Guardian: Record proportion of Londoners selling up to move north

[rantnrave]

Record proportion of Londoners selling up to move north

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/aug/27/londoners-selling-up-in-record-numbers-to-move-north

Hamptons International says relocations have trebled since 2010, with buyers drawn by bigger, cheaper houses

A record proportion of London homeowners are selling up to buy cheaper property in the north and Midlands, using profits made in the capital to splurge on bigger homes.

Research by agents Hamptons International found the proportion of Londoners leaving the capital for northern England or the Midlands had tripled since 2010.

The average Londoner quitting the capital pays £424,610 for their new property, enough to buy a large detached house in a good suburb of Birmingham but which only pays for a two-bed flat above a shop in east London.

Aneisha Beveridge, research analyst at Hamptons, said: “With affordability stretched, more Londoners are moving out of the capital to find their new home.”

Many London leavers were looking for a bigger home or better local schools, Hamptons said. Beveridge added that hefty stamp duty charges were also pushing second-movers out of the capital. “More people are making a bigger move and buying a larger home sooner to avoid having to pay stamp duty on additional moves as they trade up. For many, this means heading further north.”

The average stamp duty bill for buying a detached home in the south is £14,780, compared with £5,358 in the north, Hamptons said.

But the absolute number of London leavers will strike many as surprisingly low. Hamptons said 30,280 Londoners sold their homes in the first half of 2018 to move out of the capital, a rise of 16% over the same period last year but below the level of 2007 and just a tiny fraction of the city’s 8.8 million population.

Most Londoners selling up move to the home counties, but the proportion going further afield has risen markedly in recent years. In 2008 one in 17 headed to the north or Midlands, but now the figure is one in five.

Some local housing markets are deluged by London buyers flush with cash from the capital’s superheated property market. Hamptons said in Bath and north-east Somerset 42% of all homes in the first half of 2018 were bought by Londoners.

Hamptons said the typical London leaver buying in the south-west of England paid nearly £550,000 for a home. It said moves to the south-west were not just about retirement, with evidence that many people are commuting long-distance back to the capital, often staying in London for a few days a week.

Other locations that have had a surge in London buyers include east Dorset, where 25% of homes were sold to ex-Londoners, and Leicester, where one in 10 homes were sold to Londoners in the first half of 2018.

In some towns, such as Hastings, the surge in Londoners is blamed for pushing up prices to levels that local residents cannot afford and creating gentrified enclaves.

Hamptons also looked at first-time buyer patterns. It found that one in three young adults living in London were unable to make their first property purchase in the city. Hamptons said that in the first half of 2018, 31% of first-time buyers living in London ended up buying outside the capital – almost double the proportion in 2013 (16%).

However, that was a slight improvement on last year, with the help-to-buy scheme assisting some purchasers. “But even though more Londoners are buying their first home in the capital than last year, more are being priced out of the south altogether,” Hamptons said.

Separate data released on Monday by Hometrack underlines the gulf between property prices in the capital and the rest of the country. It found that while prices in Belfast, Liverpool and Aberdeen remain below the level they were a decade ago, in London and Cambridge they are more than 65% higher.

It found that house prices in a quarter of the UK’s largest cities are struggling to recover to their level at the height of the financial crisis, with Belfast worst hit. Prices there are still 28% below the level of 2008.

In Liverpool, average prices are 1% below where they were a decade ago, while in Glasgow they are just 1% higher (£121,940) and 3% ahead in Newcastle (£128,641).

In contrast, homeowners in Cambridge have seen the value of their properties rocket by 70% on average, to £432,410.

Richard Donnell of Hometrack, said: “The fact house prices in some of our biggest cities are still recovering from the financial crisis shows how big an impact it had on the UK’s regional housing markets.

“While 2008 was the year when house prices fell at their fastest rate, they continued to fall for a further three to four years in the weaker performing markets as the impact of the recession and restricted credit availability hit the value of people’s homes.”

[Habeas Domus]

the proportion of Londoners leaving the capital for northern England or the Midlands had tripled since 2010

As seems to be increasingly the norm with crappy journalists, theres no source data and no explanation of these seemingly random criteria, what about the proportion of Londoners leaving the capital for Somerset  or Devon or Cornwall or France or Spain, when you cherry pick one statistic out of the air the result becomes meaningless.

[Drummer]

It makes total sense for Londoners to cash in on the boom.

Life outside London can be ok yer know.

 

[Captain Kirk]

35 minutes ago, rantnrave said:

It found that house prices in a quarter of the UK’s largest cities are struggling to recover to their level at the height of the financial crisis, with Belfast worst hit. Prices there are still 28% below the level of 2008.

Isn't HPI mentality infuriating? Recovering should mean going back to 3.5 times average wages not achieving the peak of the previous insane bubble.

[Wayward]

Do people really pay £425k for a 2 bed flat above a shop..? Why would you?

[GeneCernan]

7 minutes ago, Wayward said:

Do people really pay £425k for a 2 bed flat above a shop..? Why would you?

Because:

A - You can
B - You believe that next year someone will give you £475k for it
C - Renting is dead money innit?

[Wayward]

6 minutes ago, GeneCernan said:

Because:

A - You can
B - You believe that next year someone will give you £475k for it
C - Renting is dead money innit?

People have lost all perspective...it is London...its a dump..it is not long ago when few people  wanted to live there and the population was falling year on year as folk tried to get out. It cyclical...it's going to fall hard when it reverts to a rational analysis...

