How hated will we be?

[SecondH]

DH and I are looking at buying a second home by the coast. I would love to hear from other second home owners and people who live in areas where there are lots of second home owners. How hated by the locals would we be? Do neighbours ignore you etc?

Our neighbours are second home owners, as were the ones who owned the house before them for 15 years. It’s great because they’re never around! It didn’t stop us buying our house.

Honestly, people love to bitch and moan about second home owners around here. But it doesn’t stop them selling to them and laughing all the way to the bank!

It isn't parochial to know the reality of living in a place where a large percentage of homes are second homes.

Imagine living in a village or town where in winter every other house has unlit windows for 10 months of the year. How dead and quiet that feels.
Or where the local schools close because nobody actually lives in every other house. The few remaining children have to travel miles to school.
Buses don't run in winter because half the houses are empty.
The local hospital only opens a few hours a week because there are no nurses or cleaners living locally.

There are no carers, road sweepers, not enough volunteers to keep the local National Trust place open more than one morning a week.

It really isn't parochial. It's bitter experience of the sad running down of an empty village or town.

OP, you said one of the attractions was the many amenities, but have you looked in to whether those are year-round? Because in places things do shut down for the winter, buses don't run so often, other places have reduced hours. It may not be the same as it is during the tourist season.

As someone who lives on a small island, with far too many 2nd homes and Airbnbs and where locals are priced out of the housing market, I'll give you my tuppence worth.

If Conwall is anything like where I live, you probably won't face much actual in person hostility and people will be likely be civil to your face. However behind your back pretty much everyone will resent you and bitch about you endlessly whenever your name is raised.

It really depends whether that bothers you or not.

The thing is OP, you might not be any more popular if you're moving down from London and buying property when you retire than if you buy it now and do nothing with it/airbnb it.

Retired Londoners have pushed prices up hugely, just as second home owners have left many places empty and soulless - and both have made it impossible for local people to buy.

Personally I don't see the appeal of Cornwall at all (born in Devon and moved away). It's so far from anything (ie an airport!), the roads are terrible, it's horribly rammed in summer and bleak in winter. There's a lot of poverty and no jobs for the young people. I find it generally a bit of a depressing place although very pretty in parts.

Why not just holiday there? I don't get it at all.

We're looking into buying a lodge on a holiday site as a second home, even though it's more expensive as we can't face two lots of ongoing property maintenance/gardening etc. This way, we can have our belongings permanently there, not upset any locals and have facilities on site that make life easier.

We stayed in a beautiful house in St Agnes a few years ago in Cornwall and went into the local pub one evening... that did not go down well and we ended up necking the drinks we bought! The locals were not remotely friendly.

I'm not a second home owner and I don't think my village has m/any second homes - but living next to an almost always empty house would be my dream scenario. I'm highly anti social though!😆

How am I supposed to know that?

Wrong. They DO care.
Our Area has been destroyed by them

Be very careful! My uncle did this and got totally ripped off with all the clauses and ground rent increases etc and then couldnt sell the damn thing for the same reason. Sorted in the end but it had to go to court, there was some sort of group case but I cant remember who handled it. There are several facebook groups with people who have been stung by holiday parks.....iirc the biggest one is Holiday Park Action or something similar.

No. You won’t as all your other neighbours will be the same. 😂

Haven’t read all the thread but this is my view. Those of you who live by the coast in these beautiful areas are truly blessed . Second home owners who rent out their holiday lets to the rest of us are giving us all the chance to live just for a short brief time in a beautiful place. Something we otherwise would not be able to do if only local people lived there.
We are moving to a little coastal town in Wales . I have been watching the market for years ,houses sit on the market for years we haven’t snatched it out of any one locals hands . There is plenty of choice and who is deciding the price of these homes . Especially if the owners have passed away. If you don’t mind no parking there are more affordable homes. The prices are about the same as the area I live in now in a city. The premium prices are ones closest to the coast so it would make sense they are holiday lets.

The double council tax (and the disappearance of bubble equity money from London and other cities) mean that a lot less people will be looking at buying second homes, the "second home" craze was just another symptom of years of cheap debt and a property bubble that was throwing out free money,, I don"t think second homes are going to be a major problem as we move back to higher borrowing costs.

