Are second homes and short-term rental properties immoral?

[maranella]

We have a huge shortage of housing in this country and there and more and more stories about seaside towns and pretty villages being hollowed out by homes that stand empty half the year.

So I'm just wondering how other people feel about second homes and ones bought specifically to be holiday rentals? I really feel for people in places like Cornwall, Devon, north Norfolk, parts of Wales and the Lake District, who can't find affordable homes in the towns and villages where they've always lived and worked.

@Eastangular2000

"Or like people all over the country you can move to somewhere where you can afford property! It is really weird that some people think being born somewhere gives them a god given right to stay there for their whole lives. If we all thought like that no one would ever be allowed to move anywhere!"

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On your logic then there is absolutely no housing crisis in the UK at all, on the basis that anyone unable to afford a house could for example go and live in Mozambique where housing is tad more affordable. I mean the daily commute might be a bit tricky but hey the housing costs are lower!

Seriously how would you feel if you had to leave England because you couldn't afford a house there?

But that serviced accommodation could have been reduced rent accommodation for local people couldn’t it? Key workers maybe. If only there wasn’t more money to be made from letting it out to people like you

There are 800 homeless families in Cornwall. - the majority are good tenants who have been evicted in the last two years - rent always paid, house looked after and sometimes improved, hard working people with kids at school. Evicted with a section 21 so that their homes could be converted to air bnb or sold to people who wanted them as holiday homes - some of these families, with children, have had to live in tents - how anyone can think that kids in the U.K. living, getting up and going to and coming home from school from a tent every day - just so that wealthier people can have a holiday in their former home - is not immoral simply beggars belief!

Last time I checked you didn’t need a visa to leave cornwall or Norfolk for example and move elsewhere in the U.K.! But seriously if that’s the argument you are putting up then crack on😊 but it’s not really worth engaging with. By all means start a thread about housing issues in this country if you wish, I am sure it will be very interesting, but last time I checked people weren’t being rehoused in Mozambique (though with this government anything is possible😮)

How thoughtful of you, as I am a key worker I appreciate the gesture.

As homeless families evicted in favour of the tourist pound are now living in hotels subsidised by housing benefit it is already happening.

And staying in serviced accommodation provides much more money and employment in the local economy than staying in a family home, and doesn’t kill communities.

But not in the experience of my uncle, who was local.

Oh the local economy argument! I feel like I’ve heard that one somewhere before 🤔

@Twiglets1 @Eastangular2000

I would be really interested to hear what your opinion is about homeless families being evicted and having to live in a tent in order to stay local to keep their jobs and their kids at the same school.
Do you think that’s ok?

I expect so, as it’s an accurate statement.

Perhaps he should have let his place through a reputable letting agency.

The holiday home next door to me was left with windows and doors open for two days when the guests left early, and according to the cleaner the heating was left on full 24/7 since they left, and they’d moved all the furniture around and left all the linen in the bath tub full of water. I guess bad behaviour isn’t confined to long term tenants.

Given that there are 5000plus homeless households in Newham alone which has approx 60% of the population of cornwall, I am not sure your figures have quite the shock value you were hoping for. If families are sleeping in tents that is a failure of the local council as they have a duty to house. It is not the responsibility of individual homeowners. I also have to be honest that it doesn’t ring true as IME families are offered temporary housing (often pretty grim and in a location they don’t want, but offered it none the less) if they present to the council as homeless. There are people who don’t ‘qualify’ as homeless who can find themselves in dire straits but to try and make out hundreds of families are living in tents is simply not accurate.

I feel very sorry for anyone being evicted. But I fear that their insistence on “staying local “ may have contributed to their predicament. For the sake of their children, it would have been better if they had moved to a cheaper area where they could afford the rent long before being faced with an eviction notice.

Also it seems odd that these tight knit communities that people can’t leave would leave families to live in tents.

The hyperbole on this thread is absurd. The sad thing is any good points that people have made are being lost amongst the mud slinging and wild exaggerations. There are definitely issues with things such as rural public transport services but claims like it takes 30 mins to drive 2 miles in cornwall are just ridiculous. There are definitely issues around housing generally in this country but suggesting that cornwall is full of families living in tents is ridiculous and distracts from the fact that councils are failing to provide appropriate housing stock for people who find themselves homeless.

He did let it through the local agency.

Good point.

Not hundreds are living in tents, some are in budget hotels, some are in caravans and some are in holiday parks. The council have no more temporary accommodation - they are housing them wherever they can. That is 800 families, not individuals who have become homeless in the last two years due to eviction to convert their homes to air bnb or to sell. You insist on comparing figures from London, to be frank - both of those those figures are shocking - but I am talking about the impact of holiday homes in Cornwall on families - did mass conversions to holiday homes cause the homelessness in Newham?.

So you do think it’s ok?

I can assure you it is not hyperbole.

And this time of year it is quite common to be stuck in traffic for half an hour to go a couple of miles due to the holiday population.

Not mud slinging, simply the facts.

Yes of course there are issues with Airbnbs in London. I have explained one of the massive reasons for this up thread. The reason I am raising London is because you seem to think that this is a problem unique to cornwall (and other holiday areas) when it very very clearly isn’t. The arrangements for housing homeless families in Cornwall seem to be in line with those in the rest of the country.

I just got back from Cornwall, traffic was fine the whole time.
Plymouth was a bit sticky at rush hour. That’s Devon though, right.

No it’s not a fact, it’s your reported experience. My experience of living in cornwall was that there was more traffic in summer but that was from a very low base of there being absolutely fuck all traffic the rest of the year. Maybe you live in the centre of Rock and therefore have a skewed perspective who knows. But it is certainly not a fact to say that driving around cornwall averages out at 4miles per hour.

I have not said it is unique to Cornwall, I have said it is a countrywide issue - I am talking about Cornwall as I have real life and first hand experience of the issues holiday homes have causes where I live in the last two years. If you choose to discount my lived experience as hyperbole so be it. In a way that shows how bad the situation is - as you don’t believe I’m giving an accurate representation and that I’m exaggerating.

Mass tourism since covid has hugely changed things - traffic has never been worse than the last two years - depending on when you lived here your experience may not be up to date. Last week it took me around twenty minutes to drive from chiverton cross to goonhavern. It was probably less than 4mph.

’lived experience’ is just another way of saying opinion based on anecdote. We have different opinions, my ‘lived experience’ leads me to draw different conclusions than you.

Seriously just give it up. You having a journey with heavy traffic and presenting it as some sort of evidence is like me saying I once drive from the lakes to London and it took me 12 hours, therefore it is a fact that the driving time from London to the lakes is 12 hours. Devon and Cornwall, north Norfolk the cotswolds and all sorts of areas have heavier traffic in the summer than in the winter. That is a fact anything else is just you reporting your own personal journeys.