[Closed] Working from home - Lets all move to the country

It would feel risky for me to buy into a lifestyle that relies on remote working continuing at my current T&Cs. The obvious issue is that for many roles it can be really hard to recruit the right people at the right time for a specific geographical location. If you successfully make it a remote working role suddenly the available pool of suitable labour increases greatly, even within the UK.

This is where i am at (I think). My role is fairly solid right now but it is quirky. With some regulation change it could disappear. The majority of similar roles are generally office based and London or big city type locations. One option is maybe give up the big city career if that does happen. We would be in a position with a fairly modest mortgage - Could i be employed in some sort of country bumpkin work?

If your company's policy allows you to move to the country, which one are you choosing...... India ? Vietnam ? China ??

Be careful what you wish for !!

I have much faster internet here in rural Cumbria than I did in Glasgow BTW. Upload speeds are cray-cray

https://b4rn.org.uk

If your company’s policy allows you to move to the country, which one are you choosing…… India ? Vietnam ? China ??

Be careful what you wish for !!

My employer is global and we recently had a circular around about cross country working i.e. living in one country and being contracted to work in another. This causes a mass of HR / Tax / Employment law issues and is a clear cut no no. That is the only solid advice we have had on the topic since lock down started. Everything else is up in the air.

I live in a picturesque Cumbrian village which is mostly made up of pensioners but things are selling within days and it is families who are buying. Great news for a school with only 30 kids.

It works for me and the type of job I do but like others I am not sure how long WFH will be so widely used. At the moment we all know our work colleagues well and know how the business ticks as people leave and new starters arrive I think a office/home balance will need to develop to allow the business to work efficiently.

Houses are selling super fast by me, incredibly so. If you think you can make it work chop chop I’d say. I hope everyone can continue working from home to make my trundling about a lot easier.

I live in a picturesque Cumbrian village which is mostly made up of pensioners

Whereabouts or is it a secret? 🙂

I am currently staying at my ma's in Kirkby Lonsdale but looking to buy somewhere near-ish soon hopefully. Shame if all these latecomers spoil our plans, we were trying to buy before the lockdown but it didn't happen.

I did this about 8 years ago, moved to a lovely village in Shropshire and have a five hour commute when I’m in work. Max I do in a week in work is three days, sometimes none. Don’t regret it for a second, I just wish I had done it sooner. Bringing my daughter up in this environment really suits us, it’s a very pleasant way to live.

I did this about 8 years ago, moved to a lovely village in Shropshire and have a five hour commute when I’m in work. Max I do in a week in work is three days, sometimes none. Don’t regret it for a second, I just wish I had done it sooner. Bringing my daughter up in this environment really suits us, it’s a very pleasant way to live.

Is that Shropshire to London? I assume you stay down there when doing consecutive days?

It's gone absolutely mental in the Forest of Dean and the Brecon Beacons for sales and rentals according to the estate agents I've been speaking to. Have been looking to rent in either of those locations as I'm having to go where the work is and prices have jumped a good 25% on rentals. Haven't got a job yet but the average price for rentals in each for a flat or small house was £5-550pcm, they've all jumped up to the £700 mark before being snapped up by people from Bristol and Cardiff who can now WFH. Sales are up a similar amount too, especially as there's now no bridge toll for the Bristol area workers.

It's doubly annoying as I may have got a chance at a job I've wanted to do for a while and the barrier is going to be affordability purely down to rent prices.

I can see a lot of those city centre stores like Debanhams being converted into flats. If “everyone” wants to sell their nice urban home and move to the country, who is going to buy them to give those who want to move to the country a handsome profit on their purchase price?

.

5 minutes from my house is countryside, 10 minutes is the beach, 15 minutes is the big, horrible shity. The only place cheaper than where I live is the shity.. so where to go , outside the commuter belt? Up north? Wales!? Yeah Wales. Doesn't it rain all the time there? I don't like rain.

Doesn’t it rain all the time there?

Yep. You'll fit right in. 😉

And its full of The Welsh

Bugger off and take your avocados with yer

Avowhatsnow?

