Do you fear "white flight"..?

C_Mababejive

I realise this is a sensitive issue but let us not duck the subject because of those sensitivities as it would appear to be a very real issue.

I can spot areas on rightmove where people seem desperate to sell their house. The same houses have languished for months if not years,put on sale,taken off, drastically reduced.

The only common factor is that they are areas with large ethnic populations or where there are nearby large ethnic populations which are encroaching.

Maybe its just pure coincidence and these are just rubbish areas anyway..but then how can they be because someone bought there originally and now wants to get out,,but no one wants to buy..yet.

zerog

How do you know the seller is white?

Why wouldn't "ethnic" people buy the property?

Maybe it's a rubbish house, and the seller is an "ethnic" who didn't understand what he was getting into, and received bad advice from a solicitor when buying a house that nobody else will now buy

discat11

....and how exactly do you know the people selling are a different ethnicity?

Non story sorry.

Maybe, just maybe, it's because - as in my very rural area - more & more houses are being built so as soon as a farmer flogs his land off and it's known then local residents are selling up, I haven't a clue what ethnicity/religion or TV preferences they have so I am unable to make any sort of conspiracy or politically angled theory about it.

C_Mababejive

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6631541.stm

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9960804.House_prices_crash_in_the_Blackburn_area/

I wonder if there is such a thing as, for example, Asian flight?

discat11

ah ok.
So this only applies to those who live in Blackburn, although it seems a non story despite the BBC and a newspaper running it.

I don't live anywhere near Blackburn and have no view on it in which case.
Thanks

alchemist.1

C_Mababejive wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6631541.stm

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9960804.House_prices_crash_in_the_Blackburn_area/

I wonder if there is such a thing as, for example, Asian flight?

Indeed, from crappy areas like Blackburn.

Less of an ethnicity issue more poverty

moneyistooshorttomention

I do believe white flight is a phenomenon that is happening. That much I am clear on. I am not going to deny the truth because current fashion dictates its not "politically correct" to state there is no such thing.

However, the reasons I have usually noticed why houses hang around and hang around on the market (assuming a fair number in the same area are doing so) tends to be because they are pretty outdated/unliveable and the people in that area don't quite seem to see just how outdated they are (ie because they are used to it and think that's normal).

I have certainly noticed this - coming from a fast-moving modern city to a much more rural and more old-fashioned area. The houses that match what I expect to see go in the sort of time I am used to (ie pretty darn quickly) and I could predict which ones would go quickly when I was the other end of the country examining the ones in this more rural market from the other end of a computer screen.

So - that's why I think there are parts of the country where a sizeable number of houses are taking some time to sell. Its down to a noticeable number of houses needing modernising just in order to be able to actually live in them normally and add on a bit of old-fashioned tastes in these houses as well and they take a time to shift. I still haven't got over the fact that the fireplace I ripped out of my 1970s house was actually a 1950s fireplace and the 1980s kitchen I will be ripping out from here when I can afford to was put in this century. I admit to sheer puzzlement as to why someone would do something that is already 20 years out of date at the time they do it...

The other factor is that the availability (or otherwise) of jobs and careers in the locality has an impact too. In some areas there aren't that many jobs/careers available and they are a bit too remote to be commuting distance from somewhere where there will be more of that. In some places (eg where I am) that will be pretty counterbalanced by retirees and/or those wishing to lead a more self-sufficient type lifestyle coming in to replace the local young people that "brain drain" out of the area. In others it wont be.

So - my own personal take on the areas where houses often "hang around" is:

- outdated/pretty unliveable-in housing stock

and/or

- there is a brain drain of younger people going on in some parts of the country that is partly down to being expected to speak another language besides English (clue - its not a foreign one), as they know they wont be given public sector jobs/a few private sector ones unless they do so (as well as having the necessary qualifications and experience for the job/career).

bouicca21

Where I live 'white flight' is back into inner city areas ...

