Escape from the country: buyers ditch coastal and rural living in return to cities

Back in the early months of Covid, all the talk in property circles was the surge in would-be housebuyers plotting a move to coastal and rural areas - as locked-down city dwellers reassessed their priorities in favour of a bigger garden, access to nature and more room for home working.

- Rupert Jones

But, five years on, the reshaping of the housing market sparked by the pandemic has gone into reverse, with homes by the sea losing some of their lustre and fewer people looking to escape the cities, new data shows.

The property website Rightmove said that, while a great deal had changed since 2020, one thing that had remained a constant was a desire among many would-be buyers for a home with more space.

Five years ago, the areas estate agents were naming as the new property hotspots included Port Isaac in Cornwall, Margate in Kent, Clevedon in north Somerset, the East Neuk of Fife on Scotland's east coast, and Canford Cliffs, a suburb of Poole in Dorset.

Rightmove said that in 2025 "many short-term trends brought about by the unique circumstances of lockdown have reversed".