A new study reveals just how long residents across London and Surrey stay in their homes...
It has been found that, on average British homeowners stay in their properties for just under 21 years (20.8), with residents in some London boroughs such as Kensington & Chelsea staying put for a whopping 35.5 years and Guildford homeowners putting their feet up for 23.1 years.
The new research, which saw property portal Zoopla analyse the average turnover of properties at the local authority level across the UK to find the average number of years British people live in their homes before moving, also revealed that the capital dominates the list of least frequent movers, with nine out of the top 10 places going to London boroughs.
Regarding those who are the most frequent movers, people in Dartford and South Derbyshire take the top spots, where homeowners in these areas stay 15 years - five years less than the national average.
Regionally, those in the East Midlands are the most frequent movers, changing properties on average once every 17.9 years, followed by homeowners north of the border in Scotland who tend to move once every 18.7 years. Meanwhile, London residents tend to move the least on average (every 26.2 years). Londoners are followed by homeowners in the South East who tend to stay just under a year less (25.4 years).
Laura Howard, a spokesperson for Zoopla, said: “These results contradict a common assumption that UK neighbourhoods are becoming more transient. They show that once you’ve managed to buy a property to call home and set down roots in an area, there can be little motivation to move again.
“However, this is not necessarily down to complacency or a sense of inertia. While we might love our city, town or village, most of us still want to ‘improve our lot’ with a move, which usually means climbing the property ladder. But house prices have risen exponentially in the last two decades and many people are unwilling or unable to take on the cost of the ‘next rung up’.”
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