What moment did you realise it was time to move out of London?

[Queeva]

Did you have a particular moment where you realised you'd fallen out of love with the city?

We live in North London zone 4 Greater London. House prices around here r not ridiculous by London standards and the area is nice enough. No turds in the front driveway to clear. DC in a sought-after state primary. Happy there. There is run through to secondary if we chose to stay. Secondary is also oversubscribed. We r minority ethnic group so the diversity in London helps. We hardly go into central. What works is tube, amenities, green spaces close by. If we were to move would be to larger house closer by in this area.

Agree though that Londoners r more on edge and less friendly. City is crowded, crime and traffic is a problem. In the last 6 months i have had my phone snatched and debit cards skimmed with money pilfered from my accounts. Never happened when we lived 10yrs in a town.

I left London 4 years ago having been born and brought up in Beckenham. Then lived in SW London zone 3 for 32 years.

I still miss it, but in many ways it’s the familiarity of what I’ve always known and if I’m honest a rose tinted view looking back on my youth and the fun I had. I was also fortunate to be able to buy my first flat at 28 without an onerous mortgage and move up the property ladder to a 3 bed house later on.

The key for me was so many friends moving out of London and reaching a more mature age not using the breadth of social activities that London offers in terms of restaurants, bars, theatre, cinema, galleries etc.

I was happy to move to a market town in Hampshire that still offers a lot but at a different pace. No way would I have been happy here younger as it’s so very different and I still struggle sometimes with the lack of familiarity of what I used to know.

I think you have to be very sure that London is over for you to make the move. Sometimes I still question my decision and feel a bit in limbo in that there are so many positives about where I live now but I don’t feel as I belong as much as I did in London. Another issue being that I’m not sure I would belong in London again now either as I’ve experienced a different way of life. Obviously the huge factor is it’s hard to go back financially if it’s a mistake. One piece of advice I would give to anyone is try before you buy if moving away and owning a property. Rent the London property out and rent in your preferred new location to see if it really works for you.

One other point about London is the amazing infrastructure. Trains, tube, huge bus routes that run regularly, taxis, Uber, easy walking routes etc.

It’s a different kettle of fish in a more rural community even in a large market town. Taxis are hugely expensive, buses are infrequent and often don’t run past school and work starting and leaving times so nothing in the middle of the day(!) finishing at 7pm. Trains are 2 an hour. You definitely use the car far more. You plan your journey more. And if commuting into London for work it’s seriously expensive. Depending on location can easily be £500 plus a month.

When I did want to leave London, one of the main things that was pushing me was not driving and having to take public transport everywhere, along with the constant public transport delays, crowds on tube and it basically taking forever to get anywhere. I used to long for just being able to hop in a car and drive anywhere I wanted without delays.

But then I did move briefly outside London, and I realised I'd totally forgotten how bad traffic can be when you're driving, what it's like to constantly be stuck in traffic jams and have it take forever to drive a distance that you could walk in 5 minutes, along with the hassle of constantly having to think of where to park and driving around for ages to find a parking space at times.

So I guess if something is really annoying you about London, don't assume it will be completely rosy elsewhere.

2014. We still love London. It was Labour's threat of a £2m property tax. We felt it sensible to ensure the value of our home was less than that.

I'd move back in a heartbeat, to a much smaller house.

I'm amazed people make such major lifestyle changes on the back of a policy proposal from a party that's not in power.

Surely the time to make such a decision is when Labour is in power and is still making serious moves towards such a system? That was the 2015 manifesto and, 8 years down the line, I haven't heard about a mansion tax for years.

Such a policy would only have presented a serious problem for those who were very asset rich with next to no income, to the point that affording repairs would have been impossible.

Do you regret your haste?

@IBetGordonRamsayDoesntHaveTheseProblems No, the proposed mansion tax was a catalyst for a life change as the DC were finishing school. Were you not surprised when Labour didn't win in 2015?

DH wanted the detached house, large garden, etc, that wasn't achievable in London. We didn't move far; about 12m, and are within about 100m of a London Borough.

