Wealthy widen their UK property aspirations
Half of people moving home stay within a three-mile radius, Savills research finds
What does the chart show?
It shows that wealthier households in the UK tend to go further afield than less affluent ones when moving to a new home.
The chart, produced by estate agent Savills, measured the proportion of people staying within three miles of their home when buying or renting a new property against the level of deprivation of their neighbourhoods.
Overall, Savills found that 50 per cent of us stay within a three-mile radius when moving home, either as buyers or renters.
In the 24 local authorities with the highest deprivation rating, some 60 per cent of home movers stay within a three-mile radius. However, this falls to 37 per cent of home movers in the 39 wealthiest local authorities.
Savills used data from 2017-19 provided by Experian, the credit reporting company, as well as figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
Lucian Cook, residential research director at Savills, says employment and social networks, schooling and retirement hotspots all played a part in encouraging people to trade up within an area they already knew.
“It does show that for a lot of the population, once they put down roots they are very much home birds and we form a strong bond with the local area,” he says.
What’s the connection between moving distance and income?
More affluent households have greater buying power over a much wider area and therefore have more flexibility over where they move. In less affluent areas, people are far more likely to be constrained when it comes to their housing options.
The same research found the UK regions where people moved furthest were the south-west and south-east, while the north-east and north-west were the regions where people stayed closer to their departure point.
Across the two northern regions, 57 per cent of people moved within a three-mile radius, compared with 45 per cent in the south. Londoners choosing to move were the least likely to stay within three miles.
Part of the explanation lies in the capital’s far-flung and efficient transport network, which enables hundreds of thousands of commuters to make the daily work trip over much greater distances than between cities and their hinterlands across the north. Another is the higher levels of housing equity among owner-occupiers in the south, giving them a bigger market to choose from when moving.
The research found that the local authorities of Hartlepool, Barrow-in-Furness and South Tyneside had the highest percentage of home movers who relocated within a three-mile radius — all places that rank highly on the deprivation measure.
Places with the lowest percentage of home movers from within a three-mile zone included authorities in the affluent south-east such as South Cambridgeshire, South Buckinghamshire, Braintree and Sevenoaks.
Will the steep rise in working from home cause this picture to change?
It’s quite likely to deepen it. As Covid-19 forced large sections of the population to work from home for months, there was a shift in attitudes among those looking for a new property. In a survey of buyers in April, Savills found 39 per cent of those under the age of 50 were looking for more space following the pandemic and 49 per cent said the size of garden or outside space had become more important in their search.
Mr Cook says: “I suspect the experience of Covid-19 is going to mean that people will consider moving over a longer distance because they are looking more closely at their work-life balance. That’s going to be easier for the more affluent households where we know they have the existing housing wealth to give them more options as to where they can move and the type of property they can buy.” James Pickford