To think that owning a second home to use as a holiday home is extremely selfish?

[benadrylcucumberpatch]

It would be a different story if there was a surplus of vacant properties . As it stands holiday home owners turn communities into ghost towns, inflate prices in desirable areas (many of which are rural with low wages) and displace people who would live in the property full time.

Aibu to think this is selfish and reprehensible? Why are such people not villified for taking more than they need in such an extreme way?

A property will go on the market because someone wants to sell it! The seller wants to get the best price for their property and will sell to the highest bidder. If someone wants to buy it and keep it is as a holiday home then that's there's business and the seller gets paid. The new owner then owns that property as in it is their asset which they paid for and they can use as they see fit.

@DexyMidnight. It was dig at @Annabk for her comment on her aunties. Of course they are not burdens. They are simply a cost to be paid in the overall budget of the country.

It's quite clear that with an ageing population we will need more people of working age to keep paying taxes and helping fund pensions.

@Freespirit24. Is your user name a piss take. Because with a post like yours it sounds like you don't give a toss about locals who have to move out of the area because they can't afford to live there. I guess you can afford to be a free spirit though.

Yanbu. Its awful in some town particuarly the cotswolds as like a ghost town when the london set leave. Also they tend not to shop locally as bring things with them. Schools close. Totally agree

Say that to the nurse who treats you at the hospital next time you're there, or the people who teach your children, the police officers and fire men who keep us safe and all the other important jobs that are necessary for our society but are paid a fucking pittance

But it was people like nurses, police, council workers and other public sector workers who user was calling horrible bitches for having final salary pensions (which are pretty much non-existent in the private sector now). User was hoping that nurses lost all their money to fraudsters. Or people like my mum, a council finance clerk on £19k who now has a final salary pension. Pretty horrible, no?

She was burgled last year and lost her only valuables (jewellery inherited from her mum, a gold chain and two rings, pretty worthless stuff). Hope that warms your cockles User.

I live just outside the National Park of the Lake district . House prices within the national park have mainly become impossible for people born in the area.
Many small villages in the most picturesque places have very few local born families living there. A fair few are holiday homes owned by people who come fully equipped food /provisions wise so will not buy anything whilst they are here for a few days.
Many are also purchased by holiday home companies, again pricing out locals. Small village schools have closed because not enough children live there permanently. Children from farming communities have to be bussed further distances to attend school in larger towns. I feel it's a real shame that these village communities are now long dead.
Winter time these places are practically ghost places.

I used to live in a seaside town and a large amount of the the properties in the more fashionable parts are owned by second home owners who spend just two weeks there each summer. They are empty the rest of the year. These posh places are too expensive for the locals anyway.
If you had a property to sell - what would you do if it was in an economically depressed town where there is little work? Would you sell it to a local on the minimum wage for say £150k or would you sell to an outsider for £250k? Morally you'd want to do the first but you'd probably do the latter, I'm afraid.

I saw a documentary about this problem in mousehole in Cornwall once. Alot of the locals owned 2nd homes in Spain.

Vulpine - and no doubt let theirs during the lucrative periods and jetted off to their bolt hole abroad (with their carbon footprint and all).

I understand the issue for people, but the answer remains the same. Stop selling your home to those who won’t live in it full time. Very simple really.

We have a home (the only one we own) and we live in it for 5 months of the year. The rest of the time we live where we work.

People would view that as owning a holiday home (when we’re here we are on holiday) but we took it off the holiday cottage rental market, employ local tradesmen etc to do the work needed, shop in Tesco for a big shop (which employs local enough people) and in the little village shop for top ups etc, drink in the pub, chip in to community events (financially and with volunteering) etc.

We are still seen by many as outsiders and part of the problem. But you have to cope with these parochial attitudes.

At some point all these homes belonged to locals. It is these people who should be blamed for allowing this situation to occur.

And 300,000 immigrants a year doesn’t cause a shortage of housing according to MN, they all live in holes in the ground then?

A lot of people have to move areas from the ones they have been raised in order to get a foot on the property ladder. Me for instance and colleagues I work with, who also face long commutes. It is not just those raised in picturesque holiday spots. So whilst it may be annoying for a local in somewhere like Salcombe or St Ives to feel annoyed at not being able to afford to buy a property, they might have to move like a lot of people have to.

@leckford. Is that the Daily Express speaking? Nasty racist attitude. Would you refuse emergency treatment from a Sri Lankan consultant or an X-ray carried out by a Portuguese radiographer? Do you not use hotels and restaurants staffed or owned by Italians or Turks? Would you not allow your elderly relatives to be cared for by an Indian nurse or Filipino care assistant? I suspect you don’t eat salad or fruit picked by Eastern European people who usually live in fairly grim accommodation such as derelict holiday camps or caravans.
Immigration adds to society and is not the reason for a housing shortage.
The biggest problem was Thatchers right to buy scheme which saw huge property assets sold off for ridiculously low prices. Many were bought as second homes for investment instead of continuing to be available for those requiring housing.

OP I'm sure if you could afford you'd buy one?.....sure this isn't about jealousy? Also when you go abroad do you stay in apartments/air bnb - same thing different country?

