Steep rise in Londoners moving up north

Penna

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Why do people always talk about the North, South or West (Wales)? What's in the east? Seems like a complete wasteland.
It's lovely. Norfolk is beautiful, and the weather's good, too. Much drier than the west. We lived there for a while and I worked at King's Lynn hospital, I really enjoyed our time in Norfolk.

edit - but it's not cheap. We were renting, couldn't afford to buy anything decent there now.
 
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Vidic_In_Moscow

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I'll be doing the same soon enough. London/Kent/Essex are full of awful people. Not going too mad though. Suffolk, Norfolk or Cambridgeshire will do me. Cant wait.
 

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You folk don't know the meaning of North
 

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Why do people always talk about the North, South or West (Wales)? What's in the east? Seems like a complete wasteland.
Because its shit.

It's basically London, without the diversity of people, food and cultures and without the niceness of northerners.

Basically a bunch of stuck up southerners, paying high prices still.
 

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Why do people always talk about the North, South or West (Wales)? What's in the east? Seems like a complete wasteland.
Yorkshire, the forgotten lands. Also no one has ever been to the north east because it's an expedition that's more time consuming and expensive than Everest.
 

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I assume most people move to London for jobs but it feels to me like that's gotten a bit shit over the past few years. I planned on moving there after finishing my master's degree (actually did for 4 months while looking for a job) and ended up in a position in the Midlands on about £10k higher than any London company wanted to offer.

Do I love living here? No but I prefer walking to work than ever stepping foot on the tube - that really saps your soul.

Granted London still has a feck ton of industry that you don't get elsewhere - especially in digital/tech/finance - but I know quite a few people who feel they'd rather compromise on career goals for a better work/life balance.
 

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We're planning on doing just this very soon albeit from the SE and not London.

The better weather is really the only thing I'll miss. London is great to have on your door step but a train from the north is hardly that much of a slog.
 

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If moving to Newcastle improves your quality of life, it must have been really shit where you lived before.
Great city. Cheap, lots to do, cracking golf courses and a short drive from the Northumberland coast.

The further south you go the shitter the country becomes.
 

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It's hard to put my finger on why I don't sell up and move north now.
I've made a fortune by living in and doing up houses for the last twenty years.

The property market in London basically means your house doubles in value every 10 years. With some home improvements you can make some serious money. Londoners used to move to the west country but whole villages have been bought up now and they are looking to move elsewhere now. Cheap property in the north fits the bill so I suspect you'll see a lot more now.
 

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It's hard to put my finger on why I don't sell up and move north now.
I've made a fortune by living in and doing up houses for the last twenty years.

The property market in London basically means your house doubles in value every 10 years. With some home improvements you can make some serious money. Londoners used to move to the west country but whole villages have been bought up now and they are looking to move elsewhere now. Cheap property in the north fits the bill so I suspect you'll see a lot more now.

Do you have any opinion on good areas for future investment? Got a friend who wants to buy a few rentals but I don't think it's a good idea, particularly in the south-east with the penalties that landlords suffer these days. Margins are just too tight.
 

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I've known dozens of people that have moved north from London over the years, it's been going on for decades. Can't think of any that moved back.

London's fine if you're earning three times the average wage or more, but any Londoners earning less would be much better off leaving, with more leisure time, a better quality of life and better housing. I'm not counting young people who live there a year or two for the fun, London is good for that, but then again a lot of the northern cities are too.
 

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It's hard to put my finger on why I don't sell up and move north now.
I've made a fortune by living in and doing up houses for the last twenty years.

The property market in London basically means your house doubles in value every 10 years. With some home improvements you can make some serious money. Londoners used to move to the west country but whole villages have been bought up now and they are looking to move elsewhere now. Cheap property in the north fits the bill so I suspect you'll see a lot more now.
Yay! All come up north and feck up our property market too
 

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Yay! All come up north and feck up our property market too
It's already happening. Loads of foreign investment towers going up in Manchester. I'd estimate that now HS2 has been confirmed there will be a property boom in central and wider birmingham too as it will really be part of the London counter belt once HS2 is on the tracks.
 

