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Trapped inside cramped flats and working on kitchen tables, many city dwellers spent the past year dreaming of greener pastures. Fresh air, larger gardens and more space to work are all valid reasons for looking at properties out of town.
In the UK, the availability of rural properties dried up last year, sending offer prices soaring by more than a tenth. In the US, transactions in pricey New York City properties over $10m collapsed as wealthy buyers disappeared.
America’s real estate market is on a torrid run, with the median price up 24 per cent in May, year on year. But suburban areas and regional cities are receiving more attention than larger urban areas.
Some lucky sellers in the English and Welsh countryside have already reaped the rewards of the shift. Average country property prices this year compared with 2020 are up 14 per cent, double that in towns. A previously wide price gap between properties in the two areas has closed from a maximum of 103 per cent in 2014 to 78 per cent. In Europe, demand for properties in the south of France has surged.
Not every city dweller is seeking wide open spaces, of course. In Asia, better control over the pandemic and lower case numbers means that the aspirational pull of modern urban areas has not taken the same knock.
New data from property agents hint that even in Europe and the US the exodus could be coming to an end. Those yearning for country idylls may change their minds if bosses call them back to work in offices even for a few days a week.
The tide has started to turn in a number of countries. In Switzerland, Zurich and Bern prices have begun to catch up with countryside locations this year after trailing significantly in 2020. Something similar has occurred in Germany. In the US, only 2 per cent of the 3.5m New Yorkers who bolted town last year have stayed away, points out Knight Frank. Manhattan renters signed four times more new leases in May than they did the year before.
In the UK, a shift in mood may already be under way. In May, London buyer inquiries from outside the capital jumped to their highest point since January 2018, according to estate agent Hamptons. The countryside’s grass is not greener for everyone.
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