Londoners fleeing Covid-hit capital snaffle up more homes in Portsmouth

Families escaping London snapped up one in 14 homes on sale in Portsmouth – or seven per cent – between January 1 and December 12.

Estate agents Hamptons compiled the data from 112 areas, which showed the number of city homes purchased by Londoners was up by two per cent compared to last year.

Havant recorded a similar figure, with seven per cent of the borough properties bought by people leaving London – the same as the previous year.

Meanwhile, in Gosport four per cent of homes – or one in 25 – were bought, up one per cent from 2019. No data was available for Fareham.

The figures revealed by Hamptons showed that across Britain, people leaving London purchased nearly 74,000 homes over the period – the most since 2016, when they bought more than 78,000.

Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at the company, said: ‘While leaving London has been a rite of passage for many – often for families reaching life stage milestones – the effects of lockdown and the desire for space seems to have heightened this drift.

‘We expect this out-migration trend to continue into the first half of next year too. But usually as prices in the capital begin to flatline, which we forecast to happen in the second half of 2021, more Londoners decide to stay put.

‘Even so, given the housing market has been anything but normal since the onset of Covid, we expect to see the total number of homes bought by London leavers next year hit 2016 levels.’

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