UK's Happiest Place has lots (and lots) of holiday homes

If you were to believe recent headlines, holiday homes and short lets make everyone’s lives miserable - yet the happiest place to live in the UK has lots and lots of both.

Rightmove’s annual Happy at Home Index, now in its 11^th year, reveals that St Ives in Cornwall has been crowned the happiest place to live in Great Britain by its residents.

This year’s Happy at Home Index was conducted among over 21,000 people across Great Britain, asking residents how they feel about where they live, as well as asking them to rank ten happiness factors, including how much they feel a sense of belonging to their area, and whether there is access to green space.

St Ives overtakes Hexham to this year’s top spot, having alternated with the market town for first place since 2019.

The residents of St Ives scored the area highly for its sense of community spirit, the sense of belonging the residents have, and how comfortable residents feel to be themselves. A sense of belonging in an area is the number one factor which contributes to someone feeling happy where they live.

Since the pandemic started, demand for homes has greatly outstripped supply in many coastal areas like St Ives. Though this has eased during 2022, enquiries to buy a home in Cornwall are still nine per cent higher than 2019.

This has contributed to rising prices in the area. The average asking price for a home in St Ives is £523,731, which is 6% higher than last year when it was £492,870. This is higher than the current national average asking price of £366,999.

Galashiels in the Scottish Borders is second in this year’s list, which is the first time an area from Scotland has been ranked in the top three since 2016, and the market town of Woodbridge in Suffolk is third. Residents of Galashiels scored it particularly highly on the friendliness and politeness of the people, and it came top in this area across Great Britain.

Anglesey is the happiest place to live in Wales, and Richmond upon Thames is once again the happiest place to live in London, coming top for an eighth year in a row. Richmond topped the list for its access to sport and recreational activities and scored the highest out of any London area for its access to nature and green spaces.

This year’s study was carried out as the cost-of-living squeeze rises, which was reflected in the survey results.

One in five renters said they planned to move in the next 12 months to get better value for money in their area, along with 16 per cent of buyers. One in nine renters said they were moving to reduce energy costs, rising to one in eight for buyers.

When considering what was most important about the property they might move to, a garden is most important to buyers (29 per cent), however renters are more concerned about the energy costs of the property (20 per cent).

While there are undoubted challenges facing both buyers and renters the survey found first-time buyers are still determined to get onto the ladder, cutting back on going out and using less gas and electricity to help them to still be able to save up for a deposit.

Meanwhile, working from home or hybrid working has become a more permanent part of life this year as the survey found 65% of people said they were able to work from home.

Rightmove data shows both buyers and renters have become more flexible in their search for a new home, increasing the radius of the location that they are enquiring about to sales and letting agents, with the ability to work from home a likely contributor to this.

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