‘I’m praying the market might crash’: Young people in the UK’s rural hotspots feel priced out
This story demonstrates just how difficult for young people to have a stake in key parts of rural Britain. It tells us:
“There were periods over the last year where there were no properties at all to rent in the town or even a few miles into the surrounding area.”
That observation must have come from people living in the places we know as property hotspots, right? Wrong.
One of the ongoing narratives we heard over the course of the pandemic was how remote working was leading people to give up city life in favour of bigger, cheaper and more rural living. For many people with desk-based jobs, there was no need to be within travelling distance of the office any more, so expensive flats in and around London and other major cities were traded in for houses in the countryside or by the sea.
Something we heard less about, though, was the impact on people living in those regions where property increased in popularity over lockdown. Lowri, a 29-year-old classroom assistant and freelance writer living in the Welsh county of Gwynedd, home to the Snowdonia National Park, says the influx of people coming to Wales over the pandemic was “overwhelming”.