Wednesday 19 July 2017

29.6 miles – The average distance people go to escape living in Royal Tunbridge Wells


“How far do Royal Tunbridge Wells people go to move to a new house?” This was an intriguing question asked by one of my clients the other week. Readers of my property blog will know I love a challenge, especially when it comes to talking about the Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market!

For the majority, the response is not very far. It is much more common for homeowners and tenants in Great Britain to move across town than to the next town or county. Until now, it’s been hard to say how many homeowners and tenants moved from (and to) relatively far away to buy or rent their new home. However, I carried out some research and requested some statistics from the Royal Mail. What came back was fascinating!

Using statistics for the 12 months up to the middle of Autumn 2016, 546 households moved out of Royal Tunbridge Wells (TN4), moving an average distance of 29.59 miles - the equivalent of moving from Royal Tunbridge Wells to Brighton (as the crow flies).  The greatest distance travelled was 387 miles – that’s more than 14.5 marathons (when someone moved to Stirling in Scotland).

Considering there were 503 property sales in TN4 in the year and countless tenant moves, the numbers seems consistent – once you find a town you like, you tend to want to settle down and if you do move, you might only move to a different neighbour-hood, or for better transport links or, to be closer to the school you want to get your children into, but the likelihood is you won’t travel far.

I then turned my attention to people moving into Royal Tunbridge Wells. Using the same statistics for the 12 months up to the middle of Autumn 2016, 485 households moved into Royal Tunbridge Wells (TN4), moving an average distance of 28.11 miles - the equivalent of moving from Leatherhead to Royal Tunbridge Wells (again as the crow flies). The greatest distance travelled was 409 miles – that’s more than 15.5 marathons (when someone moved from Auchenblae in Scotland to Royal Tunbridge Wells).

I have looked at the data of every person moving into Royal Tunbridge Wells and these have been plotted on a map of the UK. Looking at the map below, it shows exactly where most people come from, when moving into Royal Tunbridge Wells. As you can see, there are a high proportion of people moving from London and also from the North West.



So, what does all this mean for the landlords and homeowners of Royal Tunbridge Wells?

When an agent markets a property for rent or let, it is vital to know the tenant or property buyer well, that the properties they are letting/selling fit those tenants/buyers, so they almost sell themselves. These days that means not only knowing how many bedrooms, reception rooms etc., a property offers but the budget buyers and tenants want to spend on a property in that area as well as where they come from.


The estate and lettings industry loves the mantra “location, location, location”. I say it might be helpful to factor in where (and how) far people are moving from, so the property can be sold or let more easily. Many say knowledge is power and whilst I do enjoy writing my blog on the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market, I also use the information to help my clients buy, let and sell well. So for example, the information gained for this article, will enable my team and I to be more efficient in where to direct our marketing resources to ensure we maximise our clients’ properties sale-ability or rent-ability.

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