The question around what the pandemic and lockdown living will ultimately mean for the UK housing market is one that probably comes with too many imponderables to come to any conclusion.
Indeed, it’s far too early to say just exactly how this might play out over the course of the next few years, especially given we are still some way from having a fully vaccinated population which will ultimately determine how people live their lives through 2021 and beyond.
What we can focus on is how the housing market has played out over the past year and where we might already be seeing themes which will develop in the months and years ahead.
Firstly, what might happen to city living? There has been some suggestion that lockdown has ultimately exposed the flaws in city living, that without access to everything that makes city living work, what is the point in living there? That if you do not have to go into an office every single day, why do you need to live in a city? And that living in high-rise blocks or properties with no outside space has made lockdown doubly difficult?
There is also an argument to suggest that many of these factors apply to living in well-known commuter belts – that if employers are going to be much more flexible about not needing their staff to work in their offices every single day, then the need to live within commutable distances to work, is greatly diminished. That living close to a train station that gets you into work every single day at a relatively quick pace is not so much of a necessity, if you’re able to work from home or remotely.
So that if this working requirement is lessened, then effectively people can live far further away from their offices because they may only need to travel to them sporadically. Many have taken this to mean country living will grow in popularity as employers become less focused on seeing their staff in the flesh every day.
The big question, is whether this does actually play out in such a way, because if it does not only does it have big potential impacts for owner-occupation levels in the city, but also in terms of housing supply and affordability in more rural areas, investment in high-rise apartments, indeed investment in all kinds of city living. Plus, of course, rental requirements and tenant demand in those more rural areas, if we see more people wanting to live away from the city.
Again, much of this will depend on employers. For many years, as people requested to work more from home, or remotely, some employers would use the argument that their business required people in the office every day. Certainly, for offices, that argument may no longer hold any weight – when you have spent the last year working away from the office and your business has continued to be effective, such an argument is not likely to hold much sway.
However, lockdown living and working from home will certainly not have been for everyone. Many people – and I sense this far more during the current lockdown than before – may feel they have had enough working like this. Clearly, with the schools off and the commitment required to home-school, it makes this situation even more difficult. Perhaps when the kids are fully back at school they will feel remote working is more pleasant and something they would like to do more of? Others might be itching to get back into an office environment.
The point is that we are likely to see employers offering far more flexibility to employees, and that clearly gives people greater options in terms of where they live and how they wish to live. From my view, that will clearly have an impact on the UK housing market; indeed it already is, but it might not be as all-encompassing as some would have us believe.
For instance, looking at our own work statistics in recent months, it’s clear that our high-volume areas are tending to be the ones we have always seen, so areas around cities like Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham and Newcastle, for example, continue to be busy for us. That is not a change, although it remains to be seen just what might happen in London, because the view might be that those living in the capital may now be much more ready to leave.
Of course, this situation will not be the same forever, but by the same token, will we ever return to a pre-Covid ‘normality’? I would think not, and that’s without truly considering or understanding just what the economic fall-out might be and how those businesses which were viable and successful up to the start of March 2020 may never open again, or may never be the same again. City living would be very different if we see less choice in terms of restaurants, theatres, cafes, bars, pubs and the like.
Overall, of course it’s too early to say where this all might be heading, but there’s no doubting that Covid/the pandemic/lockdown, has shifted much in our society and will ultimately deliver significant changes for the UK housing market, in terms of both demand and supply, and how we shift the environment to meet both of these. It does seem hyperbole, but evidentially, nothing will be the same again.
Simon Jackson is managing director at SDL Surveying