Poppy9

We have one area in our city that is now mainly Asian and tbh it would put me off buying there as it's such an intense concentration and I would feel like an outsider.

Where I live is much more ethnically diverse.

DD primary and secondary was ethnically mixed but in 6th form one area of the common room was "Asian Corner" as they would tell non Asians if they went to sit there.

C_Mababejive

You see i highlight the areas on Lancashire such as around Blackburn,Burnley, Nelson,Colne etc and someone suggested there were no jobs around there. That area isnt that far from major Northern towns and Cities such as Manchester,Preston, Liverpool and the Yorkshire Towns and Cities such as Leeds, bradford etc.

People who live in the South may well think that nothing much happens up here , that its grey, dank,undeveloped and poverty stricken .

What many places such as Blackburn and its surrounds as well as places such as Burnley, Bradford, Nelson etc have in common is that they have very large ethnic communities.

As an example, Nelson, Lancashire..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson,_Lancashire


Wiki says it has some of the lowest hous prices in the country.

Its population is actually declining from 39479 in 1911 to 29135 in 2011.

Its ethnic mix was last counted as..(quote)
The racial composition of the town in 2011 was 57.8% White, 40.4% Asian, 0.1% Black, 1.5% Mixed and 0.2% Other.The largest religious groups are Christian (39.0%) and Muslim (37.6%). The town is strikingly segregated: the Marsden ward, which in 2006 elected the borough's first British National Party councillor, is 92.6% White, while the Whitefield ward is 72.8% Asian or Asian British.

I would suspect that the population figure is skewed due to uncounted people.

Why should a town like Nelson be in such a position? It has one foot in the rolling countryside of Lancashire and yet is close to major urban areas such as Manchester and surrounds. It also has excellent transport links.

Of course i mention this area but there are plenty more.

I guess the real answer is that people want to live near people "like themselves" be it race,socio-economic group etc and whilst some variance is not noticed ,when there is an overwhelming variance, it becomes unacceptable.

It some of these places, as a white persons, it would be quite possible to buy a house in a street and be the only white there.

Of course such communities expand by their very nature. People have children, they grown up, they move,buy houses in that community, the periphery and boundaries push out into other areas, people in that area get jittery due to perceived encroachment, the first few for sale signs go up, then more, then more..

moneyistooshorttomention

There is a high element of people wanting to live near people like themselves indeed. I can see why that would apply to race - as one of the factors of "living near people like themselves".

Race isn't the only element of living near people like themselves though - class/interests/tastes/etc all play a part.

The area of my city that I was living in was pretty darn mixed - for a small area it went pretty much from top to bottom of the social scale, pretty mixed ages, etc, etc. When I moved to it (many years back now) there was a slight "bohemian" type feel to it that came from a noticeable part of the mix of people being creative types. There was quite a community feel. To me it was just starting to show signs of "edging" downwards when I left (being an area with a lot of starter houses I could see that a noticeable number had changed to being buy-to-lets - whereas it was predominantly a home-owner area when I moved there).

I had chosen that part of the city in the first place partly because a lot of "people I know" lived there. I was watching carefully and the first few of "people I know" had left one way or another. I had chosen it knowing that we don't let areas get worse - we put up a fight if something looks like it will damage our area. I needed to know there was still a high proportion of "fighters" (in the "keep an area decent" sense) living there.

A big antisocial family had also moved in - far enough away not to be on my doorstep - but they weren't that far away and they were making a visible impact on the area (flytipping and neglecting their property badly).

Moving to my present area - there had to be enough "middle class" type people/activities/etc available for me to consider somewhere - as I am someone who wants a Social Life as such. So - yep ...another part of "people like us" in effect. But I think I'd feel almost as uncomfortable in a place that was "too" that way for me - ie a posh yachting town (as I just don't have that sort of money - so have never been in a position to consider those sort of interests) and I think I'd feel out of place in a different way.