I'm somewhat struggling to remember my feelings about the 2015 general election, but opinion polls at the time were a mixed bag which seem to come out collectively with the whole thing on a knife edge.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2015_United_Kingdom_general_election

Wanting more space etc - fair enough - I just couldn't imagine making that sort of change on the back of a manifesto pledge.

I'm in a line of work that politicians like to meddle with periodically. I've long since learned to ignore it until it becomes policy and an implementation date is announced. I can't imagine how much money and time we would have spent implementing policy proposals that came to nothing otherwise.

@IBetGordonRamsayDoesntHaveTheseProblems the problem with waiting for implementation dates, and had we done so over the Mansion Tax, was that everyone may have been selling at the same time and the market for £2m plus properties would have dropped like a stone. Hence the importance of taking calculated risks to stay ahead of the curve.

Happily we sold for xy; 8/9 years on the same houses are still selling for xy or not much more. The SW London Market hasn't moved very much since then at that level. The house we bought for about 30% of our sale value and renovated, has increased significantly notwithstanding the cost of renovations - it's everything we ever wanted and under the MT threshold in the event it ever returns. That might not be the case as the property market is likely to be in a state of collapse when Labour return to power.

I remember mansion tax being raised as a genuine concern on the debating agendas. However, there was no credible Labour candidate for this to transform into a real threat and Starmer has sufficiently distanced himself from those ideas for it to remain unlikely in the guise proposed at the time.

When there was a bomb threat on the tube and everyone was screaming and I was on my own and I didn't have signal to ring or text my mum to say goodbye

There was a gang related murder on my street (nice one in wimbledon) and also realising I very rarely ventured out of south west London anyway - so really my day to day life could have been in any upmarket town elsewhere, where I could also benefit from having the house of my dreams and be by the beach.

Depends very much on where you’ve lived in London too though. We left because I was pregnant with DC1 - we looked at bigger flats but in the end made the move out to the HC. I loved our time in London (12 years) but we always lived in lovely bits (IMVHO). Now the DC are getting older I feel like I’d like to move back in a few years but doubt we’d be able to afford to. Maybe another city.

Ha. About a year after I arrived! I was all excited for London life ... but found it ugly, dirty and expensive. And I'm a city girl! I toughed it out for 4 years total, then moved to Scotland. Have never missed it.

Few people I know had the same 'realisation' point. Sadly, it was being the victim of a crime.
There's just so many scumbags living and operating within London compared with most other towns/cities. And so many people are blind to it, until they're not.

Yes, I agree. People are generally more considerate and polite outside of London even the 'horrible' ones wouldn't hack it here. 😆

I’ve been here since I was 17, I’m now 36 and pregnant with my 3rd. Once my eldest started school I knew we wouldn’t stay here forever. He will be going into yr5 in September and we’re aiming to move in a years time

People are generally more considerate and polite outside of London

Controversially I find the rude Londoners to not be from London eg moved there from the home counties at 21

There are a few different groups of unpleasant Londoners including the one you mention.

For me never. I’ve always lived all
over London or on outskirts of London.

The only possible scenario where I’d move is further out from where I am now.

I did years ago consider moving to south coast when parents were buying a holiday flat there but it was mostly fresh start and new life and I honestly hadn’t thought it through! Now I know what I know I’m glad I didn’t do it.

My DB and his DW and DS over lockdown moved from a London flat to a rented cottage in SW England near a big city.

DB hated it for the fact he knew no one and no family near. His DW liked it for the fact they could live in a house with a garden.

They’re now looking at suburbs of SE London so potentially Beckenham but then maybe Honor Oak Park/Brockley etc for commute purposes.

Husband decided as he headed towards 50 he'd had enough of London and in particular living in a terraced house as neighbour noise annoyed him. I was not feeling the same way but was up for a change, having been in London all my life. So no big moment, more a rational decision to make a change. Mortgage free living was probably my biggest motivator, for DH it was more space, better access to countryside, and dog ownership! We were in a very pleasant area of North London so it was hard to leave. But on balance the right move.

My biggest fear about leaving is ending up in a nosey little community where the curtain twitchers turn me into a topic of gossip. One thing which London has going for it for sure is that you can generally be anonymous if that is what you want and most people who see you will not remember you five minutes later.

@Themsthebrakes but the ones born & raised tend to be very helpful & kind.

😆