The most searched for areas for home buyers in 2022 according to Rightmove - including London and Manchester

Rightmove has released their list of the ten most searched for buyer locations in 2022 as the market returns to pre-pandemic levels.
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While the 2022 housing market has been a more usual one, with prices and demand settling down after the pandemic years had its way, Rightmove’s property search figures show small shifts in sought-after locations in the UK. In fact, the five most searched-for locations on the site remain the same as in 2021.

London tops the list of most searched-for locations on the property market site, followed by Cornwall, Devon, Bristol and Glasgow. And the gap between London and Cornwall is increasing, with the capital seeing 36% more searches on the site than the runner-up after having been only 3% at the end of last year.

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During the pandemic, many sought to leave the cities and head for the countryside or the coast, which led to Cornwall overtaking London for a few months in 2021. But as the market is returning to normal, many people are once again looking at cities across the country.

Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s property expert, said: “This year people searching for their next home have well and truly returned to the capital – we started to see the tide turning towards the end of last year, and throughout 2022 a lot of our trends in the market have started to head back towards where they were in 2019.”

As the interest for cities increases among house buyers in the UK, two cities have entered the top ten that didn’t make it in 2021. Manchester has entered the list at number six along with Cambridge taking the tenth place.

Top 10 most searched-for locations in 2022 according to Rightmove

  1. London

  2. Cornwall

  3. Devon

  4. Bristol

  5. Glasgow

  6. Manchester

  7. Edinburgh

  8. Sheffield

  9. York

  10. Cambridge