Is anyone moving now?

[Blown2CV]

Mr Whippy said:

Gazzab said:

Evanivitch said:

Welsh house prices up nearly 10% nationally, nearly 20% in some regions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58203740

Crazy market.

I guess these %s are averages. If you take flats and larger homes out of the calc I’d expect it to be somewhat higher than 20%. There are examples of houses near me with much higher % increases (older medium sized family homes in pretty Yorkshire villages).

Wait for people to start getting career FOMO and wondering what lunch time discussions they’re missing out on about the latest hire, promotion, opportunity etc...

This is all clearly going to flip back most of the way, and a rural demand doldrums approaches as all these people who thought living in the middle of nowhere WFH suddenly realise it’s not all it was cracked up to be.

Those that went up the most will fall the furthest... which imo will be the majority of stuff that transacted in 2021... as I’ve seen, loads of good stuff went early on, and all the turds have been going in recent moves as FOMO peaked and people bought anything even remotely not complete crap.

i don't agree at all with what you're saying there. I believe your opinion is as above because you personally favour the office. Not everyone agrees with you, and you may even be in the minority. People are not championing the idea that offices are dead - they just simply want flexibility and not to be told where and when to do the work if there is no genuine need to. Some work is best done in the office, and some does not need to be done there. I want balance and I want to be able to decide myself, and so I took on a remote work role in December and, as with most new roles of this type, travel and hotel costs are expensable. I'll travel in to London (my nearest office... i live in Cheshire) when i see the value. I'd prefer to travel to Amsterdam as that's where many of my peers and superiors are based. The company i work for no longer differentiates salary based upon the region of the country in which the employee resides. For people above 25 there is no real concrete benefit to being in a city other than you like it, so if you stop liking it you will want to move. If any company were to disadvantage employees based upon their working arrangements then this would be illegal.

[Frik]

I think a large part has been the simple disintegration of the argument by a lot of employers that a job can't be done from home. The pandemic forced employers to put in place the tools to enable it, they're not going away and employees are enjoying the flexibility. They won't give this up easily.

[SunsetZed]

kingston12 said:

C70R said:

For what little it's worth, Zoopla is estimating the value of our property (flat on a nice road in Z3 SW London) at about the same as it was 2yrs ago.

I don't know whether that's a sign of recovery or not, or just Zoopla's values being a bit off...

I always find Zoopla a bit too variable to be reliable - virtually identical properties next to each other varying by 20% in value in some cases.

I noticed a place on my road come through on the LR sold figures last week, so did a bit of digging. From what I can see from a small sample size in a few roads in zone 6, flats that have sold in 2021 are down between 10 & 15% since 2018 and houses are up by a similar percentage. I excluded houses where extensions or refurbs had been done.

I think the trends are compounded out here by flats being in over-supply even pre-Covid, and it's too far out for most people to want to keep a flat as crash pad when they move out to the country.

All that really seems to happening (in this area at least) is that Covid has reinforced existing market trends - flats had been 'flat' since about 2014 whilst houses had gone up significantly in that time.

I see this as well; my house is identical to my neighbours but Zoopla reckons that his is worth between £65k and £150k more than mine because the previous sold prices are used to calculate the values and the value of each house won't have risen exactly in line with the area average.

[Evanivitch]

SunsetZed said:

I see this as well; my house is identical to my neighbours but Zoopla reckons that his is worth between £65k and £150k more than mine because the previous sold prices are used to calculate the values and the value of each house won't have risen exactly in line with the area average.

So our street of a dozen or so houses had seen very little movement before we moved in. Howev, since then several of the houses have changed hands, all for far more money than we expected. As a result, Zoopla thinks or home I worth 50% more than we paid 5 years ago, without considering extensive renovations.

I'd like to think "silly Zoopla", but TBH I suspect the estate agents are probably using it just like everyone else to calculate the value.

We'll probably get the house properly revalued when we get the mortgage renewed.

[Mr Penguin]

Frik said:

It's far from obvious that things will go back to how they were before.

It's also far from obvious that things will stay as WFH. I saw an article about a man who's employer said he could wfh "indefinitely" (BBC word) and then decided to move them from Berkshire to Scarborough. If indefinitely means permanent then he's lost a bit selling in a lower demand area and buying in a higher demand one (relative to long term market conditions) but still has more space. If "indefinite" doesn't mean permanent then he's going to have to take the same hit going back down south and will likely end up with somewhere smaller than he has now, plus the disruption.