Ah Waitrose deliveries! Nah, I'm a Lidls shopper, me 😀

Wouldn't put too much in to the fact that houses are going fast and for over asking price, lots of houses everywhere seem to be going fast and over price, lockdown held up everyone's plans and the lack of stamp duty means people have a few more grand to throw in to a bid. Market seems to be going mental everywhere.

We've been holding off/working towards moving house for 4 years, was just getting ready to sell when lockdown happened. If I had the option I'd wait and see for a while (or sell now and rent for a while and wait and see).

THe actual answer for the OP is to buy somewhere cheap in the nice countryside whilst converting his big city house into an HMO and renting rooms to worker drones for the city whilst keeping one bit of it for himself as a pied a terre for his infrequent jaunts to the city.

If his fortunes change he can kick the plebs out, move back to the smoke and keep his country pile as a holiday house to rent to the plebs when they go on their holibobs.

Was already moving largely towards WFH pre lockdown and this has just accelerated it. Don’t live rural as such but do live in Yorkshire and worked mostly in London when in office. Going forwards will prob do 1-2 days max in office. Also have a colleague who lives in France but used to commute to UK and live in a flat 2-3 days a week. Based on how well she has coped, we are now considering our long talked about 2nd home in Northern France, could happily live there for a few weeks at a time, and WFH.

THe actual answer for the OP is to buy somewhere cheap in the nice countryside whilst converting his big city house into an HMO and renting rooms to worker drones for the city whilst keeping one bit of it for himself as a pied a terre for his infrequent jaunts to the city.

If his fortunes change he can kick the plebs out, move back to the smoke and keep his country pile as a holiday house to rent to the plebs when they go on their holibobs.

There are variations on this theme that could come into play. However if you take a simple one and I rent out the big city house I have to pay circa 40% tax on that rent income, its dead money. And as a former small time land lord I don't want to go there again. In that game you either go big or go home and I chose to go home.

Another option is to also buy a big city 'shitty' apartment for minimum cost and have a base here. I weirdly found a perfectly good one with secure parking for £45k and i cant work out why its so cheap. I could buy that outright but then you have all your bills and ownership hassle x2 - paying council tax and for internet etc when you are only there 2 or 3 nights a week is just more dead money and hassle (although it would also be a future income source).

So creative solutions have been mostly ruled out.

No, mainly to Manchester, but also London on occasion. I used to stay over if I was there consecutive days, but not so much in the last year or so.

Wales!? Yeah Wales. Doesn’t it rain all the time there? I don’t like rain.

Looked at a house in Arnside today (peninsula just south of the Lakes), there were people viewing before and after us and the estate agent said there have been several viewings every day since it went on the market a couple of weeks ago.

Lots of people buying second homes as well as families moving apparently. :-/

I've been WFH for a while (my contract is 1-2 days in the office in Shoreditch,London) and commuting from Stockport.

We've been talking about moving somewhere nicer for ages, just can't decide where to move to. Might have missed the boat a bit - every nice house that pops up now in west yorks is gone almost as soon as it comes on the market

This time last year a couple with one 3 year old son moved into our cul-de-sac. They moved as Dunblane High was the 'best' state school in Scotland by results, having no connection with the area, but he is in IT (natch), can work remotely, and they swapped small flat in London for 5-bed detached, ready to sit out the next 7 years to high school for their lad. There was two offers - and theirs was 20% above valuation.

Now we have the house opposite for sale - a 2-bed house owned since new in 1973 by the same lady who passed away at Easter. The house is a total 1980 time-warp with structural problems caused by huge trees. It went on the market on yesterday, we have watched a line of cars today do 'drive-by' and nosy through the windows, plus three viewings. According to the viewer there have been three offers, two haven't even viewed, they have folk viewing mainly from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Falkirk...

I guess my point is there has always been a steady flow of folk doing the 'country' thing for 'good schools' and 'cheap houses'. Nothing new there.
However, I do think that even if a small proportion of folk have re-evaluated life and priorities through this pandemic, then we will see a real spike in demand for houses in rural/semi-rural/commuter towns.
The price of the houses on our road, and the todays feeding frenzy of house buyers seems to show a real rise in demand.

