What disincentives could discourage people from buying second homes?

[Unabletosleep]

What disincentives would work to stop people buying second homes?

Inspired by a different thread. It seems a number of people share my abhorrent of second homes.

I have seen the place I grew up turned into a ghost village by selfish idiots buying second homes. Now there is no local shop, no local school, no doctors surgery, no pub, no busses nothing. There were not enough people using them consistently for them to make money.

So what would make people stop killing local communities. Financial penalties I guess but how high? Wales has introduced a 100% local tax increase on second homes but it doesn't seem to be enough.

This. People's housing needs are more important than holiday preferences.

I walk and we want to spend a week without having to use the car. Yes it is my choice not to drive 40 miles a day on holiday.
If this was not an option then I would not go. I would fly to somewhere abroad and spend my money in another country.

@UnabletosleepSounds like communism to me. Taking what other people have. You can work and buy too! Envy isn’t pleasant.

Jobs in my area!

I am going to buy a second home. My partner's job is in one place, mine in another. Too far to commute. So I need to be near my job during the week.

Already stated this is not envy.

And read Das Capital so you understand communism. This is not anything like communism. It is a variant on socialism.

The area where I grew up is plagued by landlords, private and holiday. It’s a nice little village next to a town so gets a lot of visitors. They’re a scourge and have destroyed the community. They’ve also now started turning houses into HMOs and it’s so sad.

The primary school is closing, the hairdressers is gone, so has the butchers.

My dad still lives there and regularly gets woken up by people partying as they’re on holiday, and his drive is constantly blocked.

This is what air BnB was originally meant as. Not buying a house and letting it every weekend.

At last someone understands 😄

Before Airbnb there were just as many rooms/homes rented out, There are other companies.

It sounds similar to where I grew up. No HMO there though.

Wanting to put their own interests first is exactly how this situation all started: locals who could have chosen to sell to a local family for a much lower price, that they could afford; or to sell to somebody wealthy to use as a second home, who could afford to pay maybe hundreds of thousands more.

There's a very good reason why houses in Mevagissey cost way more than houses in Mexborough. If people selling homes in the former had the courage of their convictions and would only sell to locals, rather than those terrible second home owners, they could gradually significantly lower the value of all houses locally, to something more approaching the latter, so that locals could afford them. But they don't even contemplate that, because although they may hate the second home owners, they love the money that the SHOs can afford to pay far more.

Principles usually cost you money - which most people want other people to suffer the loss of, rather than themselves. It's the same as when village shops close down - even ones in non-touristy places - where locals desperately want to keep the local shop, but the convenience and much cheaper prices of large out-of-town supermarkets and Amazon are worth more to them than the principles that they claim to have. You can't have both - and unless you're very happy to see the market value of your own house tumble by maybe 50-75%, you have no room whatsoever to talk.

I also think that, whilst it makes very good sense that second home owners would be a factor in local amenities closing - such as GP surgeries, schools and the like - it's far too easy to blame the closure of shops on tourists and SHOs.

Up and down the country, people have moved online for their purchases - with much cheaper prices and no greedy council parking charges; and with essential bills constantly rising, folk just don't have the same money to spend on non-essentials. I live in a market town that's perfectly nice, probably a bit more affluent than average, but which has absolutely no draw to tourists. We have more and more empty shops and businesses closing. It's interesting that most of the ones that survive/open up are things like coffee shops and cafes, hairdressers and charity shops - businesses that can't be easily or practically replaced by online alternatives. Oh, and all the vape shops and those very suspicious ones that appear to be a front for money laundering and/or sell pop, crisps and chocolate openly, but likely also drugs and all kinds of other illegal stuff unofficially.

We've lost most of our banks too, and the post office closed (and became a pub); then it moved into the back of WH Smith, and then WHS became TG Jones, and now TGJ are wanting to get rid of it.

Tourists and holidaymakers can bring both positive and negative factors to towns; but you really cannot just blame every single little bad thing on them. I even saw an item on TV some time ago whereby people in Whitby were complaining about all the tourists - and one of those people bemoaning all of these wretched incomers owned a shop that sold ice cream, fudge, postcards and fridge magnets etc.! I'm not sure how many locals regularly visit his shop compared with holidaymakers!

