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.

I live in Cornwall. I find the whole thing incredibly frustrating and upsetting. I worry about the future. It's not just people from other parts of the country doing it either - although they are probably a large majority. I know locals who have bought a second home to rent out as an air b&b, despite that it would be a perfectly good home for locals crying out for homes. I live in a right old sleepy village that isn't even that desirable, with no amenities, travel links, not even a shop and there's loads of holiday homes and air bnbs! It sickens me.

I also friends homeless stuck in emergency accommodation as their landlords sold up and they had to move out - they can't find anywhere else to private rent.

mil lives in Cornwall too (different part of Cornwall than us) on a street where she pretty much the only full time resident these days, no neighbourly feel compared to when she moved in to the house in the 90's.

I think it is the loss of community which is the most immoral thing, and this is happening all over the country not just rural areas - until you’ve lived surrounded by holiday lets you don’t realise how miserable and soul less it is. It is nothing to do with jealousy, wanting to keep things for yourself in beautiful areas - it’s about missing that sense of being part of a community and knowing your neighbours whether it’s an area in a city or a rural village.

Yes locals are responsible for it as well, the rewards are too irresistible I suppose and long term tenants can have their challenges making landlords think that holiday letting is an easier lucrative option. It’s not so much the holiday homes but the proportion of them - it definitely needs regulating somehow - and the owners of holiday lets definitely should be paying council tax instead of swerving it with the business loophole.