To feel slightly grumpy at people who have moved to my hometown and made the house prices shoot up

[Pollysoftheworld]

I’m not talking about immigrants.
I was born here. My grandparents grandparents met in the Victorian days in a theatre two miles from my house. Now I have to move out. I don’t recognise my local high street and I can’t afford to shop there. I don’t see how £6 sourdough is a social enterprise. I imagine it’s lovely if you’re used to much higher prices. But I miss my town the way it was.
I wonder if those moving here experienced similar in Brixton, Oxford, Cheltenham etc

My first job I moved from Lincolnshire to Islington, living in a hostel at The Angel. It was a very working class area, Chapel Market a typical street market as seen in Only Fools and Horses, is now a trendy makers/farmers market. Upper Street is full of trendy bars and restaurants. I remember the main restaurant being a Golden Egg. I caught a bus to work at 7.00am and the bus stops were full of working class people going to work either towards the city or West end, or the other direction towards Highbury and the East End. Now, where have all the workers gone? Where do the bar staff, shop staff, cleaners etc live? The property prices are etc watering. We lived for a time in the top half of a small 3 bed semi in Finsbury Park, we struggled to pay the rent, and could only do it by having 7 people live in the flat, but houses like that now cost well over a million pounds. It is crazy. Every house move we have made since the 70s has been further and further away from London. No way could we afford to move back.

I was priced out of my hometown about 30 years ago (about 40 miles from London). I guess the rest of the country is being affected in the same way now. Where I live now (100 miles from London) is the same.

Is Air BnB banned there?

I heard they have stopped allowing it in places in Europe that are at considerable risk of losing a large percentage of the indigenous population.

I think there ought to be controls on 2nd homes and tourist renting in such places if the burden on the resident population is so high

Exactly. That's why I dont want to move there.

I want to remain in my home city but apparently that's unreasonable and I should leave. Where? To Cornwall?!

You might have been born there but your parent moved there at some point, or their parents did etc. etc.
Point is they are no different to you. You have no more rights than them. You aren’t special just because you were born there.
The sheer hypocrisy of views like this always makes me laugh - get it all the time
on the local village fb group - people who moved here 20 years ago complaining about people moving to the area and “changing things”.

Op doesn't say they own their home though.

My hometown is london. Everyone I know has been priced out. A lucky few bought early but have now moved out as noone is left.

I have no problem with people moving to a place if theyre actually going to LIVE there. Second homes are a different thing. But people moving permanently for jobs or to escape the city or retire or whatever they choose is quite frankly fine.

What’s the alternative? The same people live in towns forever and there’s no growth? It would become empty and run down.

If you can't live there OP, you'll move to another, cheaper area and do the same to someone else.

I live in a place where people buy second homes they can holiday in/air b&b, even more infuriating.

Right? I didn't want to stay in my home town where the job opportunities were severly limited.

My hometown is a bit of a shit hole, no jobs, social problems, lack of investment, the jobs i actually wanted to do were not based there but house prices still £££. I moved to London the minute I turned 18. The problem is single adult occupancy and frankly an overcrowded population. Im buying atm and the prices are eye watering. The only answer is significant house building

YANBU. I felt quite sad reading once about people in Cornwall who have to leave because wealthy London people buy holiday homes. A lot of communities are being or have been lost. I think anyone from London will tell you that a lot of Londoners have similarly been forced out. All my Londoner friends had to leave when they had kids because only the rich, the childless or those with social housing can afford to live there.

I think the point made about Cornwall is that average wages are far less and due to it being more isolated it is harder to commute to work etc. Your work options are limited and locals can't afford to buy - also over the years second homers have priced locals out.

It is different in London as there are many many more careers available but still londoners (I am one) can't afford to buy and haven't been able to for years.

It can be annoying. My area has never been a desirable area but they've tried to extend a more desirable area into it which means the creeping edge of the area has priced most people from here out of it. It's not just about home ownership, it's also about things like mid-market rent cut-offs then being set higher than the average salary for example. The attitude of blaw-ins telling locals who deal with the hard edge of gentrification to just get over it is shitty.

Brixton certainly isn’t what it was at, say, the time of the Brixton riots in the 80s. Which is a good thing. But that might mean that some people now can’t afford to live in Brixton. Such is life. Things change. Adapt or die.

I couldn’t buy a house where I had my flat in London, so I moved. So what?

I'm from London and where I grew up is now totally unrecognisable and completely unaffordable. I've had to move to another city and have now become the people you're complaining about OP. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do? I can't afford to live in my hometown and wherever I move to I get blamed for pushing up house prices.

I'm conscious of supporting local businesses and I've made an effort to build connections with the local community rather than live in a bubble. Other than that, what can I do? I don't think it's fair I get the blame considering I'm not exactly winning here. I've got a massive bloody mortgage and live 2 and a half hours away from my family.

But it's also about people who have families and need a bigger home, or the opposite - older people who need to downsize having nowhere to go. Just point blank cutting people off from their communities with no empathy is a bit unnecessary.

I live in a relatively expensive area and housing costs make up a big portion of my outgoings, same with friends in the same area. Yet there also seems to be a huge amount of people living nearby who seem to spend most of their time vaping outside cafes and yelling into their phones. Not sure how they’ve managed to avoid the housing cost crisis given I’m not sure when they’re finding the time to work.

Due to DH being in the forces, every member of my family has been born in a different part of the country so only my youngest lives in the town he was born, where should we all live?

When I first left home I was priced out of my hometown, it's just one of those things and I feel privilaged to have grown up there. I dont feel like I should have had the right to stay. I now have a nice house in a nice suburb of a rough town but if our circumstances change we will move in a heartbeat. Everyone should have freedom of movement and the opportunity to improve their lot. When you move I'm sure your house will go to the highest bidder, because like those moving in, you will do what is best for your family.

Gentrification doesn't cause a loss of banks or clothes shops. Banks are closing everywhere because of digitalisation. Clothes and shoe shops are closing everywhere because of online shopping. What's an 'ordinary' butchers in 2025?

I think flipping houses causes many problems. It means the 'ordinary' person can't buy something cheaper to live in and do up while they live there. It means affordable properties are snapped up and sold at a higher price.

I think there should be a crackdown on this sort of thing.

I sympathise, but really this is just a fact of life. The wealthy buy up the nicest things and the less wealthy make do with what they reject. If you were born and bred in a nice place, that will include your home town. No point being grumpy with the people, it's wealth inequality that's to blame. Nothing that can be purchased is ring-fenced, and goes to the highest bidder.

So you move a bit a place you can afford, and the people of that town will say the same about you moving in and pushing up prices!
@YetAnotherNewNameAgainI used to flip houses. I took a run down unmodernised house and made it nice. Most of my buyers were first timers. They could have bought the house and done the work themselves but didn’t want to or weren’t able to. You can’t buy a bad house do it up then price it out if it’s area - people wont get a mortgage on it. There’s a cap to any area no matter how much you spend on it. So not sure that’s the issue.