We moved from London to Wales to pursue our dream country life... but returned ... trends now

House hunters are flocking back to London in their droves after the Covid-era exodus that saw the capital empty of homeowners.

Just under three years ago in August 2021, nearly half of London-based house-hunters were looking to leave the city, according to data from property website Rightmove.

This proportion has now fallen significantly to the pre-pandemic average of about a third, based on hundreds of thousands of searches on the site.

Just after the pandemic, NHS administrator Tess and barber Jimi Aldcroft, 35 and 39, moved to Brecon to escape the intensity of London.

Tess had grown up there and the couple thought it would be the perfect place to ditch their 70-hour working weeks and have a more relaxing life as husband and wife.

Tess and Jimi, who is Australian, went to visit his relatives for a month before they moved to Brecon, thinking life in the sticks was going to be 'easier'. Tess said, '[I thought] if we can survive London then of course we can survive the countryside.'

But they say they soon found locals, 'really judgy and nosy because they had nothing else to do.' 

Tess, who worked in research and development for a technology company before the initial move, told MailOnline: 'We had been married for about six months. Jim was a bit fed up with his job, the speed that London was at.

'I was in a job that had reached its full potential. We thought this seems like a natural step.'

That was in March 2022. 

'We thought it would be easier than it was for jobs,' Tess said.

'It was slim pickings. I got a job as a receptionist in a local hotel that had just been taken over. Jim started pulling pints in a bar.

'I thought it was going to be a lot easier. [I thought] if we can survive London then of course we can survive the countryside.

'We weren't as prepared for loneliness, the inconvenience. We were really arrogant in that respect.

'There were a lot of things that didn't make us enjoy the area. They weren't our kind of people. They weren't very kind.

'We found Wales really judgy. The people were nosy because they had nothing else to do.

'They would talk about us for lack of anything better going on. They were like, ''I would rather have someone local pouring my beers - at least he's Welsh.''

'Jim absolutely hated it. They was so xenophobic about him being Australian. It was more because he wasn't local.

'Jim spent his entire adult life travelling around Europe and he said Wales was the only place he was judged for being Australian.'

Yet the Aldcrofts' move to the countryside wasn't only spoiled by tensions with the locals.

'Dog walking was difficult,' Tess revealed. 'It's difficult to walk your dog off the lead in the countryside.

'There are signs [that say] ''We are going to shoot your dog if we see him off lead''. 

'We found it easier to walk our dog in London. That was a really high contributing factor for us moving back.'

Although the move was initially a success, Tess said the novelty quickly wore off. 

She said: 'At first, it was great. I wasn't working 70-hour weeks. It was a change of pace.'

Yet soon they realised they missed London too much. 

'Because the only jobs we could get were in hospitality, we would be working over the weekend and then everything would be closed on a Monday and Tuesday,' Tess said. 

'When it wasn't summer, it was really sleepy. We were bored. We had nothing to talk about.

'We went too far. We should have gone more towards Bristol, maybe to a smaller city.

'We didn't even last six months. Jim found a job in November 2022 back in London.

'We were set on trying to slow down [but] we have found it now. We have set boundaries in our work lives.'

These days, Tess works for the NHS as an emergency department flow coordinator.

Although this introduced her to a new sort of stress, she said it wasn't a bad kind.

She said she loved the convenience of London and added: 'We can go to the pub on a random Tuesday afternoon [and] we love not having to drive everywhere. 

'I love the anonymity of [London]. I live in a building of 43 flats and I know zero people's names and it's wonderful.

'They know I work for the NHS and I have a big black dog and I like that.'

Data from estate agent Hamptons has found the percentage of Londoners looking for homes elsewhere in the UK is also now back at the pre-Covid average.

Further figures from Foxtons revealed the average number of buyer enquiries per month has risen by

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