Since 2013, the number of Londoners leaving the English capital has dropped to the lowest level

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After a decade of rapid house price growth across the rest of the UK, the number of Londoners swapping the capital for a home in the countryside is the lowest it has been in more than 10 years.

Londoners have bought 5.7 per cent – or 57,020 – of all homes sold outside the capital this year, the lowest share since 2013 and almost half the Covid-era peak in 2021, according to research by property agent Hamptons.

Property prices increased by 26 percent. London Over the past decade, Hamptons analyzed data from about 650 real estate agent branches nationwide, compared to 39 percent in the country.

“The capital’s homeowners haven’t been in the housing market in recent years,” said Anesha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons.

As well as higher property costs in other parts of the UK, Mark von Grunder, director of property agent Benham Reeves, said the physical return to work after the outbreak had kept Londoners in the capital.

Londoners are leaving smaller townhouses in search of more space in the countryside, expecting work-from-home arrangements to become permanent in 2020. But the end of the epidemic led. Many companies To call employees back to the office.

“First-time buyers are exceptional,” said Beveridge, who accounted for 31 per cent of Londoners buying homes outside the capital this year – twice as many as in 2013.

In October, the average London house cost £520,000 according to the Office for National Statistics, although the capital had the lowest annual house price inflation in the country at 0.2 per cent.

“The high income and savings required to buy a home in London has led many aspiring homeowners to look beyond the capital,” Beveridge said.

The most popular locations for first-time buyers from London were commuters with good transport links. Just under half of buyers in Brentwood in Essex came from London this year, compared to 23 per cent in 2019.

Property prices in central London have fallen over the past decade, despite the capital being the most expensive part of the country.

In the year Between 2013 and 2024, prices in South Kensington and Chelsea fell by 11 per cent and 4 per cent respectively, according to property analyst Lonerace. In Knightsbridge and Belgravia, prices this year are unchanged from 2013.

Neil Hudson, founder of housing consultancy BuiltPlace, said tax increases since 2014 had “hit the central London market badly”.

“Exchanges have fallen significantly and prices are flat or negative,” he said, adding that the market outlook for high-end assets “was far from pre-2014 levels.”

Estate agent von Grunder said many of the homebuyers were Londoners returning to the capital after being evacuated during the pandemic.

In the year Londoners will spend a record £55bn on housing outside the capital by 2021. But von Grunder said customers are drawn back by stagnant house prices, attracted by short commutes to the office and the capital’s cultural attractions.

“Four years ago we had a couple who sold their house in London and moved to Hampshire,” he said. But they came back in 2023 and bought a house on the back street (where they live). In the year It is the same price as when it was sold in 2020.