[btd1981]

9 hours ago, Wayward said:

Do people really pay £425k for a 2 bed flat above a shop..? Why would you?

Dependent upon the type of shop, it can be okay. A shop is a fairly good neighbour to have: only present while you're out at work. No noisy party action at night. Not for that money though.

[spyguy]

Mustbe another desperate press release by an EA to try recreate tgh market of 5 years ago.

Round my parts, the flow of cokekrnays stopped a good 4 years ago. There were a good few arrriving from 2004ish to 2010ish.

Afaict its dead now.

Hardly surprising as the peak 'Lets leave London and escape the stabby ethnics ' tends to be ages 30-40. Todays 30-40  will have been renting.

[jiltedjen]

23 minutes ago, spyguy said:

 

Hardly surprising as the peak 'Lets leave London and escape the stabby ethnics ' tends to be ages 30-40. Todays 30-40  will have been renting.

bit racist mate

But the part about modern day 30-40's is very very true. The supply of those who made big money and then move away flush, well thats dried up.

Im 30ish and all my london mates who have been there several years are moving home with parents without a penny to rub between them, and that's with london wages.  Expensive rents have destroyed them, HPI is a one trick pony. 

[spyguy]

5 minutes ago, jiltedjen said:

bit racist mate

But the part about modern day 30-40's is very very true. The supply of those who made big money and then move away flush, well thats dried up.

Im 30ish and all my london mates who have been there several years are moving home with parents without a penny to rub between them, and that's with london wages.  Expensive rents have destroyed them, HPI is a one trick pony. 

Im just quoting the most quoted reason for leaving given to me.

[jiltedjen]

1 minute ago, spyguy said:

Im just quoting the most quoted reason for leaving given to me.

funnily enough one of my friends had her phone mugged from her 3 times, and then the love affair with London was over. 

The T.V makes it sound like crime is massive in London. It cant be that bad can it?

[spyguy]

27 minutes ago, jiltedjen said:

funnily enough one of my friends had her phone mugged from her 3 times, and then the love affair with London was over. 

The T.V makes it sound like crime is massive in London. It cant be that bad can it?

I think it is. Annoying ott nicking stuff with knives and threats of violence is higher than any other area.

The london leavers reasons have been pretty consistent - multiculture i.e. foreign benefit claiment no longer is cute whn their kids the only native english speaker at school and the gps clogged with visiting relatives.

[adarmo]

If by record they mean the highest number since 2007.... love the guardian. Sensationalist nonsense from a rag going to the wall. 

What's the net number of people moving?

Is there a net outflow from London?

If so but net migration to uk is positive then even if the London bubble pops it would surely just infect the new attractive places to relocate to. 

Or maybe I'm being cynical. ...

[spyguy]

Well report is just not credible --- people moving to Hastings....  yeah right.

[zugzwang]

There are no good suburbs of Birmingham.

Soilhull murders mother daughter stabbed to death in street

[winkie]

London is very competitive, people are in competion with the large chains and big corporates... any entrepreneur will have a better chance of making a viable business work outside of London.... more local, decentralised, less rent to pay.... Still plenty of money about, perhaps it is realised London property money or pension money that is itching to be spent? 

[longgone]

14 hours ago, Wayward said:

Do people really pay £425k for a 2 bed flat above a shop..? Why would you?

425k is a bargain 

 

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74773160.html 

[longgone]

4 hours ago, jiltedjen said:

bit racist mate

But the part about modern day 30-40's is very very true. The supply of those who made big money and then move away flush, well thats dried up.

Im 30ish and all my london mates who have been there several years are moving home with parents without a penny to rub between them, and that's with london wages.  Expensive rents have destroyed them, HPI is a one trick pony. 

no doubt all superior degree educated people.  

[Wayward]

5 hours ago, btd1981 said:

Dependent upon the type of shop, it can be okay. A shop is a fairly good neighbour to have: only present while you're out at work. No noisy party action at night. Not for that money though.

Maybe but they change hands, one month a quiet florist next month a kebab shop.

[Errol]

The North is considerably colder (around 3-4 degrees lower the whole year) and it rains more. 

[winkie]

37 minutes ago, Errol said:

The North is considerably colder (around 3-4 degrees lower the whole year) and it rains more. 

Don't disrespect water, it is a very important life giving  commodity.... along with good growing climate, fertile land... 

[ccc]

1 hour ago, longgone said:

425k is a bargain 

 

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74773160.html 

****** me and that's not even in London 

[iamnumerate]

1 hour ago, longgone said:

425k is a bargain 

 

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74773160.html 

In Surbitton why?  Unless you are a die hard "The Good life fan", why.

 

1 hour ago, Errol said:

The North is considerably colder (around 3-4 degrees lower the whole year) and it rains more. 

Good point, although in the recent heatwave that would have been a plus.

 

What I think is weird, is that if you suggest that people who live in London and don't work should be given housing somewhere else, people say "Awful, bad for families etc"

However people who work moving (and in some cases paying less tax etc) is fine.

[longgone]

8 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

In Surbitton why?  Unless you are a die hard "The Good life fan", why.

 

Good point, although in the recent heatwave that would have been a plus.

 

What I think is weird, is that if you suggest that people who live in London and don't work should be given housing somewhere else, people say "Awful, bad for families etc"

However people who work moving (and in some cases paying less tax etc) is fine.

why any where above shop 

prices like that i don`t even look anymore.