I don't think wfh will happen in a major way and longer term most people will be in the office much more than they work from home, but I'm also not going to risk my house on that prediction.

[okgo]

Evanivitch said:

So our street of a dozen or so houses had seen very little movement before we moved in. Howev, since then several of the houses have changed hands, all for far more money than we expected. As a result, Zoopla thinks or home I worth 50% more than we paid 5 years ago, without considering extensive renovations.

I'd like to think "silly Zoopla", but TBH I suspect the estate agents are probably using it just like everyone else to calculate the value.

We'll probably get the house properly revalued when we get the mortgage renewed.

All they will be using is the pro version of such tools that perhaps give them a few more useable stats in easy format, but ultimately anyone could have found the same info should they so wish via land registry and historic listings/reductions etc.

It is pretty straight forward to value your own house if you live somewhere near other houses.

[Blown2CV]

Frik said:

I think a large part has been the simple disintegration of the argument by a lot of employers that a job can't be done from home. The pandemic forced employers to put in place the tools to enable it, they're not going away and employees are enjoying the flexibility. They won't give this up easily.

well yes quite, and once disproven the narrative on negative side shifts too, "well think of the career opportunities we'll ensure you miss out on if you WFH" which is a fking disgusting thing to say. What people who say this sort of st don't realise is that, just like with the location of work, people are voting with their feet in employment and pretty soon they'll be the ones crying "people just don't want to work anymore!!" whereas in reality, no, they just don't want to work for you. It will all come out in the wash anyway, one way or another. Saying it will definitely go back to normal is insane talk however.

[Mr Whippy]

Blown2CV said:

Mr Whippy said:

Gazzab said:

Evanivitch said:

Welsh house prices up nearly 10% nationally, nearly 20% in some regions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58203740

Crazy market.

I guess these %s are averages. If you take flats and larger homes out of the calc I’d expect it to be somewhat higher than 20%. There are examples of houses near me with much higher % increases (older medium sized family homes in pretty Yorkshire villages).

Wait for people to start getting career FOMO and wondering what lunch time discussions they’re missing out on about the latest hire, promotion, opportunity etc...

This is all clearly going to flip back most of the way, and a rural demand doldrums approaches as all these people who thought living in the middle of nowhere WFH suddenly realise it’s not all it was cracked up to be.

Those that went up the most will fall the furthest... which imo will be the majority of stuff that transacted in 2021... as I’ve seen, loads of good stuff went early on, and all the turds have been going in recent moves as FOMO peaked and people bought anything even remotely not complete crap.

i don't agree at all with what you're saying there. I believe your opinion is as above because you personally favour the office. Not everyone agrees with you, and you may even be in the minority. People are not championing the idea that offices are dead - they just simply want flexibility and not to be told where and when to do the work if there is no genuine need to. Some work is best done in the office, and some does not need to be done there. I want balance and I want to be able to decide myself, and so I took on a remote work role in December and, as with most new roles of this type, travel and hotel costs are expensable. I'll travel in to London (my nearest office... i live in Cheshire) when i see the value. I'd prefer to travel to Amsterdam as that's where many of my peers and superiors are based. The company i work for no longer differentiates salary based upon the region of the country in which the employee resides. For people above 25 there is no real concrete benefit to being in a city other than you like it, so if you stop liking it you will want to move. If any company were to disadvantage employees based upon their working arrangements then this would be illegal.

I’ve WFH and worked for myself for a decade, so I’m well aware of the office and home working pros and cons.

Up until 18 months ago it was widely seen that WFH was bad.

It’s nonsense that everyone just had an epiphany and it’ll all work out perfectly and this is the new normal.
Everything is dynamic and WFH as it stands right now will not be how it stays.

If your £150,000 London weighted salary is applied in Western remote Wales, then I’ll be surprised.
If I were paying you and could hire globally now, I’d be looking for someone willing to take £100,000 living in Eastern Europe, or £50,000 in India, because quite honestly if that is how you’ll be working, then your living proximity becomes irrelevant.

I’ve lost out on tons of contracts to SMEs in Eastern Europe on price, because clients said.
I know for a fact I’m cheap for the UK, so they must be living much cheaper there.
And I know their product is just as good.


WFH isn’t a panacea for balanced lifestyles. It’s the thin end of the wedge of offshoring office jobs.
If jobs can move 4-6hrs North of London and be entirely WFH, then they can be anywhere.

