole. But it isn't. People are coming to very, very specific areas and creating London-lites. I admit my area doesn't help itself because it kept grammar schools, which I believe it what got it the attention.

London itself doesn’t have grammar schools, so you might be right but the Surrey, Kent etc additions do. You just have to wait for the ‘Satellite effect’ and eventually things will spread out more.

It happens too in the South East. Not sure why Manchester would be immune. People do sell too not just buy, so you might want to spread out your ire.

It’s offensive when Londoners get the blame when often it either isn’t born and bred Londoners who do rarely move but are ‘Londoners’ who were born elsewhere, such as the North etc.

@Honeycombskl

Ah I see, you don't specifically object to Londoners, you just object to people on good salaries.

Either you're deliberately missing my point or you're someone who's planning on or has moved to the highlands or a similar area on a wealthy salary and can't understand the impact that masses of people doing this at the same time, not working within the community but preventing those who do from staying or buying homes there, is having on these areas, or why it would bother people. As I said, people have always moved here from all over, including extremely wealthy ones, the issue is it is currently being done en-mass by people making big city wages, whilst not actually working within the local community and so forcing out those who do. These are not big busy places, homes and opportunities are limited. So many people doing this at the same time is seriously detrimental to these communities and those that live in them.

Honestly @Honeycombskl it's not the incomers who are to blame, it really is the greedy local sellers inflating their prices and seeing pound signs when they see Londoners.

It reminds me of those comedy sketches where the french hotelier turns the price board round when a coach load of brits arrive!

@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.

People born and bred in London have not been able to afford properties there for many many years. Welcome to the club

As for thinking people ' cheated' . For goodness sake how old are you? Since when has where you can afford to live ever had anything to do with fairness?
Humans have been forced by circumstances to moved to where they can have a better life for millennia and the people in the places they move to have probably complained about the ' newcomers' for just as long.

I assume as we have got rid of European ' supposed incomers', we can start complaining about Londoners. After all A lot of 'Londoners' aren't really English are they?,

The 'othering' going in in your op is absolutely astounding.

@thesecondnamegame

I believe she was referring to Preston as a parochial city, in which she'd kind of have a point (though not properly). Referring to Manchester as one would be utter stupidity as we have 10 boroughs.

Well if you have got 10 boroughs you must be twice the city the New York is! After all they only have 5 boroughs .

No, I was referring to Manchester as parochial, which it is in comparison with London or any other major world city.

The fact that several people on this thread have correctly pinpointed which GM town I am in pretty much proves that the northern investment isn't well distributed and has just inflated certain areas.

Blimey how many people do the BBC employ