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

It’s called gentrification.

In my suburb the old 1950’s houses are being demolished to built two story cubes.

There are families living in townhouses without backyards because that is all they can afford.

I can’t wait to move somewhere pretty when I retire. Having spent my entire adult life in some sort of housing compromise to afford to live in London/SE.

Im sure some people think that being from the SE means you’re born with some sort of financial advantage rather than having always had to struggle to afford to live here. People I know up north have amazing family homes compared to my little terrace on a main road.

I shall sell my little house and move to the countryside and finally get that sunny garden. My turn!

Yes you would. It’s doesn’t matter your job there is w salary cap dependent on borough. Maybe it’s different outside of London. It doesn’t hurt to try to get on the list in your area better to be told no rather than assume and never do it.

Perhaps you could ask the locals to be more selective about who they sell to?
It is of course a shame, but a lot of those incomers will have moved precisely because the same happened to where they are from. Or because they had no choice but to follow the jobs.

Exactly! We are witnessing so much change, quite quickly, we are allowed to feel a bit grumpy and sad. Londoners have a terrible situation, their children can’t afford to leave home, don’t know where to go..everywhere in london orbit is expensive…employment is here, but public transport doesn’t work properly anymore and everywhere is absurdly crowded.

I grew up in a shitty town. Why should I not move somewhere nicer if I can afford it? Also depends where there are jobs available in my quite specific industry. I don't think people should be allowed to buy second homes which I agree does push up house prices to the detriment of the local community but people need to be able to move around if they want to.

I am from London and it does make me sad to see how much my neighbourhood has changed. It has now been really built up and renovated and is full of tourists who block the streets in huge groups and are usually really rude. New luxury complexes being built all over with no personality. People born here having to move out due to the price.

I know it sounds moany but yeah it is a bit sad.

My local area (not quite but nearly Cornwall) is being blanketed in new housing, making it a lot less desirable - even for those of us used to the low wages, seasonal jobs, lack of services, educational opportunities, etc. - we were poor but happy.

And, this might be a new phenomena, the developers are having difficulty selling them. About blinking time I say. It's not the only desirable place to live and really who wants to throw their good money at a property just so they can live in a building site for years to come.

The Shared Ownership properties are wildly overpriced with undetailed additional monthly/annual fee details. I've been checking as I want to downsize and be mortgage free as I creep to state pension age but not on your nelly at those prices.

The only solution I can think of is that these selling prices come down. I want to move within a year or so and to date all I can find in my price range is next door in Cornwall or Wales. But I'd feel like an invader of sorts.

And don't get me started on the second home next door - it's just an unremarkable little terraced house in one of the cheapest areas to live and quite frankly they should be embarassed; it's hardly a place that you'd be proud to entertain your friends and family in, showing off your second home. They probably are embarassed as their visits are very far and few between and hopefully they feel a bit shafted as they're now paying double council tax, utility standing charges and maintenance for a house they rarely visit.

And yes, it's really shocking what's happened to London too - I was a frequent visitor in the 70s and 80s when there were areas that were 'rough and ready' that anyone could move to, not now. Not at all.

We live in village on the outskirts of a very touristy city in the north of England. Literally yesterday there was an article on our bbc regional news page about exactly this happening in our city, and families not being able to afford to live in their local neighbourhood, but apparently students are ‘to blame’ here. 🤷🏼‍♀️🙄

I grew up about 40 miles away in a coastal town, but went to uni elsewhere and then never moved back due to a lack of jobs. My DH did similar from another touristy part of the north. Since we met, we’ve lived in a number of places: thriving cities, post industrial towns needing investment, and then due to work, have ended up here, in York, which has high housing costs for the north of England. neither of us are from here, but we’ve never been made to feel unwelcome or like we shouldn’t be here, apart from very rare occasions on the village facebook group, which is a world all of its own! We contribute to the local economy, we work locally, our kids were born here and go to local schools.

I remember as a kid adults talking about ‘in comers’ pushing prices up etc - I’m in my late 40s now, so this isn’t a new thing. And as others have said, unless the govt or local councils intervene (like they have near here by doubling council tax on second properties) to make provisions for young local people to buy, sellers are nearly always going to sell to the buyer who makes the biggest offer. It’s the way of the world unfortunately.

So what? as long as someone has the right to live in the UK they can choose to live wherever they want.

Surely you can see why towns and villages should not only be populated only by people who were born in situ? new comers bring new skills/ideas/money and frankly inbreeding is not the way to go when it comes to the human race...

This is the odd thing, I knew a Cornishman who spent every minute complaining that locals are priced out of housing in Cornwall... meanwhile he was quite happily buying a house near me and pricing locals out where I live.

Everyone moves around, desirable places will always be expensive, cheap places always exist but no one wants to live there.

The irony is that you will move out to a more affordable suburb, contribute to pushing up the prices there, and in a few months time the people of that village will be on here moaning that people like you are moving out of the city to their more affordable area and pushing up their prices.

It’s a sad fact of life, happens all over the world. We don’t have a right to live somewhere just because we grew up there. You can’t cap house prices, unfortunately other people have more money than us and can afford things that we cannot afford.