It’s also the start of salary cuts because I’m certain tons of people living in say Sunderland will happily take half the pay of someone with a London sized mortgage.

Again if I were paying a WFH employee, why would I pay London salaries to people with Bolton mortgages?


Let’s see how it plays out.


On disadvantaging employees based on working arrangements, and being illegal?
How can you make that workable?
Bob was in the office at a critical time to fix/meet/sort issue X, so got brownie points, vs Ted who was out playing Golf because it was a nice afternoon and he could make up time that evening because hey, he loves this flexible working life.

You’re living in a dream world if you think the corporate world that was the way it was 18 months ago, will just change in your favour instantly, no strings attached, and the way it’s ended up for you for 8 months, will now stay in your favour until you retire.


Yes Amsterdam is lovely. Again worked with people there for a decade from the UK, and visited/met up if needed.
Also did ok on the euro/gbp rate sometimes if I quoted in euros.
But this same client also outsources to even cheaper places.

This may be mostly new to office workers on PAYE in GBP, but being undercut by worldwide resource in the freelance or hiring contract world has been going on years.

Now your job is ‘anywhere’ based, the next employee could be applying from anywhere and take a vastly lower salary and make you look expensive.


Again let’s see what happens.

[Mr Penguin]

Blown2CV said:

If any company were to disadvantage employees based upon their working arrangements then this would be illegal.

Potentially, but you will have a hard time proving it. An employer doesn't need to think very hard to come up with an excuse to hire the person they want, if it's about being in the office or not they can say its a requirement to be there full time or that Bob has shown himself to be quick to respond and solve problems or shows better skills in x field. They also tend not to tell you why they picked the person they did so you have incomplete information.

[Gazzab]

All we know is that there will be pressure to be back in the office more often. Many CEOs and senior politicians are already talking about it. Regardless of the efficiency discussions there is of course the need for us to pay for railways, for city restaurants, for our pensions, HS2 etc.
London, the trains to London, the tube, hotels etc are all much busier than they were last week, and the week before etc.
Train fare and hotel £ deals are slowly disappearing as demand increases.
What will this mean for the demand for houses in the country, hours from London etc….I think the demand is still there (due to the lack of decent stuff for sale) and I think this desperate market will persist for a while longer but over coming months as hybrid working settles down, as we see inflation accelerate, potential interest rate rises then the medium salary bunch will start to panic - omg my £100k salary is not enough for my £300k mortgage, my Yorkshire to London commute/hotels etc.

[Flooble]

I think it may be more extended than that.

Right now, "Bob" is quite happy to have moved 150 miles from the office and has negotiated with his boss that even though everyone else is in 2/3 days a week, he can turn up once a fortnight. And when he does deign to make an appearance, he does what someone on this thread said they'd do - rocks up at 1000 and disappears at 1500 (having had a two hour lunch break no doubt)

With the hassle in recruiting a replacement, his boss is irritated but takes no direct action. Nothing much is done even when Bob keeps disappearing in the afternoons (anyone else noticed that the reduction in smug articles about "I walk the kids to school, then put the washing in, have lunch with friends, pick the kids up from school, take them for a walk. Oh and sometimes I do a spot of work"?)

However, when it comes time for annual appraisals and pay rounds, Bob gets a low score and minimal payrise. What's he going to do anyway, storm into the boss' email?

Give it a couple of years of minimal payrises (and probably being assigned the awkward customers, difficult projects etc.) and Bob is fed up and wants a new job. Slight issue is that when he applies for new jobs, the firms tell him "Yeah, 2/3 days in the office. No, of course you can't work from home full time.". Bob is stuck.

The alternative prediction (that firms will have to offer home-working to attract the best talent) may have legs, but I think it remains to be seen. Even if it comes to pass, so much of human interaction is based on, well, human interaction. I think there will be a lot of "Bobs" wondering why they are going backwards. Or knowing they are going backwards and there is nothing they can do about it!

[LeadFarmer]

Mr Whippy said:

Bob was in the office at a critical time to fix/meet/sort issue X, so got brownie points, vs Ted who was out playing Golf because it was a nice afternoon and he could make up time that evening because hey, he loves this flexible working life..

