The big danger as Londoners head for the suburbs

The suburbs are no longer quite the status symbol they were when my grandparents decamped from smoggy Hampstead to breathable Surrey.

Those fast commuter trains are well-used to the 9 to 5 crowd, albeit with fewer bowler hats and more women on board nowadays. But, since the pandemic untethered white collar workers from their offices, the exodus of young Londoners has accelerated.

Friends whose jobs are still nominally based in London have relocated as far afield as Sheffield, Manchester and Somerset, joining a record number of people leaving the capital to buy their first home. New data from Hamptons shows 40,540 ‘Londoners’ have bought homes elsewhere so far this year, with a record 28 per cent of those bought by first-time buyers, up from just 13 per cent a decade ago. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why — those buying their first home outside London spent £383,000 on average, while those buying in the capital spent £526,600.

More interesting is that, for the first time in a long time, post-pandemic there’s a lifestyle motivation for moving, alongside the financial considerations. Outdoorsy pursuits have replaced hype restaurants as hipster signifiers — outdoor socialising in lockdown meant those 2019 Gorpcore fits finally became functional — and the old adage of location, location, location no longer translates as ‘any old shoebox as long as it’s near a Tube’. Full-time homeworkers and TWaTs are finding that their London salaries afford them impressive buying power in further flung beauty spots and seaside towns.

It’s not all paddleboarding and big gardens, however. UK house prices rose 12.4 per cent to a record high of £281,000 this year, with London the slowest growing region. Ex-Londoners may be thrilled to have caught a break at last as their money goes further. 

It’s great, too, that people feel more able to choose where they live because of what they like. But the real risk is that these departing Londoners bring the capital’s property frenzy with them. Nobody wants that.

There are ways a government with an appetite to do so could prevent super-heated house price inflation (taxation, housebuilding, better renting). They should go with the grain of what people want — and start acting now.