York is basically ‘white flight’ destination no1 for Londoners —the bigoted wannabe professional class. The real professional class are still in the South East. They don’t live in London, but they live in the highly connected surrounding areas and commute in (Surrey, Essex, Hertfordshire, Sussex, Cambridge, etc etc).

Imo, the York housing market is in a huge bubble. Yes, it has the ‘preferable demographic’ that’s attracting white flight capital ..but being brutally honest the property prices aren’t justified. York is a low energy city with no commerce, global trade or flourishing corporations/businesses. No ‘high visibility’ companies have moved here. The only company I’ve seen is Aviva; and even that’s a regional office. Basically, there’s no real job market apart from tourism. York is a great place to visit, but not to live ..kinda like Bicester Village or Paignton, Devon. This is especially true if you’re of prime working age, don’t work in the public sector and have even the slightest bit of job insecurity (having to find a new job sometime in the coming years).

I’m not just saying York housing market is a bubble. Goldman Sachs has Yorkshire & Humber property falling the most (in real terms) when it comes to the UK housing market correction. Remember, there’s about a 1.5-2yr lag between rate changes/monetary policy and there affects. York property benefitted heavily from the monetary expansion. And it will be HEAVILY affected by the rate hikes. FYI, York is around 40% more expensive than Moston, Manchester for example. It’s like 90s North London prices atm …except it’s not London. And it’s not ever going to be