Flooble said:

Right now, "Bob" is quite happy to have moved 150 miles from the office and has negotiated with his boss that even though everyone else is in 2/3 days a week, he can turn up once a fortnight. And when he does deign to make an appearance, he does what someone on this thread said they'd do - rocks up at 1000 and disappears at 1500 (having had a two hour lunch break no doubt)

I don't know whether to hate Bob, or love him. What can Bob bench press?

[LeadFarmer]

I love WFH.
But home working has seen the chip shop next to my office decide not to reopen for business.
I hate WFH.

[Mr Whippy]

Gazzab said:

as we see inflation accelerate

Every economic cycle end is preceded by inflation and scares of inflation, then deflation hits.

I think the Western world’s response to covid19 masked and distorted the cycle end.

Yes it’s different every time, but the fundamental forces of supply and demand are consistent.
Up down up down up down.

[rustyuk]

Gazzab said:

Some of those looking for a hybrid balance between a new home in Yorkshire and 2 days a week in London are in for a big £s shock.
£250 train return
£13 a day parking
£100 to £200 a night for hotels
Ok there are cheaper options but I reckon I spend £30k pa getting to London and staying over (pre covid). Right now hotels are 1/2 the cost they were 18 months ago but that won’t last.

Cheapest option is to drive to an AirBnB - I know someone that used to sleep in their office until they got caught.

Personally I never used to stay over and only went into the London office once a week and it cost me £10k a year. Got to say 4 days WFH and 1 day in London was perfect for me. Once a month maybe go out for a few drinks and stay over.

Pre-covid the EMR breakfast wasn't too bad either.

[Evanivitch]

okgo said:

All they will be using is the pro version of such tools that perhaps give them a few more useable stats in easy format, but ultimately anyone could have found the same info should they so wish via land registry and historic listings/reductions etc.

It is pretty straight forward to value your own house if you live somewhere near other houses.

Maybe, but the street is very varied in terms of age of house, size of property and size of plot. None of the houses sold share a similar, or scalable, footprint or layout to our home.

The point being for the mortgage that a professional opinion should improve our LTV only further.

[davidc1]

I am buying the house opposite where i live now. So excited but dreading entering into the whole chain and estate agent and solicitor world!
But i know this is how it has to be...
Did the deal in a couple of days before it went to market. Sold myself to the vendor who i already knew and all viewings were cancelled.
So deep breath and crack on.
I have wanted this house or another 2 in the close i live in for 6 years so my patience paid off.
The houses dont come up often so had to act quickly and i knew i only had 2 days to decide and convince my neighbour he was backing the right horse.
Wish me luck!

[Blown2CV]

Mr Whippy said:

Blown2CV said:

Mr Whippy said:

Gazzab said:

Evanivitch said:

Welsh house prices up nearly 10% nationally, nearly 20% in some regions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58203740

Crazy market.

I guess these %s are averages. If you take flats and larger homes out of the calc I’d expect it to be somewhat higher than 20%. There are examples of houses near me with much higher % increases (older medium sized family homes in pretty Yorkshire villages).

Wait for people to start getting career FOMO and wondering what lunch time discussions they’re missing out on about the latest hire, promotion, opportunity etc...

This is all clearly going to flip back most of the way, and a rural demand doldrums approaches as all these people who thought living in the middle of nowhere WFH suddenly realise it’s not all it was cracked up to be.

Those that went up the most will fall the furthest... which imo will be the majority of stuff that transacted in 2021... as I’ve seen, loads of good stuff went early on, and all the turds have been going in recent moves as FOMO peaked and people bought anything even remotely not complete crap.

i don't agree at all with what you're saying there. I believe your opinion is as above because you personally favour the office. Not everyone agrees with you, and you may even be in the minority. People are not championing the idea that offices are dead - they just simply want flexibility and not to be told where and when to do the work if there is no genuine need to. Some work is best done in the office, and some does not need to be done there. I want balance and I want to be able to decide myself, and so I took on a remote work role in December and, as with most new roles of this type, travel and hotel costs are expensable. I'll travel in to London (my nearest office... i live in Cheshire) when i see the value. I'd prefer to travel to Amsterdam as that's where many of my peers and superiors are based. The company i work for no longer differentiates salary based upon the region of the country in which the employee resides. For people above 25 there is no real concrete benefit to being in a city other than you like it, so if you stop liking it you will want to move. If any company were to disadvantage employees based upon their working arrangements then this would be illegal.

I’ve WFH and worked for myself for a decade, so I’m well aware of the office and home working pros and cons.

