The Mancunian Way: Feeding frenzy

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Here's the Mancunian Way for today:

I had an interesting chat recently with a friend who lives in London. They've been thinking about moving back to Manchester, but while their wage would not increase, they wouldn’t be paying much less in rent here. Coupled with the huge demand for properties in Manchester, they're not sure it’s not worth the hassle.

We’ll be discussing the rental market in today’s newsletter, as well as the cafe in the shadow of Strangeways offering a ‘soul-enriching’ Massaman curry and the councillor who used a spooky prop to make a point about voter ID.

Last summer, when the average rent in Manchester reached £1,127 per month - Jess Geary warned people not to bother moving here.

"I know there's a housing crisis, it's horrendous, it's horrific. How do they expect us young people to ever save for a house? Don't move to Manchester,” the 25-year-old influencer told her TikTok followers.

Her comments followed a desperate search for new accommodation after deciding to leave her two-bed Green Quarter flat when the landlord upped the rent to £1,300pcm. After a three-month search she concluded the market is ‘ridiculous’. “I can't afford to pay £1,400 for a flat, and that's not even thinking about bills or anything like that," she said.

This week influencer Saskia Marriott gave a similar warning to her thousands of TikTok followers. She has also spent months searching for somewhere new to live after the rent in her current Salford flat increased by 50 per cent. Despite having an above-average salary for someone