Farewell, army of tenants – and see you again on Monday

By Alex Reid

Renters are apparently leaving London at the highest rate in more than a decade. Faced with a woeful lack of supply, prices that would put off Elon Musk, and a catalogue of rogue landlords, who can blame them? 

According to Hamptons, these formerly starry eyed bright young things are packing up their Macbooks and taking their cortados to the home counties, presumably off to launch an eco-bakery in St Albans, or a climbing-cum-yoga-studio in Sevenoaks, whilst settling down with a vegetable garden and a Labrador.  

Sadly, that’s just not the case. 

Yes, a few young people leave London because they get fed up of wasting money on poor rental accommodation – even more so when they see what they can rent for half the price 30 minutes outside of the M25, or indeed buy with a mortgage that isn’t the size of The Shard. 

But no, they don’t all go and build another micro-brewery from their potting shed.  Why? Because their jobs are in London, even if their apartment isn’t.  

Until industries genuinely relocate and commit to the regions, London will continue to suck talent back into its vortex-like jaws, chewing people up and spitting them back out when they finally can afford to buy a home, by which time they don’t want to live here anyway. 

How do I know this? Because I’m one of them – my short years living in Bristol were some of the best of my life – low rent, walking to work and even time to rock climb.   

So why give it up? Because the jobs, clients, industries and people you want to know still all reside in London, and – for better or worse - that’s just the way it is.