The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Meet the extreme pandemic relocators
Covid has prompted many to flee cities, with some moving further than others – choosing a radical lifestyle change, writes Anna White
Most of us spent last year staring at the same four walls, working from home and socialising locally – when lockdown restrictions allowed. We nested, driving a huge spike in renovations, home furnishings and landscaping, while travel plans were shelved.
But there was a small tranche of the population who, faced with a pandemic, changed their lives dramatically, making the move of a lifetime.
Demand for homes in rural areas soared, as the psychological impact of lockdown prompted many city dwellers to move to the sticks. Research from estate agency Hamptons International found that Londoners bought almost 74,000 homes outside the capital last year, which represented the highest level in four years.
Much of this was driven by the temporary cut to stamp duty, which prompted many to buy bigger homes, further away. Aneisha Beveridge, of Hamptons, said: “The lure of a stamp duty holiday acted as an impetus for more buyers to bring future planned moves forward. The prospect of homeworking more regularly has also meant that London leavers are moving farther than ever before.”
Extreme relocators are the exception not the rule, said Andrew Perratt, of Savills estate agency. New data shows that the number of people moving more than 200 miles away from their previous home in 2020 was up marginally.
Hamptons found that the average distance moved by one of these fleeing Londoners was 40 miles, the first time it has been so high in a decade. In the first three months of last year, prepandemic, the average was 28 miles.
Mr Perratt added: “It is fair to say that, although the actual numbers are small, the uplift of Londoners relocating to, for example, the Scottish Highlands, is up dramatically from a low base. This shift is noticeable on the sleeper trains across Britain, which have got busier throughout the crisis.”
The value gap between house prices in the capital and the country, in combination with working from home, has driven this trend of Londoners relocating away for a slower, rural lifestyle.
Rosie Davies- Smith, 33, purchased two properties during lockdown. Originally from the Wirral, she lived with her husband Nick and baby Sloane in a three- bedroom house in Deptford, south-east London, which they had renovated. “We love a project and when the UK went into lockdown, we thought it might lead to a long-term trend in staycations. So we bought a tiny cottage in Cheddar, Somerset, to do up and run as an Airbnb,” said Ms Davies- Smith, who also runs PR Dispatch, a communications agency. “We realised, going back and forth from London to Somerset every weekend, that we could move out too and perhaps go even further.”
She found her dream house in a Devon village called Frogmore, between Kingsbridge and Start Bay. The 1850s farmhouse has a wide garden that runs down to a tidal creek. “We have a four-hour window twice a day to get a small boat, paddleboards or canoes out to Salcombe and the sea. This is the dream and I pinch myself every time we walk down to the creek,” she added.
‘The lure of the stamp duty holiday made buyers bring future planned moves forward’
The market town of Totnes is close by, where Ms Davies- Smith can catch the train into London for now- rare office visits and be there in two hours and 45 minutes.
The property was first on the market for £800,000 and about 20pc more expensive than their London home. “For that we have got a home that we can be in for a very long time and, while our mortgage payments have increased, with such low rates we have not overstretched ourselves,” she said.
Homes in Frogmore ( on average £563,571 according to property website Rightmove) are much cheaper than in the nearby tourist hotspot of Salcombe, which are on average £714,057.
The family are, however, discovering the unanticipated challenges of living in a more remote location. “We have to plan ahead because there isn’t a supermarket just around the corner. We need to be organised and know when we are going to run out of dog food or baby milk,” she said.
Ben Mott also encountered hidden associated costs when he moved to the countryside with his wife Emma White, a private chef. With their baby Alfie, the couple moved from Clapham in south London to the small village of Kilmington, located south of the Longleat estate in Wiltshire.
Mr Mott, the founder of design agency Future Kings, is renting a bakery- turned- five bedroom house, and found the oil and wood to heat the large old property an unexpected expense. He has offices in London and Bristol and now drives several times a week to the Bristol office. “My new commute takes
the same amount of time as my old one. But now I am driving along country lanes rather than sitting on the Northern Line,” he said. “Those switching lifestyles should also budget for petrol too,” added Mr Mott.
If they were to buy a home, they could make a substantial saving from their previous location. The average house price in Clapham ( according to Foxtons) is £ 587,553 compared to £293,396 in Wiltshire, which is cheaper than Bristol.
Some buyers reacted to the pandemic by moving much farther away. Chef and author Sophie Michell moved 4,000 miles from south-west London to the West Indies with her husband, Eoin, and toddler, Oscar, during the first national lockdown.
Early last year, they were on holiday in Barbados planning the year ahead. Ms Michell was once the private family chef for supermodel Claudia Schiffer and was about to embark on a new job as executive chef of restaurant chain Byron, moving out to Surrey.
They returned home from holiday in March as the crisis was unfolding in the UK and quickly re-evaluated. Byron had closed and was only running a delivery service. Even more importantly, Ms Michell has a heart condition, diabetes and a suppressed immune system.
“I was classed as high risk, so in just three days we cancelled the move to Surrey, packed up our life and headed back to Barbados for good,” she said.
They had friends in Speightstown in the north-west of the island. “We moved from a five- bedroom townhouse to a two-bedroom cottage. But we realised we don’t need a big house. Our dining area opens out into the garden, where we can see monkeys and hummingbirds, and lizards run through the cottage,” said Ms Michell.
She helped deliver food to vulnerable residents during the lockdown and is now getting her teeth into another project – a new sustainable restaurant in Barbados (thelocalbarbados.com).
The property market in Barbados is booming, according to Ms Michell. Speightstown is full of beautiful old architecture and what she describes as “chapel houses” – brightly coloured buildings on stilts – as well as stone villas. “Compared to London, you get a lot more for your money when it comes to buying,” she said. Inspiration to us all during the bleak midwinter in locked-down Britain.