Football may be a game of two halves but so, it seems, is the property market. The divide between the North and South of England is nothing new, but how is the landscape looking now, and which half is currently performing better?
The average home in the South of England – which includes London, the East, South East and South West – costs £474,660. That’s £242,210, or 104%, more than one in the North of England, defined as Yorkshire and the Humber, the North East and North West and the West and East Midlands. In percentage terms, the gap has closed slightly from the peak of 108% in 2017 because, for the past seven years, house prices in the North have been rising faster than those in the South.
However, the outperformer generally depends on the period in the property cycle you look at. Prices in the North have risen 20% since 2019, before the pandemic, just pulling ahead of the South, at 19%. Yet, since the current cycle began in 2008, prices in the South have risen by 71%, easily outpacing the North’s total price rise of 47%. However, if you look back to 2000, prices in the South have risen 249%, only slightly outperforming the North, at 238%.
It does appear, though, that the value gap between the South and North has opened up more in this cycle than it has done previously. And we don’t expect it to narrow much further, particularly since the London market seems to be picking up pace. This suggests we’re entering a new housing cycle where the South begins to outperform the North once again.
So, what about migration patterns between the North and South of England? The latest available ONS migration data, which picks up every person who moved between a local authority in 2022, shows that 19% of Northerners who moved local authority that year relocated to the South of England, compared to 15% of Southerners who moved North. In terms of numbers, almost 273,745 Northerners moved South in 2022, compared to 322,600 Southerners who moved North.
However, the pattern of North/ South migration is linked to age. There’s a notable spike in Southerners moving North to go to university – in 2022, 27% of uni-aged Southerners who moved local authority moved to the North of England – but they tend to return South fairly quickly. By contrast, migration in the opposite direction occurs over a longer period of time, with a significant increase in Northerners moving South in their twenties and thirties for job opportunities, over and above the flow of people who moved North to university and then returned home.
Nevertheless, slightly later in life, when people start having children and need larger homes and support from family members, there does appear to be a return to the North. And much of this is likely due to house prices and housing affordability because the trend has increased over a decade. The share of Southerners moving North in their thirties, forties and fifties increased by 3% between 2012 and 2022; however, in terms of numbers, 54% more Southerners moved North in 2022 than the number who did it a decade earlier. Meanwhile, the likelihood of Northerners in those age brackets moving South has decreased, particularly as they get older.
Overall, Northerners are still more likely to move South than Southerners are to move North, but – likely due in large part to house prices and affordability – they’re doing so in increasingly smaller numbers.
