With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.
An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.
The location to record the most significant jump in first-time buyer inquiries over that period is Dundee, Scotland’s fourth-largest city and, it is said, its sunniest.
Some will be surprised to learn that homebuyers’ love affair with cities has intensified, bearing in mind that the pandemic apparently prompted many to think about a new life on the coast or in the countryside.
The data was crunched by the property website Rightmove, which looked at Great Britain’s 50 largest cities, excluding London, and 50 of the most popular coastal areas. It focused on inquiries for typical first-time buyer properties, that is those with a maximum of two bedrooms.
It revealed that number two on its “city hotspots” list was Edinburgh, followed by three locations in England: Doncaster, Liverpool and Plymouth.
Its findings provide fresh evidence that the pandemic-fuelled “exodus from the city” – or at least the fantasies that millions harboured about relocating to a coastal or rural area – was, statistically speaking, something of a blip.
Areas that estate agents were naming as property hotspots in 2020 included the fishing village of Port Isaac in Cornwall, the seaside towns of Margate in Kent and Clevedon in north Somerset, and Canford Cliffs, a suburb of Poole in Dorset.
Rightmove issued a list in January 2022 of the 10 most popular homebuyer search hotspots for the previous year, all of which were either villages or located near the sea. Rhos-on-Sea, a small seaside town near Colwyn Bay in north Wales, topped the list.
Fast-forward to today and the property website said that while more potential first-time buyers were looking to move to cities, the number contemplating popular coastal areas was “completely flat compared with 10 years ago”.
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London, however, does not follow the trend. Overall first-time buyer demand in the capital is down by 7% versus 10 years ago. That is thought to be in large part because of the capital’s higher property prices, which have locked many out of the housing market.
First-time buyer demand in Dundee jumped by 176% over the period. On the banks of the River Tay, the city has developed a reputation as a vibrant arts and culture hub in recent years. It is also said to have more urban green space per head of population than anywhere else in the UK.
Much of its popularity with would-be first-time buyers is also likely to be down to its relatively affordable housing. Official data issued last month showed that the average price paid by first-time buyers was just under £121,000 in April this year, compared with £156,800 for Scotland as a whole and £223,400 across Great Britain.