Whether they were driven out by high house prices or tempted away by the promise of a fresh start and a new way of life, tens of thousands of Londoners said goodbye to the capital last year. Together they bought almost 33,000 homes beyond the boroughs in the first six months of 2023 according to research from estate agent Hamptons.
Sure, many boomerang Londoners are returning to the capital but on the other hand, it means that prices are dropping in the commuter hot spots.
If you are still tempted to leave in 2024 the good news is that WFH means that you are more spoiled for choice in terms of location than ever before, whether you don’t want to give up on city life, still need quick access to the office, or are looking for a complete change of pace.
To help narrow down your options, these are Homes & Property's tips on the hotspots you need to consider.
Birmingham
Britain’s second city is stepping out of the shadows. The Commonwealth Games shone an international spotlight on Birmingham, and while Manchester and Leeds are missing out, work on the new high speed rail link to London is ongoing.
High Speed 2 will cut journeys between the two cities to 49 minutes meaning it is closer – in terms of commuting time – than large swathes of the Home Counties.
Investment has been flooding into Birmingham for the past two decades, with the redevelopment of its Bullring shopping centre and its expanding tram network.
That flood is showing absolutely no sign of slowing up with new projects like the regeneration of the city centre’ Smithfield neighbourhood with new shops, homes, leisure, and cultural spaces. Work could start this year/2024.
Meanwhile, Britain’s poshest volume house builder, Berkeley Group, is earmarked to redevelop the grim, 1960s Ladywood Estate, west of the city centre, with 7,000 new homes.
HS2 will cut journey times from Birmingham to London to 49 minutes, while the average sale price is £290,000
For Londoners a key reason to consider a move to Birmingham is its affordability. With an average sale price of £290,000, according to research from Savills, homes are literally half the price of London real estate.
Birmingham is also showing greater resilience to the cost of living crisis, with prices up 6.6 per cent in the last year, and almost 30 per cent over the past five years.
For first time buyers the hottest spot in town is on-the-rise Digbeth. Once politely described as gritty, Digbeth, half a mile from the city centre, is now a lot of fun, with arts centres, and warehouse parties.
The Custard Factory, former headquarters of Bird’s Custard, has been redeveloped with independent shops, cafes, bars, and restaurants.
Peaky Blinders, the show which has succeeded in making that accent sound sexy, will open its new Digbeth film studio this year.
It will be joined, two years later, by a new BBC Birmingham headquarters. Boxpark, the London-based street food empire, is opening a food hall under Digbeth’s railway arches to help keep all those media types fuelled up with chicken katsu and luxe burgers.
Ten years ago Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter was grabbing the regeneration headlines. Today Joe Shorney, director of residential development at Savills Birmingham, said the focus has shifted to better-value Digbeth.
“The Jewellery Quarter is an established urban village where an average two bedroom flat would cost £300,000 to £350,000,” he said. “Digbeth is an emerging location, where a similar property would cost £250,000 to £300,000.”
One Digbeth downside is that its property stock is almost exclusively flats.
Buyers looking for a family house need to look elsewhere. Over the past year price growth has been strong for homes close to Solihull Station (services to the city centre take eight minutes).
Average resale prices stand at £657,000, found Savills, up ten per cent in the past 12 months, and almost 34 per cent over five years.
Data can be deceptive, however. As interest rates have risen it has been better-off buyers – investors, downsizers, and the like – who have been able to carry on house hunting, and they tend to buy more expensive homes.
A less suburban option for house-hunters is Harborne, some four miles south of the city centre and with a good local bus service.
Families flock to the area for its (mostly) great schools, open space, and quality period houses. A four bedroom family house here would cost around £725,000 to £750,000.
Cheltenham
Think charming, southern spa town and your first thought is probably Bath, with its twee Jane Austiny charm, glorious townhouses, and well-manicured town centre.
But 40 miles to the north there is an almost equally photogenic – and significantly less expensive – alternative.
Bath and Cheltenham have much in common. Healing springs aside the two cities both sit on the fringes of Cotswold countryside, both have great schools, state and private, a good mix of independent and chain shops and restaurants, and are highly walkable.
