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?

ALSO!

Like @ItsBloodyFreezingg and a few others, I am sick of this attitude that if you 'work a bit harder,' you TOO can accrue multiple 100s of 1000s in the bank. Do me a bloody favour! It's absolute bollocks, and a fucking insult to the vast majority of people who are economically poor, and who work all the hours God sends, and still have fuck-all after the bills are paid! The level of cluelessness and sheer fucking ignorance from a small handful of people on this thread (towards the poor) is breathtaking,

What always amazes me, is when I see a programme like 'escape to the country' or something similar, there is a 30-40-something couple on there, looking at houses to buy, and they are almost always over half a million.

One episode a few months ago, featured a couple (around 32 y.o.) who had a son who was about 3, and they were trying to decide between 3 houses. One was £700,000, one was £677,000, and one was £745,000.

Their 'budget' was £700,000. They had £450,000 to put down, and were taking £250,000 on a mortgage. However, the woman liked the £745,000 one. She whined and pouted a bit, until hubster said 'yeah OK dear, we can put an offer in for that, and they suddenly pulled an extra £40,000 out of their arse.'

They ALSO had a budget of £50,000 (on TOP of that,) to 'do the house up.'

No way in fucking hell have these people saved that kind of money (over half a million!) by the age of 32 y.o. It's obviously, either a huge inheritance, or a lottery win, or they have made a shit ton of profit on a place in London or something! Coz no WAY have they managed to accrue the amount of 'spare money' they had, by the age of 32. No. WAY. In fact, most people would not be in that position by 52, or 62.

As I said, it's a different world for people like this, who seem to shit money, and they don't have a CLUE what life is like for people who have fuck all!

Jolonglegs 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.

Wow, you've just solved all the problems of capitalism and communism that economists, historians and sociologists have puzzled over for decades by an analogy using pies. You must be a genius.

The answer is of course more complex. Who paid for the pies? Who has eaten more first? Who has greater need for the pies (if someone has already stuffed themselves with free pies or someone has just completed an endurance race, then clearly their need for pies will be lesser or greater as circumstances dictate). Furthermore, if someone else has paid for all the pies, they own the pies and since all modern societies respect the concept of ownership, you can't just take as many pies as you want because they are simply there.

User. No ones saying it’s as simple as ‘work harder and earn more’. However, if someone has something you want is the answer simply to take it from them forcibly? Should they have it taken away just because you don’t have it?

Is that what you teach your DC? 😳

Get over yourself and stop being bitter. Focus on what you have, not what others have and you might be a bit happier.

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

From my experience even if you wanted to sell to someone who was going to live there full time they just wouldn’t buy.

I have owned property in the Cotswold.

Little thatched cottage, everything done up at a very reasonable price.

Reasons locals wouldn’t buy

It is too good for us

If we saved harder we could in a few years afford better (that crops up regularly. Each time just before the prices shoot up and they eventually end up buying smaller places for more money)

My sofa won’t fit

I don’t like white walls.

After many attempts to sell to locals I usually end up selling to a landlord.

If locals want to keep homes for locals then they need to actually buy and not piss about, waste time and expect to have their pick of houses at their convenience.

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

I don’t see how that was even possible. In order to qualify for RTB you had to be a tenant living in the home.

The longer you lived there the bigger the discount. They might eventually have become 2nd homes but not when they were bought at a discounted price

Jolonglegs. What you don’t factor into your post is that the pies need to be paid for. You don’t just get to ‘take them’ or help yourself to someone else’s pie.

If you’ve earnt enough you might be able to buy two pies, doesn’t mean you have to give one away to someone who hasn’t earnt any money to buy one.

@user1491678180 yes I’m being serious. Are you being serious when you advocate state appropriation? The thing is, if the state can take your second home off you, in 10 years they might come and take your first and only home off you.

Depends how they got ownership of the thing in the first place though Dorset
In my view capitalism is the best way of increasing living standards, but huge structural inequality means we’re not all benefitting as we should.

I grew up in a lovely little village. Very rural, very historical. My parents couldn't afford to buy there, so we had to move away. Its destroying the community. They recently had the go ahead to build a new estate there in one of the fields on the river flood plain (smh), and though they were supposed to build some affordable homes, they start at circa £250,000 (so not affordable for most at all). It gets me that many holiday homeowners buy that home for the location and community, but it eventually fucks the community.

But dexy we are the State, we decide what happens and when.

At some point all these homes belonged to locals.

No they probably didn't. Locals may have lived in them, but highly unlikely that the majority were owned by them. Many would have been council houses originally rented and then bought under "right to buy". Some farm cottages would have been owned by the farmer and rented to farm labourers. Some cottages would have been owned by the landowners/manor house owners and rented to their staff - "tied" cottages were the norm. Go back a hundred years and very few people owned their own homes. Factory/mill owners would often build entire estates for their staff to live in.

Stop blaming home owners. The blame lies firmly on the shoulders of successive governments who've not build enough new homes and let too many immigrants into the country.

Hero complex. No it doesn’t matter how you got ownership at all. Either you’ve worked hard, saved a deposit and taken a mortgage out or someone in your family did the same and passed the property on to you.

Either way, it’s been earnt and paid for.

Why should someone just be able to come along and take that away from you. Jees....what a lesson to be teaching our DC, don’t bother working hard, saving etc because you can just take what you want!

Kazzyhoward: how are the local council, the famers owning estate cottages and mill owners renting cottages to workers not 'local'? Just because they are land and property owners doesn't make them not local.