In some rural areas there isn't the employment to keep people in the area so some homes would be empty anyway

Benadryl. Not that I have to ‘sensibly defend’ any decision I make with my own money to you or anyone else but....

I’m free to buy a second home or a holiday let if I have the funds available for a huge number of reasons eg it will fund our retirement, it will help our DC get on the property ladder when they’re older, it brings in an income, it provides us, our family and friends with holidays, our place in the city enables my DC to work where he needs to without spending 5 hours a day commuting etc etc. Oh yeah, and it’s perfectly legal 😊

When we’re there, there is no doubt that we contribute to the local economy because we eat out/visit the pubs/go to local attractions far more than someone living there would do, we shop locally because we don’t want to drive to the big supermarket 10 miles away (which all the locals use due to cheaper prices), we employ locals to maintain the place and we pay council tax (albeit at a slightly reduced rate because we’re not there full time).

Our main home is in an area of the country that is one of the most expensive outside of central London. Our DC wouldn’t afford to get on the property ladder on their own but a) they’re no more entitled to live here than anyone else and b) nowadays it’s rare for children to remain living in the same town they grew up in. There’s a big wide world out there with many opportunities and you go where those are.

We’ve worked hard, paid our taxes, stretched ourselves financially, taken some risks and we’re now reaping the rewards of that and are sitting comfortably and I couldn’t care less if you or anyone else disagrees with it.

Okay, sorry I haven't RTFT because it won't bastard load on my phone.
Another Geordie here who now lives in a pretty little seaside town further north. Just want to refer back to when the OP said people want holiday homes down south in places with castle.... Aye we have none of those up here in NewCASTLE.

Also, the north is fookin' lush. Loads of holiday homes up here and loads of holiday makers visiting.

Misses the entire point of the thread

But it was people like nurses, police, council workers and other public sector workers who user was calling horrible bitches for having final salary pensions

My post wasn't directed at User.

It was directed at the poster who suggested if you just worked a bit harder, you wouldn't struggle. The person they were suggesting just works a bit more could very well be the nurse who is treating you at the hospital, the police officer you call when your house is burgled, the fire brigade who comes when your property is burning etc...

It's insulting to those who actually work incredibly hard for our society but still don't earn all that much.

There are plenty of people who don't work in the public sector who do very worthwhile jobs and don't earn much. And don't get anything like the same benefits and pension.

Anyway, this is not about public sector workers. It's just irritating that people trot out the starting salary of a nurse as being typical. Anyone's starting salary in their early 20s is small! In my first job in publishing the salary was awful .

Agree about the North East. Its gorgeous and the people are way friendlier

At some point all these homes belonged to locals. It is these people who should be blamed for allowing this situation to occur.

This x 100!

Anyway not trying to be provocative but isn’t this issue going to be self-correcting? As small towns and villages flood with second home holiday lets the community is (according to all the anecdotes above) eroded and they become ghost towns.

If that’s true, and I’m sure it is, then why do the ‘locals’ want to live there anymore anyway? Surely their town has, by their own standards of desirability, become a not-very-nice place to be, void of community and heart.

So......move?

Posted too soon:

The towns have apparently changed beyond recognition and the locals can’t afford it there anymore so surely, if it’s all about community rather than keeping the riff raft out surely the locals wouldn’t want to live there anymore anyway?

And the locals who own would be delighted to cash in and sell to some ‘horrid’ Londoner and then the locals can all slink off to some not very pretty and cheap place and set up home there but it will be WONDERFUL darling because ‘oooh there’s no beach or national park or wildlife or outdoor pursuits but gosh we’re not interested in any of those things, we leave that to the townies, all we care about is community and family ties and support networks!’

I find it all rather disingenuous. You had the good fortune to be born in a lovely place and you don’t want to share it and not only that but you think your ‘rights’ flow down some ancestral line so that your kids must be able to continue the family duchy in Cornwall.

Are you actually being serious right now @DexyMidnight ?

Why the fuck should people have to LEAVE their home town because they have been invaded by people?

FFS.

There are four people sat down for a meal, and four pies on the table. One person grabs two pies, two people have one pie each, and the fourth has no pie. Would that be fair?
Until everyone has one house, no one should own two houses. Not sure how to enforce it though.

Completely agree @Jolonglegs

As many people have said on this thread. It's a very divided - an unfair - society!

The rich/poor divide in this country is shocking.

Here's what needs to happen...

Everyone who has more than one home, needs to have every single extra one they have, taken off them, for the price they paid for it, so if they got it on RTB for 20 grand, or at auction for 15 grand, some 20 years ago, THAT is what they get for it.

They would have done very nicely over the last decade or 2 (or 3,) with the multiple 100s of 1000s of rent they have made. So they can't complain.

The houses can be taken back by the local government/local authority, and put into the social housing stock. Free up multiple 10s of 1000s of homes for people on the waiting list, and stop greedy feckers bringing in tons of profit by renting out these places that are often substandard anyway, and barely meet health and safety regulations.

Time to take everyone's spare properties off them - NOW.

If I were PM, that is one of the first things I would implement. NO. SECOND. HOMES! Not for ANYONE. And NO EXCEPTIONS.