Historically Bath has won out with London buyers thanks to its better commute. Services to Paddington take around an hour, compared to two hours to Cheltenham. Now that WFH is in play this is no longer an automatic deal breaker for this Gloucestershire town.
Phil Bates, associate director of Savills, said that the proportion of London-based buyers of Cheltenham has jumped from around five to ten per cent per cent pre-2020 to 30 to 35 per cent today.
Average sale prices in Cheltenham stand at £418,000, up 28 per cent in the past five years
While it is certainly a good looking option, Cheltenham is more than a pretty face. It hosts an outstanding calendar of festivals, celebrating everything from jazz, to cricket, to food and drink. The Cheltenham Festival, in March, is a fantastic excuse to get dressed up and have a flutter.
Cheltenham is also a town which is busy embracing the 21st century. A planning application for a £1bn science and technology campus (plus 3,700 homes) was lodged in November 2023 and that, plus the University of Gloucestershire’s digital and cyber hub, means Cheltenham could – and we stress could – one day be known as the Silicon Valley of the west Country.
Average sale prices in Cheltenham stand at £418,000, up 11 per cent in the past year and 28 per cent in the past five years. Average values in Bath are some 30 per cent higher at £571,000, prices have flatlined over the past year, and are up 23 per cent over the last five years.
Bates said most of his London buyers are looking for a quintessential Georgian town house, and pay between around £500,000 to £850,000.
Not all of the town is Instagram-pretty, admits Baty, and the most popular spots are Montpelier, with its streets of cafes and shops, and Charlton Kings, two miles south east of the centre of town, and right on the fringes of open countryside.
Maidenhead, Berkshire
Berkshire is full of very la-di-dah towns like Windsor, Ascot, and Eton. Maidenhead, although a historic market town in its own right, is not one of them.
But if you are prepared to live with its slightly drab town centre it has one very distinct advantage of its more affluent neighbours – Crossrail services direct to the West End, City, and Canary Wharf.
Beyond commutability Maidenhead also passes the green space test. The surrounding countryside is lovely, and nearby Bray Lake is one of the best wild swimming spots in the south of England.
Most of its schools are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted.
And although the town centre is not inspiring it is more than serviceable, and the area is developing quite a foodie reputation (over and above the clutch of Michelin-starred dining rooms in the nearby village of Bray).
In Maidenhead there is the multi-award winning Seasonality which hosts regular tasting dinners, and the El Cerdo tapas bar. Honourable mention goes to a duo of quintessential country pubs - The Dew Drop Inn, in Hurley, and The Crown in Burchetts Green – both slightly west of the town centre.
The average house price in Maidenhead stands at £600,000 but this figure is boosted by the multi million pound riverside mansions in the adjacent village of Bray
The new Waterside Quarter area of the town centre has added a range of new cafes and restaurants – including artisanal bakery Bakedd and Mumbai street food inspired Bombay Story – in a riverside setting.
If you prefer to cook yourself you can buy all the raw materials you need from the farm shop at the biodynamic Waltham Place, which also has a summer café. And there is a farmer’s market held every couple of weeks in the town centre.
The average house price in Maidenhead stands at £600,000. But it is important to bear in mind that this figure is boosted by the multi million pound riverside mansions in the adjacent village of Bray, with which Maidenhead shares a postcode.
In terms of price performance, sale prices inched up by three per cent during 2023, but are up 17 per cent over the past five years.
Laura Collins said London buyers looking for a move out to Maidenhead tend to come from along the M4 corridor, notably Chiswick and Richmond.
Since the pandemic, however, the opening of the Elizabeth Line has widened its reach, and today she regularly deals with buyers from Ealing, Islington, the City fringes, and Canary Wharf. “That can’t be a coincidence,” she said.
Affluent buyers could opt for a large detached house on a private road in The Fisheries, set between Maidenhead and Bray. A typical property here would cost around £1.5m.
For more value Collins suggests looking around College Avenue, north west of the town centre, where there are streets of Victorian and Edwardian homes, ranging from two up two downs, to detached villas.
Another option is the streets of terraces near Grenfell Park. Not only are they within a short walk of the station and town centre, but, you could pick up a two bedroom house for around £400,000 to £500,000 – around the same as you’d pay for a new build two bedroom flat in the town centre.