This can be a thing. When we were selling my mum and dad's house in Cornwall, not far from where we live, we instructed the estate agent to only sell to someone who was going to live in it permanently. In fact they turned out to be people from a neighbouring town who were also 'local'. Though it was the permanent residence thing that I focussed on.
Now, I know buyers can say anything to get hold of the property they want. ut i felt it was an important first step for me to make.

I live in an area where Londoners often move to. In all fairness I have no sympathy. They don’t move to 3 bed semis. They buy up the fancy flash houses. They use their London profits to out price the locals and live in swish houses. This isn’t about survival.

Housing is an extremely complex issue but I believe that a strategic forward thinking government policy to partially mitigate these issues would have made a huge difference.

There is a middle way and a balance to be struck. Wealthier people should be encouraged in to tourist areas to provide income and employment. But alongside that should be a strongly protected housing scheme for locals who live on a minimum wage and work in the area. Also for people who provide essential services like fire-fighters and nurses.

Unfortunately, we have had a series of governments which have allowed what is good for the individual to take precedence over what is best for the collective good of a community.

We don’t want over legislation to stifle enterprise and trade, but neither do we want more and more people living under the poverty line with no prospect of buying or even renting a home.

Our current situation in the UK is what happens when we abandon centrist, middle to left of centre politics. Who allowed this to happen? I’m afraid that we the electorate must take some responsibility. But we have also been hugely let down by the quality of our politicians and our antique political system.

Well the new mortgage lending rules being touted at the moment are only going to add fuel to the fire.

I think the problem is that there simply isn't enough housing in desirable areas to accommodate the rich, the essential workers, those on NMW and then everyone else. Building more housing often ruins the area completely and we seen countless people complaining about this too.

Government protections tend to focus on key workers but also the poor through SH. It is those in the middle that often feel frustrated and annoyed. They are sometimes subsidising those poorer than then to live in desirable areas that they could never afford themselves. This is inherently unfair and I can see why anger and resentment is rife.

I also feel like lots of local people want to have their cake and to eat it. I live in a tourist area and many people work in the sector or rely on it in some way for their business (e.g. tradespeople looking after holiday/second homes for a large part of their income, farms with cafes serving tourists and providing camping as a secondary income etc). Ultimately we need tourists here to keep the local economy going, even parts of it that you don't automatically associated with leisure and tourism. These tourists often want to stay in holiday homes and the more you have available in the area, the more tourists we can attract. Local people though don't want the holiday lets and want all housing used for locals, completely forgetting that this will condem their business and also the local high street, lots of the local amenities and transport links etc. Ultimately if the place was filled with low paid locals and fewer tourists then there would be far less money spent in the area and we would be heavily dependent as an area on the government to subsidise everything. Far fewer people would have work and the local economy would be massively detrimented. Young people may be guaranteed housing but would have few local job prospects and very little to do without the amenities we currently enjoy. Basically I think people need to be very careful about what they wish for.

Where are you ? Slough ? Hastings?

There was such a thing as 'key worker' status to bump you up the social housing lists or buy certain new houses at discounted rates at least 20 years ago. I know because my non-essential civil servant dsis took advantage of this scheme to get her social housing.whilst hiding the proceeds from her house sale with our dm.

Sadly, other truly key workers such as those working in supermarkets and collecting our rubbish and recycling weren't considered as essential. I think this 'scheme' for the new houses at least has ceased, mostly because of lack of interest from the 'section' of workers it was thought needed it.

Maybe in the post-covid world, where the low-paid work of the poeple working in our supermarkets, care homes and who clean our streets are more recognised as 'key workers' - the Key Worker Scheme could be re-introduced on top of any other 'new ideas' that get our people housed in decent, affordable to them, homes.

I'm sure that idea would tick a lot of boxes with our current govt if anyone here has their 'ear'.

Exactly. They never move to the shite areas of the north and gentrify it, it’s always to Harrogate or York which then pushes out the locals. These places just become middle class enclaves of braying southerners WFH and banging on about ‘moving for the better quality of life and never looking back’. I was on Reddit the other day and an ex Londoner was going on about moving to the Lakes and how cheap it was, well of course, when you’ve made so much equity on your shabby terrace in Primrose Hill, the world’s your oyster. Maybe what we need is an influx of UFLs to places like Rochdale or Bolton and then we‘ll get our artisan cafes and bakeries 😂

Houses sell for what people are willing to pay. You can buy cheaply or at least cheaper in many places but a combination of lack of opportunities there, historic reputation, and pure snobbery means they are not desired. The NE is full of property bargains, if you work from home you certainly can consider a move up there, and it’s really nice despite the reputation, lovely friendly people and things are cheaper all around.

Not just the NE there’s reasonable properties in the West Midlands and even Somerset has some decent ones which can be affordable for a couple both on minimum wage.

But not immigrants? Why not immigrants?

@Pollyanna87but they’re not coming straight into our city and buying the best houses/ overpaying for houses, they also are more likely to support local businesses.

I was born and bred in North London and moved out so I could afford to buy. Most of my family still live there and it does make me sad.

Yep and then push the house prices up there so local people can't afford to buy and so move further out and so the cycle continues. The ability to work from home but with a London salary has massively increased house prices where I have always lived and meant that the I've recently had to buy (1st time buyer) 10 miles away where I don't know anyone. Hearing people banging on about "snapping up a bargain" "up north" is very irritating in my circumstances.