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It's already happening. Loads of foreign investment towers going up in Manchester. I'd estimate that now HS2 has been confirmed there will be a property boom in central and wider birmingham too as it will really be part of the London counter belt once HS2 is on the tracks.
True. Currently trying to move, so I'm sure it could even benefit me long term, but it's annoying all the same.
 

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blue blue

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Do you have any opinion on good areas for future investment? Got a friend who wants to buy a few rentals but I don't think it's a good idea, particularly in the south-east with the penalties that landlords suffer these days. Margins are just too tight.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not a property developer or anything like that. The wife and I bought our first home in the outer western suburbs of London 20 years ago. The property needed a lot of work doing to it. New bathroom and kitchen and a complete redecoration. We did it and moved onto the next one with three kids in tow. The next one also needed work but we bought well on that one. We bought off a lady we new who didn't want to go through the hassle of redecorating or appointing an estate agent. We completely refurbished the whole house and built a fantastic back extension. We sold that at the high point of 2008 and the market crashed immediately after and we went into rented property near a top school for our daughter to gain entry. The market went down for that year and we bought about a year later. We bought a fantastic listed building that had been at the centre of a legal dispute and had to be sold quickly. We were cashed up because we were renting and had the proceeds of the previous house in the bank. We offered asking price the day it went on the market and exchanged within 6 weeks. That property was a little on the small side so I got listed building consent to put an orangery on the back of it and employed a joiner friend to carry out the works.

We still live in that property and it has more than doubled in value in 10 years. I never thought I would be living in a property of this value. It's my pension basically. I'm just doing some cosmetic improvements as we speak and am putting it on the market in April/May. We'll downsize and move out of London in the next year or so. Maybe up North but to be honest it is more likely to be the West country or Australia where we have family.

My advice if buying in London to make money at the moment is to avoid the poorer areas. Buy the worst property in the best street and carry out as much work as possible yourself. For me the western suburbs have come very good but I bought cleverly and moved quickly when I had to. I didn't mention that when we bought the second house we rented out the first one and moved quickly to get the second one before it went to market. We've made our money by refurbishing, buying well and moving quickly when we had to. Don't over invest in improvements. If its an old property, retain original features. I have always been against buying in the east of London or anywhere near it but I know somebody who bought near Peckham a couple of years ago and that area is coming up. There is good housing stock in the surrounding areas and Cross rail is opening up soon. Maybe worth a punt.

Its taken 20 years so this is no quick buck adventure. I work in construction which has helped enormously but in that time I have made a sum which I am too embarrassed to mention but lets say I'm retiring at 59 years old and I never dreamed I would be able to do that.
 

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I've known dozens of people that have moved north from London over the years, it's been going on for decades. Can't think of any that moved back.

London's fine if you're earning three times the average wage or more, but any Londoners earning less would be much better off leaving, with more leisure time, a better quality of life and better housing. I'm not counting young people who live there a year or two for the fun, London is good for that, but then again a lot of the northern cities are too.
Probably couldn't afford to, even if they wanted to.
 

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Not without a greatly reduced standard of living, or working ridiculous hours and having no life to speak of, so I don't think any wanted to.

Fine for those on £80k plus or whatever though, good luck to them.
Not even that, I was just basing it on house prices alone. You sell up somewhere up north and you'll pay far more for the same house in London.

I think you're exaggerating quite a bit about the standard of living/working hours etc, but it all depends on the individuals and their circumstances.
 
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711

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Not even that, I was just basing it on house prices alone. You sell up somewhere up north and you'll pay far more for the same house in London.

I think you're embelleshing quite a bit about the standard of living/working hours etc, but it all depends on the individuals and their circumstances.
Yeah, it's housing that's the main cost, whether buying or renting, and the hours needed to work to pay for that, if, once again, you have an average sort of job. Plus the commuting. Outside greater london a lot more people live a relatively short distance from their work, which does make quite a difference to your lifestyle.

