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?

Purple my parents moved away. It wasn't somewhere they wanted to live any more. Hard to explain without being rude about people, but those who turned up every summer were not considerate visitors.

scaryteacher
Yes good grades are mostly down to hard work but i know some very clever people (oxford graduates) who were actually quite lazy, and able to get the grades without working especially hard.(thats not to say they didnt work hard at uni) equally there are people who won't attain top grades however hard they work.Or who work hard but couldn't afford to go to uni. I had good enough grades to go to uni but had severe MH problems at the time and chose (foolishly in the world of many MN, ) not to go.
I don't disagree successful ( high earning) people work hard but I'm not convinced they work x-times harder than people in lower paid jobs.
There was a letter recently in the metro recently.It was just after car factories cut hundreds of jobs and a man was worrying how he would find work and provide for his 4 kids after working at the car factory for 20 years. The letter writer mentioned him with no sympathy whatsoever, criticising his choice to work in the car factory when it was apparently obvious (20 years ago) the world was moving more towards electric vehicles. I felt absolutely incensed that someone from a town with probably very few opportunities away from car manufacturing was being criticised for taking a job, working hard, presumably working his way up..... but not able to predict the factories would close in 20 years!!

StoneofDestiny There seems to be a reluctance of some people to move from where they were born and away from ‘family and friends’. That is fine - but it is a choice with consequences.

I live near to a fairly nice county town, which is within less than an hour's commute on the train to the nearest big city. Every single woman I have ever met from this town has complained that they have no money because there are no good jobs in it. None of them are willing to even commute to the nearest big city for work. It just doesn't seem to enter their consciousness. Actually moving to the city for work, even for a few years, is something never considered.

Of course, many of us who have been to university left home at 18 and had to deal with finding a room to rent at 19/20 when halls kicked us out. Paying our own bills, sorting out our own council tax. Making the choice to stay at home in the large village I was living in when I went to university would have meant maybe a job in a local newsagents, or similar.

Instead, I've moved for university and then work numerous times, and struggled but succeeded to get mortgages with retentions for the doer-upper that I'd be doing-up well into the night after a full day's work. Many of them didn't have modern amenities installed, like central heating or a decent standard bathroom.

One village that I bought a doer-upper very cheaply in had a young couple featured in the local newspaper, standing forlornly outside a 3 bedroom new build detached on the edge of the village, bemoaning the fact they couldn't afford to buy it. They were early twenties, she worked part-time and he had just finished his apprenticeship. The house I had bought was easily affordable to them, it was so cheap, but it also had no floors, as they had been removed to deal with the dry rot. (that actually made it easier for the person moving in). Mine was the only offer for that property. No-one in the village would touch it with a bargepole because it needed work. I lived in it for two years, sold it for a large profit and its now no longer an uninhabited property in that village. It was actually a second home at the time as I was doing up another one elsewhere and used to live in the first during the week as it was closer to work. With extra stamp duty now, I probably wouldn't have bought the village house.

As one person said to me on the thread already, I sound like an awful person.

Skinnychip

Equality of opportunity does not mean equality of outcome, hence the spread in degree classifications at every university.

I think the more highly paid do work harder...at one point both dh and I were each doing a 60 hour week - I was teaching teenagers; he was teaching hardened professionals who didn't take prisoners,, doing his MA as part of what he was teaching, he was XO of a division, wrote other courses, and had to go and lecture in other staff colleges abroad. Who worked harder? We both put in roughly the same amount of time, but I didn't have the additional load he did, and I got to come home each night, whilst he weekly commuted. It's about mental load and responsibility as well.

The bloke who took the job in the car factory chose to do that though. There were other opportunities outside that he could have pursued, but those would have meant moving. I don't understand the mindset of staying in one place to live and work all your life. That's what my grandparents did as the mobility wasn't there then, but my parents moved away in the 60s and never lived in their home towns again. I went to 4 different schools in different parts of the UK between rising 5 and 10.

IncandescentShadow - hardly an awful person! Some people just sit around and complain yet still feel entitled to crave the rewards of other people’s hard work. I’ve lived in some serious ‘doer uppers’ and was often met with ‘how can you live like this?’.
When the house was finished it was “aren’t you lucky”.
Luck had nothing to do with it!

I don't own a holiday home and probably never will, but if someone works, earns their money, gain inheritance or suchlike, and wants to buy a 2nd home, I have no problem with this, we cannot start dictating what people should and shouldn't be doing with their hard earned money, good luck to them, life is what you make it, we can't all be in that position, everyone has their place in society, whether it's the office cleaner (which I've done) or CEO of a company, one can't do their job to keep the country going without the other, but we all can't be at the top, there has to be road sweepers and cleaners, how can a GP see his patients if their surgery is dirty, the cleaner enables GP to carry out his or her work, but GP can afford said holiday home, are we saying cleaner should also have holiday home, of course not, GP has trained, puts in ungodly hours and continues to train and learn throughout career, when I was a cleaner, I got my wage went home and spent time with my family, that was my choice, not to got to Uni or gain more education to earn more money and spend time away from my family, so a holiday home is their right, they earned it, if you want to own a home, be it 1 or 2, then earn it, stop blaming others, or putting people down because of where they live or whether they have a holiday home.

@Skinnychip

I ageee with you. A lot of people don’t have the support behind them when they are young to get decent grades or even realise the job opportunities which are out there.