Up until 18 months ago it was widely seen that WFH was bad.

It’s nonsense that everyone just had an epiphany and it’ll all work out perfectly and this is the new normal.
Everything is dynamic and WFH as it stands right now will not be how it stays.

If your £150,000 London weighted salary is applied in Western remote Wales, then I’ll be surprised.
If I were paying you and could hire globally now, I’d be looking for someone willing to take £100,000 living in Eastern Europe, or £50,000 in India, because quite honestly if that is how you’ll be working, then your living proximity becomes irrelevant.

I’ve lost out on tons of contracts to SMEs in Eastern Europe on price, because clients said.
I know for a fact I’m cheap for the UK, so they must be living much cheaper there.
And I know their product is just as good.


WFH isn’t a panacea for balanced lifestyles. It’s the thin end of the wedge of offshoring office jobs.
If jobs can move 4-6hrs North of London and be entirely WFH, then they can be anywhere.

It’s also the start of salary cuts because I’m certain tons of people living in say Sunderland will happily take half the pay of someone with a London sized mortgage.

Again if I were paying a WFH employee, why would I pay London salaries to people with Bolton mortgages?


Let’s see how it plays out.


On disadvantaging employees based on working arrangements, and being illegal?
How can you make that workable?
Bob was in the office at a critical time to fix/meet/sort issue X, so got brownie points, vs Ted who was out playing Golf because it was a nice afternoon and he could make up time that evening because hey, he loves this flexible working life.

You’re living in a dream world if you think the corporate world that was the way it was 18 months ago, will just change in your favour instantly, no strings attached, and the way it’s ended up for you for 8 months, will now stay in your favour until you retire.


Yes Amsterdam is lovely. Again worked with people there for a decade from the UK, and visited/met up if needed.
Also did ok on the euro/gbp rate sometimes if I quoted in euros.
But this same client also outsources to even cheaper places.

This may be mostly new to office workers on PAYE in GBP, but being undercut by worldwide resource in the freelance or hiring contract world has been going on years.

Now your job is ‘anywhere’ based, the next employee could be applying from anywhere and take a vastly lower salary and make you look expensive.


Again let’s see what happens.

it's all starting to get only very tenuously related to the topic now, but what i will say is that the primary area where we differ is: you say that things will definitely go back to how they were, but we'll see. I'm saying I am not sure how you can be so sure, but we'll see.

The major thing that could result in a sea change is some employers using it (and by 'it' i mean non-location based salaries, flexibility as a fundamental, home working benefits, changes to culture etc. etc.) as a way to 'win' in the competition for talent. Which in at least some sectors and definitely in some sizes of organisation, they are already doing. I've never said WFH is the thing to aim for - i am passionate that flexibility is the thing to aim for. I will be in the office, or i will be at home, or i will be somewhere else, and i will decide. The idea that this is a binary choice (either office or home) is daft. The idea that employees should commit to a certain number of days in the office and have it be the same every week; that's also daft.

you're also confusing outsourcing/offshoring with employed workforce. They fulfil distinct needs in the modern day; in my industry at least.

[Evanivitch]

Mr Whippy said:

WFH isn’t a panacea for balanced lifestyles. It’s the thin end of the wedge of offshoring office jobs.
If jobs can move 4-6hrs North of London and be entirely WFH, then they can be anywhere.
.

There are plenty of jobs that for security and legislative reasons can't be off-shored. The idea that just because you can WFH means someone the other side of the world can do your job is incredibly naïve. Including the fact ignores the many jobs that may involve visiting others on occasion (customers, suppliers) but have zero justification for actually working on site with your employer.

[Blib]

Blib said:

As we now spend 95% of our time in Suffolk and MrsB retires in October, we're downsizing our London house in Richmond and using the proceeds to buy a cottage in East Sheen and a flat in North London to rent out.

We've had bids accepted on both cottage and flat and the house photos, floor plan and EPC have been done today.

There's very little on the market in our area. The house hits all of the location criteria, especially as it's within the very small catchment area of the local, well regarded, junior school.

So, everything is in order for a swift, pain free trio of transactions.

What could possibly go wrong?

Our house went on Rightmove yesterday and we got an offer at full asking price this afternoon.

The buyers have no chain and neither do the two properties we're buying with the proceeds. One estate agent is handling our sale and one of the purchases. We are using their pet lawyers and surveyors. There's no mortgages on anything.

What could possibly go wrong?