If you're from Cornwall, how do you personally feel about tourists and second home owners?

[Beerlovingwalker]

Genuinely curious really, as an outsider that loves Cornwall.

On the one hand, it must be nice to know that so many people love the beauty of your county and I'm sure it's nice to share it. However, it also must be difficult to adjust from living fairly quietly in the Autumn/winter months, to suddenly have to share your space with so many million tourists and second home owners in the summer.

... type of documentary that is usually broadcast

[quote AppleAppleAppleApple]@Mmn654123 I’d love to see these houses? The average salary here is just over £20k.[/quote]
Borrowing 4 or 5 times salary isn’t unusual in London.

Average salary is £23k in Cornwall. So two average earners will generate £46k household income in Cornwall compared to £76k in London.

There are certainly 3 bed family houses for sale in the price bracket £185k-£230k in Cornwall.

Not many 3 bed family houses in London for £300k - £380k - but there are probably some of you search and aren’t too fussy about the area.

I’m not seeing the issue. Looks no worse than London. Except Cornwallians can leave for a few years, earn better money elsewhere like London and then when they return they can buy a relatively cheap property. Can’t really do that in London.

Actually just checked on Rightmove.

Vastly more affordable family homes in Cornwall than in London based on these price ranges.

Unfortunately it is very rare to be able to borrow 4-5 x your salary in Cornwall due to the sort of jobs people have here. Agriculture, fishing, forestry and service are the main industries - all notoriously unstable, seasonal and difficult to account for long term. Not many lenders will give you 4.5 x salary. We managed 3x salary mortgage last year but it was hard to come by.

@Mmn654123 in the town that I live in, houses go on the market and by the night they are gone. We have had people from Wales buying a second home here for over 20k over the asking prices and someone from America for an insane amount of money - they haven’t even visited. Houses are going on the market at a certain price but locals are being outbid. You can’t even rent. I know, I live here and I can’t afford to get a bigger house on our income and have many friends who can’t get on the ladder full stop. These houses are not affordable to locals.

[quote AppleAppleAppleApple]@Mmn654123 in the town that I live in, houses go on the market and by the night they are gone. We have had people from Wales buying a second home here for over 20k over the asking prices and someone from America for an insane amount of money - they haven’t even visited. Houses are going on the market at a certain price but locals are being outbid. You can’t even rent. I know, I live here and I can’t afford to get a bigger house on our income and have many friends who can’t get on the ladder full stop. These houses are not affordable to locals.[/quote]
Yes the same happens here. Overseas investors buy whole buildings and leave them empty. Local Londoners are outbid by wealthy Arabs and property investors.

Wealthy people like having property in nice places.

Three bed house in Cornwall for < 3 times average salary for a couple.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/87653270#/

Where I came from people moved to London if the couldn’t afford to live locally. Why isn’t everyone moving?

[quote AppleAppleAppleApple]@Mmn654123 in the town that I live in, houses go on the market and by the night they are gone. We have had people from Wales buying a second home here for over 20k over the asking prices and someone from America for an insane amount of money - they haven’t even visited. Houses are going on the market at a certain price but locals are being outbid. You can’t even rent. I know, I live here and I can’t afford to get a bigger house on our income and have many friends who can’t get on the ladder full stop. These houses are not affordable to locals.[/quote]
I’ve sold property within 30 minutes of putting it on the market.

Worth being nice to the estate agent so they give you first dibs. Like anywhere.

@Mmn654123 I don’t get what your argument is here? So it happens in London too, no one is denying it doesn’t. But you’re saying that Cornish people can afford houses but I’m explaining why they can’t. We’re not making it up, you can find all the ‘affordable’ houses you want on RightMove, a lot of locals can’t afford them. There is a lot of low wages and poverty here. It’s happening around the country yes, but I don’t get why you’re arguing that it isn’t happening in Cornwall, a county you clearly don’t live in or know much about?

@Mmn654123 ..this really isn't a race to the bottom! The OP was asking about Cornwall - not London. Its a completely different situation.

In London there is there infrastructure to catch a tube, bus or train from one borough to another. Yes, Knightbridge, Chelsea, Hyde Park are perhaps dominated by serviced houses or apartments and not affordable to many, but the infrastructure in place allows for people to access schools, libraries, museums, from their more affordable residential area.
This doesn't happen in Cornwall. A village with 70% second home sees prices jump and community fall. It looses it school, shop, bus link. People can and do move out of the villages due to being out-priced but its often inland to a completely different town an hour's drive away.

@Mmn654123, that house is sold as an investment, with tenants in it. So the buyer would have to make the present occupants move out.

Oh look all you follow "Cornwallians" (never heard that expression before btw) here's @Mmn654123 to tell us why we're doing it all wrong!!

Of course we need someone to explain to us how local housing is perfectly affordable for the majority of local people its just that they haven't been looking in the right places!!!

Who'd have thought it was that simple ... duh ...

Cornwallians. Hmm.

I have never seen as many threads about Cornwall on this site as I have in the last 12 months.

This place is totally fetishised, it’s so weird.

Not RTFT but I do live in a different tourist area that has a lot of empty homes that are only occupied for a few weeks of the summer. It’s dreadfully sad to see all the empty properties while we, and other friends from here are unable to buy or even rent nearby. We are all in our late 20s/early 30s and trying to build businesses locally but living with our parents. It’s not sustainable. The houses on either side of me have been empty for over a year due to covid with one nearby the owners haven’t been to in about 6 years, they live abroad and seem to have forgotten about it.

