Coronavirus Effect: Londoners Now Want to Leave the City for The Countryside

It seems that the delay in the containment of the pandemic is having its impact felt on the British society in more ways than one. Several real estate brokerage companies in the country have been reporting that the demand for houses in London has fallen after the outbreak of the pandemic. The brokers point out that now there have been several listing of properties in London by people who are more interested in moving out of the city to less crowded location, leading to a nearly ten per cent drop in prices in properties in the city in the past few days. This development comes despite the fact that several of the property developers in the country have issued warnings that the number of new houses built will fall this year due to the economic impact of the pandemic. This phenomenon, however, only seems to be playing out in the housing market of the country, with no impact being witnessed in demand for commercial property in London for domestic as well as foreign buyers. Again, this could also be a temporary phenomenon being observed during a very short period which on no accounts be called as normal. However, there could be some major factors that can be identified which is causing this phenomenon.

1. Financial constraints of House owners – Currently, the Financial conditions of most of the people is very difficult. The lockdown conditions and social distancing measures that have been there since the coronavirus outbreak has led to income levels of almost everybody falling. The uncertainty regarding how long the lockdown conditions will remain, and how long before people will be able to go about their normal day to day businesses, must also be causing jittery in the minds of people. Additionally, it is also certain that the business environment in the country will not be picking up fast, and that the impact of the pandemic will remain in the country long after the lockdown has been withdrawn. The effect will be that the business environment will become better or relatively faster in other parts of the countries than Urban centres like London, leading to a significant fall in earnings levels of peoples in the city. It is thus obvious that people who understand that this will start to move out of the expensive city, while their income levels may also witness a fall. It will be again very interesting to see how many jobs from the city will be able to fly out to less expensive destinations and how many companies will be willing to prune their staff levels in the city. The most probable reason it seems why the house owners are interested in moving out of the city is the perception of deteriorating financial standing, and fear if the property prices in the city fall any further from here. Given what the outlook is for the economy for this year and the next year, it is highly probable that it might happen. The property price drop may not be very severe in the smaller destinations of the country, and thus shifting property could lead to a restricting loss for the houseowners.
2. Advantages of working from home – The advantage of working from home has more benefits than one. Not only does it help people stay safe at their homes, away from the gathering, while being productively employed, but also ensures that they are able to spend quality time with their families. Moreover, working remotely also gives an additional advantage that a person need not be a resident of London to be able to render his productive activities. He may very well move out of the city, and leave behind an expensive lifestyle, live in the countryside in a larger house and enjoy high-quality life. While this advantage of working remotely have been known for long and have been promoted by many, but its importance has been accentuated only after the advent of the outbreak. It is highly likely that many businesses will now try to create more possibilities to create work from home opportunities for their staff so, not only from a safety perspective but for a cost-saving perspective as well. Remotely working staff will be less burdensome on office rentals, facility costs as well as electricity and networking costs, as these will be borne by the employee itself. Additionally, for certain business types, work from home is a preferred medium of engagement than the physical presence of employees, as it leads to better productivity of the employees who can spend more time behind their systems than travelling to their workplaces. People who can visualise these possibilities getting materialised in the near future would very likely want to relocate to countryside locations and lead a better-quality life while not compromising on their productivity levels.
3. Outlook about the post-pandemic world – It is now almost certain that the post-pandemic world is not going to be the same as it was before 2020. Social distancing measures will be in place for a long period of time. How long before a potent vaccine is developed so that people may go about doing their day to day business without being worried about catching the infection is still not clear. Under such circumstances, a densely crowded city like London could be perhaps one of the most unsafe places to be in. It is also being witnessed during this pandemic all across the world that the rate of spread of the infection in an urban environment like London is much higher than a countryside place where people usually do live distantly from each other on account of less population density. In the post-pandemic world, it is highly likely that there will be some serious thinking among people to move away from concentrated city life which is not conducive for a healthy lifestyle for more reasons than one. It is likely that many people would have this on their mind when they want to leave London and plan to go to a place where they will be closer to nature.

As has been mentioned, the phenomenon of people wanting to leave London may be a very short-term phenomenon. It is possible that due to the heightened state of panic that the people are right now, they may be over-reacting. When a few months pass by, and things start normalising, there is a high probability that these queries with brokers to sell property in London and move away to a countryside location may epitomise.