Pretty much the same. Holiday lets, as well as second homes, take out the heart from communities.

I hope you reconsider and decide not to buy one OP. The response from year round residents should not be the reason why.

I live next door to this and hate it. We have random people standing outside our house staring at us and sometimes even lurking around. We know the owners can’t control what their customers do but it makes us uncomfortable and we resent them for it. We would rather have the same neighbours all the time.

I have a second home - which I'll be retiring to live in permanently next year.

I've had no problems at all - however, it's not in Cornwall (where these does seem to be a difficult relationship between locals and part-time residents/incomers) and I didn't price anyone out the market. Mine is a small flat in a Scottish coastal town and it had been on the market for 2 years with no interest at all. I bought it for £35k.

Incidentally, the flat immediately below me is an Airbnb and there really have been no problems with that all. The owner takes more of an interest now in making sure the close and back green are cleaned and maintained, and he set up a WhatsApp group for the owners so it makes it much easier to arrange common repairs or report problems. There was one annoyingly loud man staying there a couple of months ago - I think he was very deaf and didn't realise how much he was shouting. But the beauty of it being airbnb was that he was only there for a few nights. Also, as these are all one bed flats it's usually single people or couples who're into walking, cycling and visiting the islands - so not big groups being disruptive or noisy in hot tubs.

However, another flat in the close was bought a couple of years ago and changed from long term rental to airbnb - the new owner has been a pain in the arse and caused a lot of upset to the other residents - but that's not so much an airbnb problem as someone being an arrogant bully problem.

Yes, it would certainly be better than having a different group of loud performative dickheads turning up every weekend.

Depends where really - in the more built up areas no one will notice. I live in East Dorset and don't think most people would notice or care here. It's an affluent area so people can afford homes. Smaller villages I'd assume it was different.

The thing is, there's a narrative that these would be thriving communities full of families and children and it's just the mean nasty second homers that is stopping that. I spent a lot of time in Cornwall 20 years ago and it was incredibly deprived as well as inaccessible due to the lack of a motorway/ink roads, in fact, it was designated one of the poorest areas in the whole of Europe which is why it got so much money from the EU.

It's just not true that there are heaps of jobs in this area, and there also were declining school numbers prior to second homers. People with families often end up moving away for work, which is understandable. Most of the people living in social housing were never going to get mortgages and some of the estates on the hills were isolated, depressing and completely cut off financially and in other ways from the rest of the UK.

It was also, and remains to some extent, an area suspicious of outsiders and in those days that meant literally anyone who wasn't born there, I remember being stared at in the local pub! I still wouldn't be racing to live there due to this attitude.

I'm not sure Cornwall has it worse than anyone else, it's had the most amount of investment of the poorer regions and it hasn't lifted the economy off more than for tourism really, which is a shame, but then everyone did vote for Brexit having had this huge sum from the EU, quite incredible.

Why don't you just talk with the neighbours on either side. Tell them what your long term plans are; tell them that you would like to contribute to the local economy where you can; tell them that you don't want to upset the community and will be guided by them as to what is might be best.
If you establish good relations you will build up capital for when you move permanently. If it's anything like my village word will go round pretty quickly that you are decent folk!

Restaurants are closing because restaurant service workers can't afford to live in Cornwall because of second home owners, so there aren't enough staff.

Perhaps you could work with a local business and offer your house at a bargain rate to junior staff when unoccupied?

It’s incredibly selfish to buy a second home just to “holiday in”. When you want a holiday stay in a hotel.

Never mind renting it out so neighbours have herds of strangers rocking up every week on their “hols” when they’re just trying to go to school/work and live their everyday life. It’s also gets rid of community. Who wants to live next door to a property that has different strangers coming and going every week?

It also stops local people being able to get on the property ladder in their hometowns.

Just don’t do it.

Move somewhere permanently or just use hotels/caravan park.

Or you can buy a field and wild camp in it for up to 60 nights a year!

Rightly so, can’t be taxed enough