Silicon Valley’s high-earning tech workers are increasingly opting to leave the US for London – with Americans involved in half of all prime central property deals in the capital last year.
Former Deputy Prime Minister leader turned Facebook executive Sir Nick Clegg, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, billionaire J Russell DeLeon and Meta’s chief marketing officer Alex Schultz are among the San Francisco tech executives to have made the move within the last year.
Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have also expanded in the UK within the last decade, while TikTok already has a big presence – with London having been named the official tech capital of the world this week.
Cheaper house prices, a favourable exchange rate, more cost-friendly staff and Government research and tax credits have all been attributed to a boom in Transatlantic moves.
Concerns over rising crime, homelessness and rife open-air drug use in San Francisco have also been cited as reasons by wantaway tech workers – who were left shocked by the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee outside a luxury apartment in the city last month.
Last year, former MP turned Facebook executive Sir Nick Clegg returned to London after three years living in California
Instagram head Adam Mosseri made a high-profile move from the Bay Area to London’s upmarket Kensington, though he has since been recalled to the US by bosses at Meta
Nick Clegg’s £7 million mansion in Atherton, the wealthy suburb close to Facebook’s Silicon Valley offices
They are instead being drawn to London’s prime property market, along with its six airports and desirable education system.
Of particular popularity is 1 Grosvenor Square, located in the heart of the Duke of Westminster’s estate, in affluent Mayfair – where properties have an average price tag of £23.5million.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is relocating to London to grow its presence in the UK – where engineers are THREE TIMES cheaper than San Francisco
One of the world’s most desirable addresses, it is located close to Mount Street, Mayfair Village and five-star Hotels – The Connaught and Claridge’s.
During the 1700s, the Grosvenor family created several squares lined by luxury townhouses, the crown of which is Grosvenor Square.
St John’s Wood, Kensington, Belgravia and Regents Park are also said to have become go-to destinations for US buyers.
The majority of prime central London property deals involved French buyers in 2020 and Chinese in 2021, but Americans took the top spot last year, according to estate agency Knight Frank.
Mr Mosseri moved from San Francisco to Kensington, west London, to work at Meta’s head offices in King’s Cross – though he has been told to return to the US as the tech company closes the site.
One source familiar with the move suggested his plans were a ‘cost saving measure’ since engineers in the UK are paid up to three times less than in San Francisco.
Mr Clegg, meanwhile, is understood to have relocated to the UK in August and now splits his time between his £7m Silicon Valley mansion and £3m west London townhouse.
His wife Miriam González Durántez, a senior lawyer also known as Lady Clegg, has already said how much she misses Britain and her native Spain since moving to America in 2019.
Online gambler Mr DeLeon last year purchased a four-story, seven-bedroom house near Notting Hill.
Mr Schultz, originally from London, moved to San Francisco Bay Area before also returning to the UK at around the same time.
Coinbase, a crypto currency exchange platform based in San Francisco, is said to be mulling over a move to London.
Chief executive Brian Armstrong last month said the move was ‘on the table’ due to regulatory issues in the US. He also said he would consider the London Stock Exchange over New York.
The Transatlantic property trend is said to have also been boosted by favourable exchange rates, which gave dollar buyers the equivalent of a 30 per cent discount in the UK.
The average house price in London is £737,512, while this rises to just under £1.8m in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster.
Properties in San Francisco are much higher at £1,026,968, according to research by Compare My Move, including an average asking price of £3,065,040 in the Presidio Heights suburb of the city.
In San Francisco, this seven-bedroom, 9,190 sq-ft home in Pacific Heights is currently listed for $14,950,000
In London, meanwhile, £12,250,000 ($15.2 million USD) will score this five-bedroom home in Chelsea
Homeless encampments are shown along a street in San Francisco in a file photo
The city is also said to be the most expensive US city in which to raise a child, costing more than $35,000 per year.
Beauchamp Estates estimated that 50 percent of the deals in Prime Central London for homes valued over £15m had been to American buyers last year, who bought around £620m worth of luxury property.
It’s unclear what share of the American buyers originate from Northern California, but real estate agents say they have noticed a growing influx from the Bay Area.
A seven-bedroom 9,190 sq-ft home in Pacific Heights is currently listed for $14,950,000, whereas £12,250,000 ($15.2m USD) will score a five-bedroom home in Chelsea.
Discouraged residents say San Francisco feels increasingly like a ghost town, with scores of retailers pulling out of the city due to crime and low foot traffic.
The city’s high cost of living combined with a declining quality of life, particularly for families, is also driving many residents to consider a move.
One tech worker who lived in the city before returning to the UK last year said he paid $1,900 a month to rent a room in a three-bedroom house share – and had a homeless person sleep in their doorway every night.
Rupert des Forges, Knight Frank’s head of prime central London developments, told The Telegraph: ‘America’s west coast is definitely a factor in the London prime property market in a way it wasn’t five years ago.
Nick Clegg, pictured with his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, is set to move back to London after several years working in the US for Facebook
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, known for his close relationship with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, pictured together, is also moving to London
Mosseri’s move is part of the Meta-owned social platform’s effort to grow its presence in the UK. Pictured above is the company’s King’s Cross office
‘And once you get a cohort of owners in London, their friends come. A lot of it is actually tiers below chief executive too. Top-performing developers can make fortunes at very young ages on shares.
‘While it’s tax-efficient to take debt against the property, all of these buyers can do these transactions in cash.’
‘Tech workers have grown disenchanted with San Francisco,’ Annie Ingram, a private banker at Coutts, also told the newspaper this week.
She added that the city now also appears ‘less safe’ for high-earning individuals.
This hugely lucrative new client base is also driving competition between luxury estate agents, who put on glamorous events to attract prospective clients.
Among them is Tedworth Property, which has an office near Sloane Square and hosts breakfast meetings at luxury restaurants such as The Wolseley, Peloton rides, and backgammon tournaments at the private members’ club 5 Hertford Street in Mayfair.
Daniel Daggers, founder of real estate agent DDRE Global, said: ‘London is the first port of call outside of the US. International tech entrepreneurs are more mobile than ever before.
‘They’ve got an opportunity, post-massive valuations, to raise their children in a global world. London is their perfect hopping point to Europe.’
Major stores continue to back out of crime-ridden San Francisco, with a disturbing report showing 95 retailers downtown – more than half – have closed since the start of the pandemic
People openly abuse drugs on the sidewalk of the Tenderloin area of San Francisco, where overdose deaths have rocketed upwards in recent months
Homelessness has become an increasingly prevalent issue for those living in San Francisco.
Scenes of rampant open-air drug use and squalid homeless encampments have become common place in the city.
Recent data from the city’s medical examiner revealed a 41 percent surge in the number of drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year, as fentanyl ravaged the city’s homeless population.
San Francisco saw 200 people die due to overdoses between January and March, compared to 142 deaths in 2022.
Increasing crime has also become a key factor in driving high-earners away from the area, with the murder of Bob Lee shocking the nation last month.
Recent crime data shows a mixed bag in San Francisco, with murder up 25 percent and robbery up 15 percent from last year, while rape is down 22 percent.
But San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins acknowledged last month that crime stats don’t tell the entire story about public safety.
She said: ‘I think San Franciscans are still very much concerned about public safety, and we still have a long way to go to make San Francisco as safe as it needs to be,’ she told KTVU . ‘
‘And so, this isn’t always necessarily about data. It’s about the way that our residents and business owners and even visitors feel.’
