Londoners are buying the lowest share of houses outside the capital in more than a decade as their moving plans are curtailed by a stalling local market and the shift back to office working.<\/p>\n
They were behind just 5.3% of house purchases elsewhere in the country in the first seven months of this year, the lowest proportion since 2013, research has found.<\/p>\n
The number of transactions \u2013 31,620 up to the end of July \u2013 is about half the 63,600 in the same period in 2021 at the height of the Covid pandemic-driven \u201crace for space\u201d<\/a>, according to an analysis of data from Countrywide estate agents.<\/p>\n \u201cThe return to the office has played a role in curbing the appetite for long-distance moves, but it\u2019s the lack of price growth in the capital that\u2019s really clipped the wings of would-be leavers,\u201d said Aneisha Beveridge, the head of research at the real estate company Hamptons, which carried out the analysis.<\/p>\n \u201cMany London homeowners simply haven\u2019t built up enough equity to make the leap to where they want to go, especially as prices outside the capital have continued to climb.\u201d<\/p>\n She said Londoners\u2019 tightened budgets were evident in their top choice of location \u2013 Dartford in Kent, followed by places such as Epping Forest, just north-east of London, and Thurrock in Essex \u2013 compared with Broxbourne in Hertfordshire and Sevenoaks in Kent in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a clear shift in where Londoners are heading. The pandemic pushed buyers into leafier, more lifestyle-driven locations, but today\u2019s movers are more pragmatic,\u201d Beveridge said.<\/p>\n As growth in prices in the capital has slowed, or even gone into reverse in some areas, someone leaving inner London can afford a 32% smaller home than in 2016, Hamptons found, losing them on average the equivalent of 553 sq feet or two double bedrooms.<\/p>\n Prices have risen 26% outside the capital over the last five years, triple the 8% pace recorded in London.<\/p>\n Separate data published on Monday by the estate agents Knight Frank showed that average house prices in prime central London \u2013 which stretches from Chelsea to Camden and Notting Hill to Westminster \u2013 fell 3.2% in the year to August. Prices in prime outer London \u2013 defined as Barnes, Battersea, Canary Wharf, Chiswick, Clapham, Fulham, Hampstead, Richmond, Riverside, Wandsworth, Clapham, Wapping and Wimbledon \u2013 were up 0.5% on average but the number of transactions across London as a whole was down 6%.<\/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 information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data 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 The data from Hamptons and Knight Frank is the latest evidence that the pandemic-driven flight from London has gone into reverse, with homes by the sea seemingly losing some of their appeal and fewer people looking to escape from cities.<\/p>\n