'Property expert" on Radio Scotland yesterday saying they've had a big jump in enquiries from England, particularly the west coast and the isles. Expect it's a combination of Bre$hit and Covid. You certainly need to look at broadband availability if WFH - at my current address there's no landline and I need a 4G aerial to get a weak signal that drops-out regularly. SMS texts take days to arrive.

We moved last year from just outside Leeds/Bradford to Welsh borders.

Pros - clean air and no pollution, people are nicer, traffic jams are non existent, houses are cheap. It’s dark at night rather than an orange glow. Can leave the doors unlocked. I live in stunning countryside that tourists appear not to know about. Brilliant road bike riding. Even in the depths of COVID still could go out multiple times per day. Still pinch myself that this is where I live and not just on holiday

Cons - everyone knows what you do, wages are low, not much employment, health care not great, decent shops at least 45min drive away. Mountain Biking not as good on the doorstep (population that low that there are not many BW’s & paths). No kids around of my sons age.

The "house are cheap" and "not much employment" are clearly linked. Where I live has a lot of the pros that you mention but the houses are definitely not cheap and there is employment.

I suppose it all depends how much equity you have in your city house and whether buying a very cheap house and a much lower paid job with no mortgage and money in the bank works for people.

The “house are cheap” and “not much employment” are clearly linked.

Correct, Mrs FD and I both work for the NHS so our salaries are equitable to what they were (although I took a big pay cut). I looked at changing careers when we moved and very quickly concluded that I would 1. struggle to find a job not in my current sector 2. I would be lucky to find anything that would pay above minimum wage.

We actually started this process pre-covid. Went from near an airport, motorways & a mainline Waterloo station to 2 hours away, close to the England/Wales border. We live in the FOD now as luckily both our employers are good about WFH anyway, so we questioned why do we live in a dirty concrete jungle?

Now we live on a forestry track on the edge of a village in a house twice the size of the old one with a plot of land multiple times the size - for the same outlay.

I commute to the office 1h45m once a week, which is a fairly long and boring day. I figure it’s not too bad, I’ve got friends who commute by train every day for that long. I’d happily do it for the new normal.

That said even in the time we’ve been here, houses are selling, fast. I very much doubt we would have agreed on the deal we got with this, now.

I suspect that the pandemic and its subsequent trends are having a more complicated set of impacts. More demand for countryside housing is one aspect, but I think there will be more to it.

Perhaps another conclusion us that people are looking to take the next step rather than a radical shift. We live in an inner city suburb with strong local amenities including a relatively thriving high street. While a lot of houses have sold post-Lockdown (with families moving typically to semi-urban settlements outside the city), there is also clearly a whole heap of new people prepared to move in on a lifestyle / loving the community vibe ticket. We don't know anyone who's moved to the proper countryside as a result of CoVID - it's more typically the next closest step to suburbia.

Many places see a very small proportion of their housing stock sold in a typical year, so it's possible to overread the trends. It also only takes 2 buyers to be seriously interested in a property to push a price up.

To be fair the Lakes has always been bonkers. I offered £260,000 for a 2 bed house in Stavely that needed a complete refurbishment and didn’t win. Nice places just get dearer. Plenty of people with plenty of money about, sadly just not enough in my account.

Best thing I did was move out of London 20 years ago. Commuted for a bit until it got too much then found a local job on a 1/3 less money. All went fine until the banking crisis when the firm folded. Then it gets tricky as finding work is a real challenge. Wound up in a job I don't really enjoy, but overall I've no regrets as I'm compensated by a far better lifestyle. The current situation is obviously a concern as now this job is decidedly vulnerable. However I'd most likely have had the same stresses employment wise if I'd stayed in the Smoke.

I wouldn't like to be the owner or seller of a city centre flat with no outdoor space right now.

i cant see office working going back to how it was. the drive for more flexible workimng was happening but the more luddite companies are slower to respond. i think working patterns and locations will change permanently as we have demonstrated it works totally fine.

i wouldd be more concerned about wether you/your family are cut out for country life if you are used to city services as mentioned by NZCol above.

we could up sticks to teh country but we like the convenience of where we are (but it comes at a price premium). my country dwelling sister spent 10yrs as a kid taxi service - sod that!

i cant see office working going back to how it was. t

Hopefully this!