I should keep quiet, I don't really want hordes of cockneys moving up here, just a select few maybe.
 

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Not without a greatly reduced standard of living, or working ridiculous hours and having no life to speak of, so I don't think any wanted to.

Fine for those on £80k plus or whatever though, good luck to them.
You don't need £80k plus to have a good time in London. Obviously accommodation is dear and travel an unavoidable expense, but there are loads of things to do for free- parks, galleries, concerts, museums, walks etc...I was living really hand to mouth when I moved there and still had fun.
 

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You don't need £80k plus to have a good time in London. Obviously accommodation is dear and travel an unavoidable expense, but there are loads of things to do for free- parks, galleries, concerts, museums, walks etc...I was living really hand to mouth when I moved there and still had fun.
I get that, a lot of the things I enjoy the most in life are free, or low-cost at any rate. It's different when you're responsible for a young family though, that puts the pressure on.
 

blue blue

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I've known dozens of people that have moved north from London over the years, it's been going on for decades. Can't think of any that moved back.

London's fine if you're earning three times the average wage or more, but any Londoners earning less would be much better off leaving, with more leisure time, a better quality of life and better housing. I'm not counting young people who live there a year or two for the fun, London is good for that, but then again a lot of the northern cities are too.
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Didn't Mike Baldwin?
 

marktan

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Don't misunderstand me. I'm not a property developer or anything like that. The wife and I bought our first home in the outer western suburbs of London 20 years ago. The property needed a lot of work doing to it. New bathroom and kitchen and a complete redecoration. We did it and moved onto the next one with three kids in tow. The next one also needed work but we bought well on that one. We bought off a lady we new who didn't want to go through the hassle of redecorating or appointing an estate agent. We completely refurbished the whole house and built a fantastic back extension. We sold that at the high point of 2008 and the market crashed immediately after and we went into rented property near a top school for our daughter to gain entry. The market went down for that year and we bought about a year later. We bought a fantastic listed building that had been at the centre of a legal dispute and had to be sold quickly. We were cashed up because we were renting and had the proceeds of the previous house in the bank. We offered asking price the day it went on the market and exchanged within 6 weeks. That property was a little on the small side so I got listed building consent to put an orangery on the back of it and employed a joiner friend to carry out the works.

We still live in that property and it has more than doubled in value in 10 years. I never thought I would be living in a property of this value. It's my pension basically. I'm just doing some cosmetic improvements as we speak and am putting it on the market in April/May. We'll downsize and move out of London in the next year or so. Maybe up North but to be honest it is more likely to be the West country or Australia where we have family.

My advice if buying in London to make money at the moment is to avoid the poorer areas. Buy the worst property in the best street and carry out as much work as possible yourself. For me the western suburbs have come very good but I bought cleverly and moved quickly when I had to. I didn't mention that when we bought the second house we rented out the first one and moved quickly to get the second one before it went to market. We've made our money by refurbishing, buying well and moving quickly when we had to. Don't over invest in improvements. If its an old property, retain original features. I have always been against buying in the east of London or anywhere near it but I know somebody who bought near Peckham a couple of years ago and that area is coming up. There is good housing stock in the surrounding areas and Cross rail is opening up soon. Maybe worth a punt.

Its taken 20 years so this is no quick buck adventure. I work in construction which has helped enormously but in that time I have made a sum which I am too embarrassed to mention but lets say I'm retiring at 59 years old and I never dreamed I would be able to do that.
Don't want to sound too harsh but a lot of that is just market luck. Before the 80s House price barely increased above the average x salary multiple at all. De regulation of the mortgage market from building societies to banks, right to buy, low interest rates, help to buy etc has caused huge price increases since then.

Even in the east end of London, my parents bought a flat right at the top of the bubble in 2007, and that flats more then doubled now in 2020. London prices will probably still increase but I'll be shocked if we see x2 increases again in my lifetime, outside the more outer areas that haven't seen large increases. A £400k flat in inner east London is just about affordable to city workers looking for a place or a buy to let, but £800k? Not happening.