Cheerio, London: Home buyers are increasingly looking outside the city

Even with a recent cooling of the market, more and more Londoners are looking outside the city to find their new home.

London residents bought more than 30,000 homes outside the city in the first half of this year, according to Hamptons International. Of those who relocated, roughly 40 percent moved to South East England and 30 percent moved to the East of England.

“With affordability stretched, more Londoners are moving out of the capital to find their new home,” Aneisha Beveridge, a research analyst at Hamptons, told Bloomberg. “More people are making a bigger move and buying a larger home sooner to avoid having to pay stamp duty on additional moves as they trade up.”

Home prices, which have nearly doubled in the past decade, cost the average London resident 14.5 times their annual salary. Still, a report earlier this year found that about half of London’s high-end homes are selling for under asking prices with an average discount of about 12 percent. [Bloomberg] — Kathryn Brenzel