There is a housing shortage - but the people who own flats in the huge empty upmarket blocks in London are not immigrants, they are investors from Russia, Hong Kong etc who have never even been here. I know a lawyer who works for one of the developers and travels the world to seal the contracts for sales where the buyers have not been in the flat and never will.

There is a shortage of available affordable housing.

@ user1491678180. Seriously, your unrealistic and whinging views might have something to do with why you haven’t climbed the ladder towards increased affluence.
It’s entirely possible for most people but does require a no excuses mentality. Hard work probably isn’t enough. You also need a willingness to move, additional qualifications and a bit of self awareness.You often have to delay children until you’re financially stable too. You’re right. It’s not easy; nobody said it was.

Should we not have bought our mother in laws house to allow them a more comfortable retirement?
Should everyone who doesn’t want to work be given a house that someone whose worked hard for has built?

You sound like you’d be happier in China. Can we ask what you work all God’s hours doing that leaves you so miserable and so poor? I don’t know many working a regular 70 hour week who are really that poor.

But as other posters have pointed out people don’t have the same chances and opportunities in life, and we should all examine exactly why it’s not good for a very few people to control vast portions of economic power and others to have so very little.
It’s easy to say you can’t take away people’s power because they’ve earned or deserve it because of a divine right but we’d still all be living in feudalism if that was the case.
Fairness shouldn’t be threatening to anyone.

IncandescentShadow
^Wow, you've just solved all the problems of capitalism and communism that economists, historians and sociologists have puzzled over for decades by an analogy using pies. You must be a genius.
The answer is of course more complex^

Well of course it is. The point I'm trying to make is that whilst most people would agree that capitalism is probably the best way to organise a society, it has to be regulated to ensure fairness. Currently in this era of de-regulation it isn't fair.

user1491678180

you just replied to your own question by saying, I quote:
or they have made a shit ton of profit on a place in London or something!
so they made their own money and their way up. It's far from uncommon. That's one way to increase your deposit, not the only one.

is that what you are so jealous and bitter about?

If there were such a shortage or properties, there wouldn't be so many empty ones, and so many that don't sell.

Nothing wrong in buying a holiday home. I am curious how posters suggest to finance your retirement otherwise?

But as other posters have pointed out people don’t have the same chances and opportunities in life

Everyone gets given chances it is taking those chances when they are come along.

If you are healthy and have a job taking the second 3rd or 5th job will bring you in more money so you are able to save up for the deposit on the grotty 1 bed flat that with a lick of paint and a year later will mean you can move to a grotty 2 bed flat and so on.

I think people want their for ever home as FTBs and refuse to countenance anything less than perfect.

lakeswimmer that was exactly my point. I know people who haven't accepted the highest offer because it was more important to them that the buyer was going to stay in the community, bring jobs to the area, etc.
OP is choosing to focus on the 'bad outsiders buying up property' but actually if everyone in the community felt like her and were willing to sell their properties accordingly then there wouldn't be an issue.
Home selling/buying is a transaction with two sides. Only one of which has knowledge of local issues.

It is depressing that some of the 'poor' assume the 'rich' have always been so and can't consider that some of the rich were Once upon a time poor.

Oh and I own another property. The reason was that both were home owners when we met. He was given nothing, he started buying a flat with a friend as that all he could afford.

I was able to buy as a single mum. I went through uni with loans, rented for years as I started at the bottom, but slowly grew to management. I had my children in my 30s. I continued to work FT even when they were little.

So neither of us were lucky, we made choices that made life tough but the reward was a salary that meant we could become a home owner.

We looked at selling one property and buying a very nice large one, but that would have come with being penalised paying extra tax selling 2 properties.

The government is not encouraging home owners to sell, nor to rent, until the mortgages are paid and you retire.

But as other posters have pointed out people don’t have the same chances and opportunities in life

For a fair society, there needs to be opportunities for people to make the best of themselves, not just hand them everything on a plate. We really need to adopt the principle of "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever". Unfortunately, despite free NHS healthcare and free state education, far too many people don't do enough to look after and better themselves and when it all goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault. The skill that needs to be taught and learned is to identify chances and opportunities and embrace them - that ability is sadly lacking in a lot of people who are too busy whingeing about what others have!

Haven't RTFT but we live in the South West and it's a HUGE issue. I agree, it has destroyed many lovely communities here and I think it should be banned.

So neither of us were lucky, we made choices that made life tough but the reward was a salary that meant we could become a home owner.

Likewise, no silver spoons nor inheritances here either. Both of us went to crap comp schools and left with poor GCE/CSE results. We both then did menial low paid jobs whilst doing evening classes to get better O and A levels, which took a few years of working full time and then studying evenings and weekends (paid out of our meagre wages). That then led to being able to get better paid proper "trainee" jobs towards professional qualifications, again studying at our own cost after a hard day's full time work. We both attained our professional qualifications in our mid-late twenties and finally got decent careers, which is what financed us buying our first home. My brother and my OH's sister had exactly the same upbringing but they couldn't be arsed to get trainee jobs nor study, so they left school and got better paid jobs at the time, but have not since climbed the job ladder - they're still on bog standard low skilled work, still earning low wages and now both are insanely jealous that we have a nice house, good holidays, etc. Difference is they chose to live for today and didn't bother developing themselves, and now have to bear the consequences of their choices!

What tax is there on selling a property @swingofthings? There’s no tax on selling a main residence, stamp duty’s paid when you buy.

I think there are a few people here who are blind to their own privilege. Blaming the poor for not trying hard enough is a perfect example of reinforcing inequality.