It seems rich Londoners who fled the city during the pandemic to work from home at a rural location, thereby inflating ('over-heating') some regional housing markets, are now finding it hard to sell up (or taking a loss) to return to the city now they are 'needed' in the office more often.... rural house prices & London prices have (further) diverged (as posted yesterday).
Locals may see this as a fitting result (poetic justice) having been priced out the market themselves.
@ChrisMayLA6 that's an interesting dynamic. Does FT say how many people this is affecting? If it's a significant number it'll put more pressure on employees to normalise hybrid working.
no its very much a bit of anecdotal House & Home reporting.... no real data behind it, but rings true, based on the experience of the Lune Valley housing market & recent 'departures' back to the city
@ChrisMayLA6@Loukas I wonder how many of them are using 'the office' as an excuse? Just that, in my experience, an awful lot of city folk who think it'll be wonderful to move to the countryside rapidly discover that they hate it and want to leave.
They often don't like the smells, or the quietness, or the rural noises, or the lack of services, or the only nearby shop being a small coop, etc etc etc.
Yes, that's a very good point... even though I've stayed put here in the rural Lune Valley, as ex-Londoners, these are exactly the issues that we balance off against the things we love about living here
@ChrisMayLA6@Loukas I can understand it, because I'm the opposite, I'm simple country folk and being in the city for any length of time is overwhelming and unpleasant.
But I do think that a lot of city people are sold a bucolic imagining of rural life that isn't remotely true, and I'm not sure the opposite happens so much.