2021’s moving motivations revealed

With a sense of improving positivity, many potential buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants are being tempted to stop sitting on the fence and take the moving plunge this year. In fact, when comparing the first week of February 2021 to the same period in 2020, the number of visits to one of the main property portal’s website were up 45%, with keen home-hunters sending 18% more enquiries and the number of purchases agreed rising 7%. 

The last 12 months have prompted many of us to re-evaluate not just how we live but where we live, as a new survey of 1,000 homeowners recently revealed. ID Systems found 26% of homeowners are considering moving in the next 12 months – 55% of those decisions were directly influenced by the pandemic.

The pandemic has especially changed the opinion of younger movers, with half of UK homeowners aged 18-24 – and one third of those aged 25-34 – planning on moving house in the next 12 months due to Covid-19

Unsurprisingly, London had the largest percentage of people who had changed their mind about living in a city, with 25.5% thinking about living in the countryside instead. A lifestyle change was evidenced by many respondents, with 15.8% wanting to move for more natural light, 13% for a home office and 11.9% for a home gym.

The UK’s rental market is more fluid and will be quicker to react to a changing landscape. One area set to see resurgence among tenants is a return to city centres, especially as offices, bars, restaurants, cinemas and theatres reopen. This is fuelled by further analysis that showed rents in some of the UK’s biggest city centres dropped by up to 12% in the last quarter of 2020, luring in renters who may have previously been priced out of ultra urban locations. 

Elsewhere, another property portal’s analysis revealed ‘garden’ was the most common search term used by renters between July and September 2020, with one source going as far as predicting that young tenants will hunt down rental properties with ‘Insta-worthy’ outdoor spaces, which serve both social gatherings and social media.

A garden was followed closely by parking, then a garage and the ability to live in a rental property with pets. Taking up the remaining five spots were flooring, properties where the bills were included in the monthly rent, en suite bathrooms, rural locations and a home studio.

Are any of these moving motivations ringing a bell with you? We’re here to help match tenants and buyers with landlords and sellers. Get in contact and we can make 2021 the year you move.