My mum is disbled and needed caring for when I was child and still does which affected my grades at school and has also impacted on my job opportunities as I needed to stay fairly local to her to provide support. Also my brother and sister live local too and we need each other for support and we all regularly see my mum and make sure she is OK.

I have an OKish job (finance) which I’m happy with but really should pay more to
be in line with the rest of the country which brings me back to life in Cornwall, the locals can’t all move away to find better opportunities. There are many jobs which have nothing to do with the tourist industry and bring in a lot of money for the county. The dockyard where I work is a good example and the Navy/Ferry/Shipping industries aren’t going away for the next 20 years so we are living in the moment and working there but this requires the workers to live locally.

Also, although I own my own home I wouldn’t have a clue how to turn around a house in poor condition or I certainly wouldn’t know how to do it myself to save money.

I live in Cornwall which has a high proportion of second home owners. My mum who lives in London had a second home for about 14 years so she and other family members could visit and the flat was well-used until about three years ago when my mum got too old to travel on her own so we sold it. Ironically we moved from London to Cornwall 30 years ago because we couldn't afford to live in London. The price of property is to do with supply and demand and there are empty properties but not where people want to live. Stopping people buying second homes would not change that. Our children have been able to buy houses in the West Country but only with our help. Does the OP want to stop parents helping their kids buy houses too?

I don't think people who own holiday homes are any more selfish than those who have lots of kids, a larger than needed house, big cars or fly abroad frequently. How people spend their money is no one else's business.

Endo. But presumably your parents sold their house to a local and not for someone to use as a holiday home??

What sort of property is your brother only interested in? Rightmove currently has over 40 2-3 bed properties all for sale on the IOW for less than £100k.

Of course if you’ll only live in ONE village and won’t move anywhere else (despite the IOW being so small it takes less than 30 mins to travel anywhere!) then you’re somewhat restricting yourself.

Dorset yes they did. And he bought nearby. So that's fine really isn't it.

Plenty of people who live in Cornwall own multiple properties in Cornwall.

Endo. Yes it is, so what’s the point you were complaining about then? Your brother has bought a property locally yet you tried to insinuate that he wasn’t able to do that so a little disingenuous.

No, I said he couldn't buy in the village due to all the second homes. I didn't say he couldn't buy at all.

I think yanbu op. I really hate this MN mindset of 'if you can afford it then why not' when the most important thing is the planet and the animals and people on it.

FWIW I could afford it, but I consider I only require 1 house so that is the resource I use.

But he can afford to buy a house 10 minutes down the road....hardly a tear jerker is it?

I think the more highly paid do work harder
I just don't think its as black and white as this. Does a nurse, care worker, nursery worker only work 20% as hard as a lawyer for example? Does a firefighter or policeman not work as hard as a city CEO? Or are professional footballers the hardest working people in society? From another thread a teacher acknowledged she was lucky she taught in an affluent area and received hundreds of ££ worth of end of term gifts. If a teacher worked in a deprived area and received no end of term gifts, is this indicative she just didn't work hard enough? (I know these are not "earnings" but hopefully you get my point.)
The bloke who took the job in the car factory chose to do that though. There were other opportunities outside that he could have pursued,
How do we know?? He might have, or he might have left school without the grades or opportunity to go to uni and this was the best option. Or if he left school with a few gcses to his name, how much money would he have had to relocate? What plethora of other better paying jobs might have been available? Maybe this was a chance to learn a trade, develop skills, but still, more fool him for not predicting the factory would close.
I agree people make choices and that if you took a sample of school leavers with the same grades some would end up better paid, more successful than others, but i think that some people are limited by their circumstances or the opportunities available.

Teatea. And that’s your decision to make, just as it’s my decision what I do with my hard earned money. I choose to invest in property so that I can have a properly funded retirement and be able to assist our DC to get on the property ladder.

You do you.

My super-shrewd cleaner has bought 2x flats in Krakow while working as.... a cleaner. Her husband is a builder.

She's now off on maternity leave, but one of the ways she saved for the deposit was by doing industrial cleaning on the weekends, where I understand she was earning more than what I paid her (around £14/hr).

Dorset I think you’re a little over-invested in this thread and you’re being rude to people. Everyone now understands your position.

How am I being rude to people exactly? By saying they can choose how to spend their money just as I can? Or by suggesting that someone still being able to buy a home within a few miles of their birth location is hardly a disaster?

You’ve posted as much as I have so does that make you over invested too or does that only apply to people who don’t agree with you?

OP I presume you never go on holiday either in the UK or abroad and rent a property then? Because effectively renting a holiday home anywhere in peak season will help to inflate house prices in that area.
South of Spain is a good example. Locals were priced out decades ago.

Yes Dorset not the worst problem ever. Locals priced out can just move elsewhere, after all it's not far.

I don't think people who own holiday homes are any more selfish than those who have lots of kids, a larger than needed house, big cars or fly abroad frequently

Yes. How's it any worse for someone to have 2 children and a holiday home than 4 children and no holiday home?

Often wonder who sold the holiday homes to second home owners? We have this a lot in my area and people whine about incomers buying up all the properties and using them as holiday homes. Must have been agreed as a purchase locally at some point. Are you proposing a checklist OP - who is the right buyer for a home and should local homeowners sacrifice any additional profit to meet this checklist?