2nd homes. Pros and cons

[PollyPerky]

Anyone have a holiday home ? UK only. National Parks areas or thereabouts.

Wondering on the pros and cons.

Would be bought outright and only 'loaned' to friends and family for a nominal rent now and then.

I am thinking about:
council tax (may rise according to change of governments)
insurance (not occupied full time)
re-selling (some properties are very slow to shift)

Did you get tired of going to the same place?
How far is a sensible driving distance? (We could easily fund properties 4 hrs away, less choice within a 2-3 hour drive.)

Are they more hassle than they are worth?
We'd be semi retired so could use it for more than just weekends.

Trying to be gentle, but honestly, in this second home owners area, many locals will not feel welcoming to you.
Those who long to stay in the rural area they grew up in are not overly happy about your investment opportunity.

This ^ I live in a National Park in an area where 80% of the houses are second homes. It certainly has a significant impact on the viability of many rural communities including schools. Most local people can't buy their own homes as they're competing with the holiday home market. If you love the area why not move there full-time and really become part of the community?

We used to own a holiday home abroad, not quite the same thing I know. We sold it simply because we were fed up with having the same holiday all the time. We wanted to see different places, but the cost of running the holiday home meant (and only so much time allowed off work) that we couldn't afford even more holidays elsewhere. For that reason I would never buy into a holiday home again. If you like an area there is nothing to stop you from renting the same house regularly. Plus a lot of our precious holiday/down time was spent doing maintenance in the house. We would rather let someone else worry about that sort of thing now.

Sorry to take so long to get back to you - got distracted by work stuff. I rent long term and it costs about £650 per month. That covers everything. It's only small - two bedrooms, but I don't need anything bigger and because I pay by the year up front I was able to negotiate a good deal. Also, the owners are friends of friends and are pleased that their property is not getting bashed about. If they ever decide to sell I might consider buying, but suspect I would just find another rental.

I found mine by asking friends to ask their friends if anyone had something to let. This one had been a standard holiday let in the past, but by renting to me long term the owners don't have any 'faff' about changeover etc and although they don't make as much money, they certainly don't have anything like the amount of work.

Yes. Best thing we've ever done. Piglet's remarks are hilarious. They are very unpopular in here - happy to PM if you like. We love it so much-it's DHs and my 'happy place'.