London homeowners continue to relocate to the Home Counties

London’s continued rise in house prices will have an affect on demand in the Home Counties, says Brendan Cox, Managing Director of Waterfords estate agents.

“There is no doubt that London has to be one of the top investment destinations for anyone looking for a safe-haven asset right now,” says Cox, “particularly after the worldwide focus received during the Olympics. The success of the 2012 games will have an after-effect as its prominence lingers in the air for some time to come, and its ‘place to be’ appeal will attract investors from all over. This inevitable further increase in demand from investors, coupled with rising prices, means that there is no better time for London homeowners to capitalise on their existing property and make a move to an area that provides better value for money, such as the Home Counties.”

Waterfords estate agents reported earlier this year that their branch network had seen a noted upsurge in the first half of 2012 in buyers from London moving into locations such as Chobham, Surrey (pictured above is a three bedroom detached house in Chobham on at £445,000 – click here for details).

Brendan believes that this trend will continue to head in an upward direction. “The Home Counties are perfect for these types of buyers as you can get more for your money,” he says, “and many locations are along the commuter belt so for anyone that works in London access is easy with only a 30-40 minute journey by train. On top of this, the general cost of living is cheaper and council tax is a lot less which is an appealing factor for many people. There are of course the added benefits of living in the countryside and excellent local schooling.”

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• chrisp666

  Great, please hurry, our lovely house in Sussex is up for sale!!

• Nate

  Doesn’t sound like great news. It would be
  better if children growing up in and around London (incl the county areas)
  could feel that remaining in their home community is financially viable once
  they have left home, rather than having to (a) relocate entirely, (b) spend all
  of their income to pay for a tiny flat/single room or (c) remain largely
  dependent on their parents. The absence of affordable property can result in
  stale, fractured communities unfortunately.

• http://www.facebook.com/londonpatriot.org Robert Bailey

  That’s because vast swathes of London boroughs resemble third world slums with foreign gangs in control.

• AnthonyZacharzewski

  “Excellent local schooling” – that’s a pretty lazy assumption. If you look at the results of inner London schools they’re some of the best performing in the country, whatever small-minded people like Mr Bailey might think. Chris Cook’s work on this uses actual data rather than estate agents: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f432a740-dc95-11e1-bbdc-00144feab49a.html

• Samuraijamie

  Shame on you – you must repeat 101 times before you sleep each night: “London is a vibrant multicultural city whose citizens all gave their full approval to mass immigration which has made our city safer.”

• GrimRob

  reads like an advert. low news day?

• http://twitter.com/guancialejon jon

  and so the bogtrotting country cousins speak. London is all the better because people like you don’t live here.

• disquschester

  Speaking as a bogtrotter, I keenly await the uplift in the economy which The London Olympics will bring – after all, I helped pay for it.

• JB from Florida

  I agree with the comment below about it reading like an advert – it sounds like “talking up the market”. As a Brit living abroad I have to ask one question – if the British economy is so trashed how can house prices be rising unless speculators are involved. In Toronto in Canada speculators are buying as many as five houses at a time and yet in Florida we have people living under bridges. Nowadays it seems that the East is more stable than the West.