When Kat Park, 33, found her two-bedroom flat in Haggerston in 2021 she thought it was her dream home. It had two balconies, a view across east London and she loved the area. But in October last year, her landlord put the rent up by £600 a month, to £2,800. “It just became completely unaffordable for us,” she says. “I work in PR and my boyfriend, Charlie, works in advertising and we earn good money, but if you want to have a nice life here and also save a bit to buy a house one day, living in London feels completely unaffordable right now.”
In what’s becoming a familiar tale, the couple moved to Bristol and bought a four-bedroom house with a garden. Their mortgage repayments are far less than their rent used to be.
