House moving business, Right Move, says that more people were looking for properties in London in 2022, with a 9% increase on 2021, while searches for Cornwall and Devon dropped (though are still high).
They say:
During the pandemic, more people were looking for their next home outside of cities, in the countryside or by the coast. In several months of 2021, Cornwall replaced London as the most searched for location on Rightmove.
This trend has reversed in 2022, as buyer search behaviour returns towards more normal pre-pandemic patterns. Searches for London increased by 9% compared with last year, while searches for Cornwall dropped by 18%, and by 17% in Devon.
London has 36% more buyer searches than Cornwall at the end of the year, which is the biggest gap since 2019. This compares to last year when there was just a 3% gap in number of searches between London and Cornwall.
The increase in searches for London alongside the decrease in searches for Cornwall & Devon indicates that the trend of looking out of the capital, and to the coast or countryside, may be behind us in 2023.
Meanwhile, St Ives tops the happiest places to live chart!
