Birmingham’s Victoria Square
(Picture: Getty Images)Almost 10 years to the day since the London Olympics kicked off a glorious summer of hope in the capital, the sporting spotlight is shining on a different UK city sitting on the cusp of major change.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Keely Hodgkinson and Dina Asher-Smith will be among the international athletes heading to Birmingham tomorrow to compete in the Commonwealth Games, the latest milestone in a huge ongoing investment pouring into the city.
With HS2 on the horizon, much cheaper house prices than those in the capital and a massive regeneration of the city centre, Birmingham is primed to flip from an under-the-radar relocation option to the next hotspot for London leavers seeking better-value homes and a more relaxed lifestyle without forfeiting urban culture.
According to research by Hamptons, the number of Londoners making a dash for the Midlands has increased more than sixfold in the past decade.
Birmingham’s sheer affordability is a key reason why Britain’s second city has been gaining traction with an increasing numbers of buyers forced out of the capital.
House prices: how they compare
Greater London
- Average price 2022: £695,383
- 10-year price change: 63.6%
Birmingham
- Average price 2022: £251,888
- 10-year price change: 64.6%
Source: Savills research using Land Registry
Average prices in Birmingham are almost a third of those in London, according to exclusive research from Savills — just over £250,000, compared with almost £700,000.
Little wonder that increasing numbers of London exiles are leapfrogging the Home Counties in favour of the Venice of the North.
‘Coming from London to Birmingham feels calm and friendly’
In 2018, the same year she won a Bafta Breakthrough award, comedian Luisa Omielan, 39, was shattered by the unexpected death of her mother.
“I was burned out, I had a budget of about £250,000 which wouldn’t buy me anything in London, and then, because I wasn’t thinking straight, I bought a Burmese mountain dog.”
She had been paying almost £1,000 a month to rent a flat in London but quickly found that landlords weren’t enthusiastic about her super-sized pet.
“Then my sister, who was living in the Midlands, said: ‘Why don’t you look at Birmingham? It’s really cool, it’s central for gigging, HS2 is coming, and you could buy something with a garden’.”
Omielan saw the sense in this argument and spent £300,000 on a three-bedroom Victorian house in Selly Park, with plentiful open space for her to walk Bernie, the Midlands Arts Centre up the road and nearby venues like Couch Stirchley, a cocktail bar recently named one of the best in Britain.
She is in the middle of a tour and will be playing at London’s Soho Theatre from August 2 to 13 (luisaomielan.com).
“For me it is the people who make Birmingham. They are very lovely and very open and welcoming, and coming from London Birmingham feels calm and friendly,” she says.
‘Life here is better for my mental health’
Other recent London transplants have noticed the city changing around them.
Joanne Bowen and her husband John were living in a two-bedroom house in Brockley that was bursting at the seams with two boys, John-Alan, five, and Paul-Oliver, three, plus four jack russell terriers. However, upsizing in the capital was out of the question.
Bowen, 38, a special needs teacher, is from Birmingham originally and was happy to be closer to her family. Once her husband, 43, who works in public relations, had realised exactly how much more bang they could get for their buck by heading 120 miles up the M1, he agreed. They sold their south-east
London house for £470,000. Their new four-bedroom period house with its family-sized garden, in the suburb of Erdington, cost £178,000.
“Brockley was quite run down when we moved there, and then suddenly the whole area became really gentrified, with farmers’ markets and cafes and yummy mummies,” he says.
“Exactly the same thing is happening in Birmingham, it has got the designer shops and the eateries and the private members’ clubs, just not so many of them. It is not as overwhelming as London and the life I have here is so much better for my mental health.”
HS2 and other investment
“I have known Birmingham for 40 years, and if you’d asked me then whether it was an attractive city to walk around I’d have had to say no,” says Peter Smith, residential director of Barrows & Forrester estate agents.
But that was before Birmingham city centre, surrounded by elegant, leafy, family-friendly suburbs, began to revive and regenerate.
“Companies like Goldman Sachs and HSBC have relocated here, and that has had a snowball effect on other companies moving to be close to them. And it all really started because of High Speed Two,” says Smith.
HS2 is a monster infrastructure project to build a new train line which will — eventually — link London to Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh.
Phase One, due for completion some time after 2029, will connect the capital to Birmingham, cutting journey times to just under 50 minutes.
Investment in Birmingham shows no sign of slowing down. Australian developer Lendlease, for example, is drawing up plans for a £1.9 billion regeneration of the city centre’s Smithfield site.
It is currently home to the Bull Ring Markets, due to be replaced by homes, a festival square lined with cafes and a new marketplace.
And once the Commonwealth Games is over, its £700 million athletes’ village in Perry Barr will be repurposed as 1,400 new homes, plus an upgraded local station, parks and, of course, a sports stadium.
Where to live in Birmingham
Digbeth: Hipster hangout
Average price: £152,270
Once politely described as “gritty”, industrial Digbeth has been colonised by a youthful, arty crowd who hang out at warehouse clubs, contemporary art galleries and street food markets.
Harborne: Peaceful, but not dull
Average price: £365,271
Families and young professionals both love this affluent south-western suburb with its smart period houses and flats, good high street, excellent schools and proximity to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the University of Birmingham.
Jewellery Quarter: Brum’s answer to Clerkenwell
Average price: £204,964
Rapid regeneration of the city’s former jewellery-making district has created a classic city fringe village, heavy on loft apartments, independent cafes, and cool shops.
Knowle: Trophy address
Average price: £509,950
This ultra-leafy suburb with its village-style high street is one of the poshest options in or around Birmingham, and close to HS2’s Birmingham Interchange station which will mean slightly shorter journeys into London and no need to go into the city centre to catch the service.