I think there needs to be a quota put in place where only X% of houses in a given area can be sold as second homes. Beyond that they must be primary residences either owner occupied or long term rentals.

I agree @ThursdayLastWeek - do you think MebyonKernow are trying to infiltrate MN?

The housing market here is crazy at the moment. Yes you can sell a house in 30 minutes. Then find nothing to buy due to people from further up the line purchasing who have nothing to resell locally. The available housing stock is continually shrinking.

There are sealed bids on houses in Tuckingmill! That's when you know it's gone crazy.

Agents refusing to rent houses unless you have an income of above 29k. If you can find a rental that is. There is literally no family type houses to rent in the town I live, just 5 bed student lets.

Like I said, if they make it clear they will only sell to locals, they'll get pilloried.

How would people even know? Nobody has to put up a big sign saying 'Locals only'. They don't even need to put up a sign at all. Surely, if there's a groundswell of support for selling houses to locals at affordable prices, local estate agents/Facebook/community groups/local free property pages could keep tabs on those buying and selling and put them in touch. You could even just advertise them in Cornish!

Alternatively, advertise your house on the open market, invite offers and then 'weed them out', to enable you to pick your preferred buyer from the local people. People tend to sell their houses to the highest bidder, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from choosing whomever you like from the list of would-be buyers.

@crosstalk

And let's think about infrastructure. Cornwall has the Royal Cornwall hospital in Treliske for 24 hour A&E. There's the one in Penzance but refers acute to Treliske. 34 minutes by car but not with heavy traffic.

There are 750 beds - most not acute - spread throughout Cornwall. Oh, and there's the private hospital in Truro but while it offers a good range of treatments they would refer extreme patients back to the NHS.

I was interested in a PP who said they had made a mostly online career in Cornwall that paid well. What is high stream broadband like in Cornwall? I can't understand why the councils aren't pushing - there must be so many businesses and young entrepreneurs who could make a career.

I agree that councils could make a huge difference in this whole issue if they could tempt new businesses to choose rural places like Cornwall as their base. If this last year has taught us anything it's that many industries and businesses do not need to keep a large workforce in a major city to be viable.

This thread has been really thought-provoking.

There's clearly no simple blanket solution like 'ban owning more than one residential property' for the UK because every region has different needs and issues.

It's clear that some serious money needs to put into 're-planning' our towns and cities.

And each local authority is going to have to use a variety of techniques to fix their specific issues - what's going to help locals in rural Cornwall to find affordable housing isn't going to be the same a borough in Glasgow.

And it can't be as simple as banning people from owning more than one residential property as there will always be a need for rental stock, and just penalising second home owners with big council tax penalties or other fees won't work either because there will always be rich people willing to pay a bit extra to have their second home.

• incentives for businesses to relocate / incentives for entrepeneurs to relocate
• incentives for business to work with local authorities to help their employees find and afford accommodation
• incentives for those who want a second residential property as an investment to commit to renting to local worker for a set period of time (20-30 years) rent-controlled to make it affordable.
• incentives for property developers to create affordable housing options for first-time buyers
• penalties for houses which are not occupied for certain percentages of the year
• incentives for people to offer long-term rental agreements
• a well-maintained social housing stock
• better planning for housing options for younger first-time buyers AND for seniors

@crosstalk, you asked about broadband speeds. Thanks to the EU, Cornwall was prioritized over other rural areas for the roll out of high speed fibre-optic cabling, so our internet is fairly fast, especially if you are close to the cabinet... but so far it's FTTC rather than FTTP in residential areas. DH has FTTP at work, because a designer whose work all arrived electronically needed it and paid for the spur. It's pretty quick.

I’m saying I don’t understand why people choose to stay living there if you can’t get stable jobs and you can’t afford property. And that there is cheap property just not necessarily what you would want to live in.

Why such resistance to migrating? That’s what others do in this situation of they can’t afford to stay. At an individual level that’s the most sensible thing to do yet people aren’t doing it. I find that bizarre. Whole families could relocate to more affordable Norfolk or Shropshire.

If you choose not to then it must mean you anticipate it will get better - you will get stable work, you will be able to buy a property. No?

And where I’m from we all call you Cornwallians. Didn’t you know?

I have FTTP at home and usually get between 100 and 150 Mbps but there are other people in the village who really struggle to get any decent speeds at all. I work 15 minutes away and we get about 10Mbps there. There is a huge disparity of availability even within the same village.

I think many people on here are classing us in with the English as if we have the same issues and backgrounds. The Cornish are legally classed as an ethnic minority the same as our Celtic cousins in the rest of the UK. We're closer to the Welsh in culture than the English and our language is similar due to developing from the same language.

Our culture is supposed to be protected, that isn't going to happen by telling us to live elsewhere.

No I've genuinely never heard that phrase @Mmn654123 - where are you from?

@Mmn654123 so Cornish people have to get out of Cornwall because they can’t afford to live there? What a ridiculous argument! And where do they all go?

What an absolute crock of shit! Telling people to leave their home county because other people want a second home or holiday home there. And then who is going to clean those holiday homes? And serve your beer and cream teas? And sweep the streets and clean the beaches?

They don’t want to relocate to Norfolk. They want to live here. What a total fucking joke. Honestly! How selfish.