According to Hamptons International, a total of 73,950 homes outside London were purchased by buyers moving away from the capital, with the average London leaver paying £372,860 for their new home
The number of Londoners leaving the city hit a four-year high in 2020, as the pandemic prompted a search for more space.
A total of 73,950 homes outside London were purchased by buyers moving away from the capital, according to Hamptons International.
The average London leaver paid £372,860 for their new home, which added up to a total of £27.6billion over the year – the highest spend since 2007.
This figure was reached despite the seven-week closure of the housing market during the first national lockdown.
Despite Covid-19 closing the housing market for seven weeks, the number of homes bought by Londoners outside the capital has risen to its highest level in four years, said Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons.
Beveridge said, while leaving London has been a rite of passage for many, often families reaching life stage milestones, the effects of lockdown and the desire for space seems to have heightened this drift.
Two thirds of the relocation spending, or £18.4billion, occurred in the second half of 2020 – meaning that six-month period alone saw more money spent on new homes by London leavers than any full year between 2008 and 2013.
In the second half of 2020, London leavers bought 7.8 per cent of all homes sold outside the capital, equating to 49,470 sales.
The area which attracted the highest proportion of London buyers was Spelthorne in Surrey. Seventy-five per cent of properties sold there were bought by Londoners in 2020, which represented an eight per cent rise on 2019.
But it was Sevenoaks in Kent that recorded the greatest year-on-year increase in the share of homes bought by Londoners.
Former residents of the capital acquired 62 per cent of homes for sale in that area – 39 per cent more than in 2019.
Windsor and Maidenhead and Oxford also experienced an influx of Londoners this year.
In Windsor and Maidenhead, 38 per cent of homes were bought by Londoners – 27 per cent more than in 2019; while in Oxford they snapped up 33 per cent of available homes – a 17 per cent increase.