Yes in holiday cottages which have always existed. Airbnb is just a platform for self catering properties.

You surely know this?

Yes not just St Ives, all over the country, we self cater all the time, never use hotels, we're in a 'cottage' now which is a building on a farm, it wouldnt be rented out to a local family as its miles from anywhere, on a country lane with no pavements, you couldnt commute anywhere, its a small hamlet that once had a railway a mile away but that closed in the 50s.
Even when we have stayed in proper stand alone cottages, they are much as you describe, they wouldnt pass any rental standards, bedrooms off bedrooms, low head heights, no outdoor space, not livable as a family home but fine for a holiday cottage. They've usually got the MN horror show of downstairs bathrooms, electric heating and any children would need to share bedrooms. Virtual poverty!!!

So where would all these air bnbs and holiday lifts come from that people want to holiday in

And what about people who chose to rent and not buy?

We're staying in an air BnB next week, the house is also on Rightmove for half the price it would cost where I live just two counties away and had been since September last year. Air BnB is stopping that house sitting empty.
I also live in a seaside town and holiday let's have been a thing long before air BnB existed as a platform

There’s no issue with holiday lets that are part of a business that pays business rates, VAT, etc and are subject to capital gains tax when they’re sold. We regularly stay in one of those. Subsidising someone’s second home is another matter.

Its quite remarkable that people think that 'airbnb' is something very different, Ive been holidaying in self catering cottages since the 80s, and before that with my parents in the 70s. Before airbnb you used to get....wait for it.... holiday brochures.... on paper!!! Ive been to UK, Spain, France, Italy, years before airbnb renting holiday cottages.

Did they turn over visitors every 2 days? How many of them made newspapers because a rave got out of control?

Things have changed. It is a different business now.

Whats any of that got to do with being a second home. The point is self catering units/cottages/apartments have been rented out for decades. They're not new.

I certainly used to book Thursday to Sunday bookings, you could book 3/4/5/7 nights as I recall. Or more obviously.

It’s the locals who sell these homes to ‘holiday homers’. Perhaps a local penalty for the seller if they sell to someone who will wreck their community? It may make the higher sales price less attractive.

That’s not a bad way of tackling it really - just have a local equivalent of stamp duty that the vendor pays when selling to a non local, however that’s defined. Because, at the end of the day, the problem isn’t out of area buyers, it’s local vendors wanting as much money as possible.

A 45% stamp duty charge (aligned with the additional income tax rate) levied on the entire sale price if not sold to a local, or to someone from out of area but with a firm job offer in area. Use a higher tax rate if necessary, but penalise the locals not the buyers and things would soon change. Now, because they buyers probably have deeper pockets than locals it might lead to even higher prices… but that’s what happens when you try and control markets.

Not sure how old you are, but I am in my late 40s and grew up just outside Brighton, and it has always been ridiculously expensive compared to the surrounding areas. That’s pretty much the only reason Burgess Hill exists…

Grew up in Hastings and St Leonards - where people opted to buy because they couldn’t afford Brighton property prices. They have always been high. A house in many many areas of the UK that was 400k once will now be 700k because property universally has increased in price by 50-100% in that area. My DHs first flat was bought 30yrs ago for 152. Same property now on at 750-780. Five fold increase in value on a tiny 2bed one bath flat.

What might work as well is to use different tax levels for short term lets vs long term letting. If you rent a property out for less than a month to the same person, then you should be taxed at a much higher rate than a long term rental income. This has been an issue in recent years that the ease of booking via air bnb etc has meant professional long term landlords have stopped renting out houses to people who want to live in them and instead have made more money from holiday lets , even with the gaps between seasons. Re balancing that to get houses back available for people to live in would be good.

You’ll never completely get rid of the holiday short term let market, but tweaks to make it less profitable or to make 2nd home ownership more expensive are possible and would help return people to live in these locations.