Second-homer wanting to be part of the community

[IMustConfess]

I live in a village on the coast in a semi-rural area. It's a place where people come to live for a relatively quiet life with great walks, fresh air and unspoiled beaches. Lots of artists and writers and gardeners.

Two years ago a couple from London bought the small detached property next door to me. It's a holiday home for them and their friends and family. They're in their 50s, clearly used to a busy lifestyle in London. Lots of talk of theatre and gigs and nice restaurants. They moved in and invited a few locals to dinner and said they wanted to get involved with whatever's going on. They clearly expected to be invited back to eat with everyone and were surprised when some didn't reciprocate. 'But we were told there was a great community here!' They went round knocking on lots of doors and introducing themselves and saying how much they wanted to be involved, but they're probably only here for 10 weeks of the year max. One of my neighbours was really pissed off by it. She said it was like they had an idea of country life they'd got from a TV drama.

When their families come down independently they knock on my door and introduce themselves and say how wonderful that we're all such good friends/ such a lovely community and seem to expect to be invited in and given tea and told what's on. If there's something happening they want me to take them along. They've clearly been told I'll be happy to include them.

This year the husband's been working away a lot and so the wife has been coming down on her own. She always messages me a day or two before she's due to arrive and announces she's coming and wants to know what's on in 'the community'. She messages me when she's arrived so I know she's arrived safely. 😱She expects to be included in anything I've got going on. I took her to my book group when she was down in the summer, and now she expects to be included and tries to get us to schedule our meet-ups for when she's here.

When I moved here I got to know people slowly and worked out who I got on with. My neighbours seem to think friendship comes on a plate and everyone loves them. We have friends who live next door to an AirBnB and say something similar: many of the people who rent the place want to talk to them as if they're friends and happy to spend half an hour telling them which coastal walk is most scenic or which local pub does the best beer. We live here: we're not tourist information or rent-a-mate.

Are we the unreasonable ones? What's going on with people that they think they can just waltz into a new area and everyone'll love them?

If there was adequate wealth in your villages, and locals earned sufficiently, why would there be a market for wealthy out of towners? There wouldn’t - as you could afford to sell to each other. Most Londoners can’t afford to buy in the area of London they grew up in, because of people from all over the world buying property. Not sure what makes a village any different… Yawn!

It sounds like they don't know the difference between going to a holiday village and going on holiday to a village.

They actually sound nicer than you. We live in London and have second home owners who own the house next door (London has loads of second homes). They come for the odd weekend and holiday. They are very friendly and have suggested dinner. I haven’t taken them up on the suggestion but I see that as me being a bit of an antisocial arse. I don’t think there is anything wrong with them.

If you don’t like them just don’t engage with them but don’t blame it on them.

I could say exactly the same about London. There is enough wealth here for the locals to support amenities, yet we have to watch unsophisticated out of towners trolling around in floral dresses, for coach trips to Cats and cream tea at The Ritz. Worse still, we too endure growing up in an area that becomes unaffordable over time, mainly due to popularity and house prices rises (which largely benefit the seller and any other future sellers). If your village was self sufficiently wealthy, presumably villagers wouldn’t need to ‘break rank and sell to outsiders’?

Actually, it's a bad situation for local communities in cities such as London and in rural areas.

The fact that it happens in different areas doesn't maje it in any way ok.

You know absolutely nothing about where I live.....so, yawn right back at you with your assumptions.

The attitude by some rural people here is disappointing. I am a person of colour and would be very very wary of moving to a place like this. I imagine that my ‘otherness’ would be even more difficult for locals to accept. I’ll stay with London life I think.

Agreed. So narrow-minded, makes it impossible to see how one could ever move from London. Not that we would be welcome of course!

@80smonster your comment shows you do not understand. The village was not wealthy, it was a proper village with a mix of incomes. Some housing was rented and owned by someone pretty wealthy, he sold a lot of the houses. Other houses people moved out or died. One house for example was a bit of a shack, it looked like a build your own off grid house but was on the grid. When that man died his family who lived elsewhere sold it, and incomers knocked it down and built a massive cottage. All the very cheap houses like that have now been knocked down and rebuilt by wealthy incomers or wealthy landlords. Local people who rented can not live there any more.
No one cares if day trippers went around the village wearing floral dresses. Bloody irrelevant. The point is that the village only depends on tourism for money because second home owners and incomers destroyed the local businesses that used to exist. Farming used to support a lot of small businesses.

Second home owners and incomers only bought property that was on the market. It was sold to them by (I'm guessing) villagers. The new folks didn't invade and settle like Visigoths.

Great debating skills! I’d have to conclude there wasn’t sufficient wealth in your village, hence the bitterness. Presumably if the village held enough wealth, you could sell, one village (idiot) to another?

80smonster · Today 14:29
If there was adequate wealth in your villages, and locals earned sufficiently, why would there be a market for wealthy out of towners? There wouldn’t - as you could afford to sell to each other. Most Londoners can’t afford to buy in the area of London they grew up in, because of people from all over the world buying property. Not sure what makes a village any different… Yawn!
........
Don't go on about people from overseas buying properties here. So what? Plenty of British people buy properties abroad and have second homes here.

It is expensive to buy anywhere, particularly so for those wanting to get on the property ladder with whom I sympathise. However they generally manage to do it eventually and who knows how this situation will change over the next couple of years. I've seen many changes in the housing market in my lifetime, including the late 1980s/early 90s when prices rocketed leaving buyers with negative equity, some losing their homes in the recession, and nothing lasts that long.

Absolutely this (in all aspects)

I'm sorry to hear this, though based on some of the locals in my area I'm not surprised, unfortunately.

Not strictly true where I live.

What's the focus on London all about?

Yup. Maybe those from villages shouldn’t be allowed jobs in London, then London would retain the wealth that currently spreads across the UK. Not to mention London footing the lion share of the HMRC bill, which props the entire country up.

Why don’t you and other locals get together and have a pact not to sell to outsiders? Why do your greedy neighbours keep selling to people who have not been bred for three generations there?

The post is about Londoners owning second homes and inconveniencing locals.

Again, you've no idea. I won't be engaging further.

Again - your debating skills really need a polish.

Absolutely what?
There's nothing that reflects reality in PPS comment. 🫣

What about that doesn’t SCREAM small-minded.

Eh?

“They might be entitled twunts, but you might be unfriendly and inassertive.”

I think this is unfair to the OP, who has given the holiday home neighbours her telephone number, and does favours for them. If I were her, I would be piqued by their entitled attitude - but I would have turned off the “read”:function on what’s app and would be making sure it took me several days to reply to their messages. And I would NEVER answer the phone if they were calling. It’s far too easy for them to take advantage of the OP, and hard for her if she’s a normal sort of person who likes to be helpful and not seem unfriendly.