With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.<\/p>\n
An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.<\/p>\n
The location to record the most significant jump in first-time buyer inquiries over that period is Dundee, Scotland\u2019s fourth-largest city and, it is said, its sunniest.<\/p>\n
Some will be surprised to learn that homebuyers\u2019 love affair with cities has intensified, bearing in mind that the pandemic apparently prompted many to think about a new life on the coast or in the countryside.<\/p>\n
The data was crunched by the property website Rightmove, which looked at Great Britain\u2019s 50 largest cities, excluding London, and 50 of the most popular coastal areas. It focused on inquiries for typical first-time buyer properties, that is those with a maximum of two bedrooms.<\/p>\n
It revealed that number two on its \u201ccity hotspots\u201d list was Edinburgh<\/a>, followed by three locations in England: Doncaster, Liverpool and Plymouth.<\/p>\n Its findings provide fresh evidence that the pandemic-fuelled \u201cexodus from the city\u201d \u2013 or at least the fantasies that millions harboured about relocating to a coastal or rural area<\/a> \u2013 was, statistically speaking, something of a blip.<\/p>\n Areas that estate agents were naming as property hotspots in 2020 included the fishing village of Port Isaac in Cornwall, the seaside towns of Margate in Kent and Clevedon in north Somerset, and Canford Cliffs, a suburb of Poole in Dorset.<\/p>\n Rightmove issued a list in January 2022 of the 10 most popular homebuyer search hotspots<\/a> for the previous year, all of which were either villages or located near the sea. Rhos-on-Sea, a small seaside town near Colwyn Bay in north Wales, topped the list.<\/p>\n Fast-forward to today and the property website said that while more potential first-time buyers were looking to move to cities, the number contemplating popular coastal areas was \u201ccompletely flat compared with 10 years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n London, however, does not follow the trend. Overall first-time buyer demand in the capital is down by 7% versus 10 years ago. That is thought to be in large part because of the capital\u2019s higher property prices, which have locked many out of the housing market.<\/p>\n First-time buyer demand in Dundee jumped by 176% over the period. On the banks of the River Tay, the city has developed a reputation as a vibrant arts and culture hub<\/a> in recent years. It is also said to have more urban green space per head of population than anywhere else in the UK.<\/p>\n