My work pre covid despite being a digital agency only allowed 2 days a month from home. It seems they are going to change this after seeing productivity has increased.

house prices in my my area are bonkers. Seems lots of people are having the same thoughts as me. I did hear my postcode ranks 2nd in top 10 postcodes in England and Wales with 72% of listed properties in August under offer or sold!

We left the countryside just as the kids were turning into teens. I could see where this was going in a village with four buses a day and only to one destination. They need some independence. Of course the taxi part only partly diminished.

Personally my interest is moving back to the sea instead.

Also have a colleague who lives in France but used to commute to UK and live in a flat 2-3 days a week. Based on how well she has coped, we are now considering our long talked about 2nd home in Northern France, could happily live there for a few weeks at a time,

I wonder how well that will continue to work after January.... 🤔

It seems probable that, post-covid, a load more people on relatively high wages are going to have WFH as a viable option. If they decide to move to a more rural area (which may have lower property prices and poor local employment prospects), is this likely to cause issues for 'locals' in rural areas looking to buy a house?

Traditionally, property prices were lower in areas with worse job prospects. Are we about to see a degree of price levelling across the country?

If your company’s policy allows you to move to the country, which one are you choosing…… India ? Vietnam ? China ??

Be careful what you wish for !!

It's an interesting point.

I work in IT support. Our guys are good at what they do, really good, but but there are guys in India who are in a different league. At the moment few clients are off-shoring end user IT support, the biggest barriers are a bit of light end-users xenophobia and issues with accents, but then I've spoken to guys in India who sound 100% UK-Asian.

On the flip side of that, one of my suppliers WFH from his Apartment over-looking Miami Beach, he works 4am to midday, takes his kids to school during his lunch break, spends the afternoons doing whatever he wants to do. Miami Beach holds no appeal to me, but somewhere in France would. I'd rather fly to the office for a monthly meeting rather than drive everyday, but really... what's the point? Do you really need to see people face to face when a HD webcam works just as well?

Personally my interest is moving back to the sea instead.

?

If your company’s policy allows you to move to the country, which one are you choosing…… India ? Vietnam ? China ??

Be careful what you wish for !!

Im going hazard a guess that many of us who will shift to primarily WFH will still have a need to attend the office on a regular basis for meetings and workshops.

Any that fall outside of that were already at risk of outsourcing.

Just a guess mind you.

One thing that stands out about the threat of, “well, if the role can be WFH then it can be outsourced overseas” is the article/opinion piece I’ve seen happened to be in a newspaper owned by brothers with significant property investments.

It seems probable that, post-covid, a load more people on relatively high wages are going to have WFH as a viable option. If they decide to move to a more rural area (which may have lower property prices and poor local employment prospects), is this likely to cause issues for ‘locals’ in rural areas looking to buy a house?

Traditionally, property prices were lower in areas with worse job prospects. Are we about to see a degree of price levelling across the country?

It'll be slow and gradual, but yes.

As with all change, there will be winners and losers, so yeah if you're in a low-wage job and live out of a city, then you might find the cost of housing where you lives goes up. However if you're a City Dweller paying 65% of your salary on rent you might find it a blessed relief when prices go down.

However, if it happens, it will be a bigger win than lose for the majority. We don't have a housing shortfall in the UK, we 'just' have a shortfall in certain places.

Also, if we do find that the change is too quick, then it's far, far easier and cheaper to build new houses out of town, we could, if we wanted create new towns and cites.

IMHO, Covid/Lock down isn't the start of a WFH revolution, it's been slowly happening for YEARS. I know this might bring me dangerously close to providing 'proof' of a Bill Gates Covid conspiracy theory, but if you did want to fan those flames, it would be far better to show how 365 / Teams / Azure has matured in the last 18/24 months as proof that they were readying for a WFH revolution, than any hokum about stock-piling vaccines etc.

Wife and I were talking about this last night. We aren't in a position to me currently but I in a couple of years hope to, so things hopefully clearer by then. If I could WFH 4 days a week I could trade a long commute one day a week for a nicer house and life in a quieter location. Fingers crossed it happens.