Anyone from Cornwall here? Is this as stupid an idea as I think?

[iamloading]

So before I start can I ask that this doesn't become a landlord bashing thread. My partner and I have no pension at all, but met much later in life so both had our own property. We live in mine, and rent out his. This property is our pension.

Our tenants are moving out next month and as my partner grew up in Cornwall we are considering selling the rental and buying a property down there.

We hate the idea of yet another air b&b pricing out the locals. However we would also love to use the property ourselves in an ideal world. We currently rent an air b&b every year for two weeks when we visit - which would seem crazy to do if we had a property there.

A friend who lives in Cornwall mentioned how desperate locals are for sensibly priced rentals, and that we should just put a clause in the contract that for 2 weeks in the summer holidays we get the property to use. She said most locals try to leave in the summer anyway.

I can't imagine that this would appeal to anyone but wondered what you think?

This is the biggest pile of crap I have read in a very long time. What an imagination you have.

I was also going to suggest student rental. If you make clear from the start it's a 10 month rent (Sept - June), and that the house gets cleared every summer, you can stay when it's not being rented. When I was a student, our landlord did that and every summer decorated one room on a rolling basis. You would just need to take care that sorting out the house / garden etc doesn't dominate your holidays, Also whether where you would want to be based is somewhere students want to live?

Im sorry, Londoners bought all the houses in the 1980s and are now selling them to different londoners 40yrs later, thus pricing the cornish out😋

What rubbish. All these 2nd homes have been bought from the cornish who, instead of selling to locals, sold to the higgest bidder... (as most would)

Instead of passing this profit/wealth to their cornish children, it seems to have evaporated... Vanished... Poof, gone... Do, yes, the local cornish are stuffed... But who's done the stuffing?

Outsiders who paid a shed load or cornish parents/grandparents who didnt pass it down quickly?

Cornwall has always been one of the poorest parts of europe. Its been a crisis for some over the last decade and a real windfall for others

Terrible idea.

I own a small property in Cornwall. Originally I used it as a holiday let, but for many reasons, (the lack of affordable private rents for locals being possibly one of the main ones) I now rent it to a local couple, and am trying my best to be a fair landlord. No way would I ask my tenants to leave so I could have a holiday there! It's their home!

Accidental landlords is not really a thing, it's just a way for people uncomfortable with it to try and appease their guilt.

You have both chosen to retain both of your homes. There is nothing accidental about that.

Cracking 17th century thatched cottage at Cadgwith Cove, Lizard, on Righmove now priced at £850,000.... 'reduced' apparently on the listing....

Been in the family for generations according to agents... 60+ years.

Thats one Cornish family attempting to get a high price from outsiders and achieving a multiple of 15x what was paid...

I know theres a housing crisis there - but blame the council for not investing in and building subsidised housing for key workers. Selling off Redruth and Camborne's huge council house stock... And building massive new uni campuses without getting close to fulfilling enough new rooms for the students...

There was no council plan, there is no plan now, and all the Cornish do is blame not their own families or councillors, but these dreaded outsiders🙄

Welcome to life in the south-east. There is a housing crisis here too, it has just taken a decade to travel down the a303 and a30...

Yes you are right...

No one's parents die leaving them with a residual mortgage, council tax to pay, services to keep ticking over or service charges for leasehold flats?

They aren't accidental landlords out of financial necessity? (who often have a year's wait before probate is complete and they then have the option to sell)

What about those who cant sell their mums flat because of cladding/fire safety failures post Grenfell? Unmortgageable but with an existing mortgage? (perfect definition of 'accidental landlord' in todays world)...

Secondly are you going to ask them to take all their things with them? What about personal photos and little bits that make it yours? Or their important docs?

Just no

I live in a fishing village on the south coast and my neighbour has to vacate her house for 2/3 weeks every year so the owner can come stay. The owner is an 80 year old woman, the house is on the harbour with fantastic views. My neighbour doesnt pet rent or any bills for the 2/3 weeks so has a lovely summer holiday partly paid for.

It's rented through a letting agency so might be better to phone letting agencies in Cornwall to see what they think.

This is an interesting perspective. Has anyone got any legitimate counterpoints to this? We’ve recently moved here and I have never before noticed so much xenophobia and attitudes against ‘the English’. I work in the NHS and we are desperate to recruit in cornwall so it’s hard to marry up this with the attitudes I’ve noticed (not to me specifically, I’m having my own housing issues!)

We have a flat which has sat empty for nearly 4 years. Probate still isnt officially in black and white in a letter but is just about to arrive apparently

A combination of no will, covid, solicitor being ill, solicitor being replaced, beneficiaries all round the world, genealogist being commissioned, HMRC to be paid, etc etc etc

So the flat is not yet even up for sale, its not owned by anyone except the estate. But it could house 5 people and has been sitting there empty for all this time.

Its in London so obviously no one cares about that, but thats what happens sometimes.

The suggestion above about student rental is a good one - but be prepared for wear and tear as some students are responsible and careful, but others can be fairly heavy handed / irresponsible.

Or if you can find good longer term tenants and currently live somewhere others might enjoy staying for a holiday, you could do a house swap for a few weeks a year with your tenants?

I wouldn’t want to have my holiday in a family house which had just been vacated. And as others have said, what if they were ill one year, or just simply refused to go? I think the idea of a student flat somewhere nice sounds good. I would though just slightly caution against planning to move to Cornwall without having spent a fair whack of time there yourself- since lockdown I have heard some fairly eyebrow raising stories of how outsiders are viewed/ treated and I wouldn’t fancy feeling like an outsider/ feeling like I had to explain myself constantly.

This would be a horrible idea in any part of the world but in an area with devastating housing poverty already it's just a total piss take. But yes, a horrible idea full stop.

Renting to students is a really bad idea. You will need to do repairs/clean ups over the summer, they won't have looked after any plants, they won't have kept it looking it's best, and for it to be cheap enough to appeal to students it will have to be in a meh area.

Could you maybe look for somewhere with a small annex or garden building that you could stay in so you don't have to ask someone to leave their home?

Thats not my exp at all.

People moved away, as no jobs etc, in the 70s 80s and even the 90s, their parents died and then the house was sold from a far.

Often the buyers would be 2nd home owners.

Your theory that someone in Padstow sold up and wasted all the money, doesn't standup.. where did they then move too? or did they live in a tent?

Also, many people never owned their own homes, they rented/tied accommodation, they died and landlord sold the house.

the tragedy in Cornwall now is 10s of 1000s of homes built, sold to out of area HA and buy to let... hence still no housing for locals and the area ruined as no roads schools or health facilities.

For the sake of just two weeks holiday a year, this arrangement makes no sense. Just book a holiday rental in Cornwall when you want to go, and keep your choice of investment property separate from your holiday plans.

Or they have moved within Cornwall & has to shell out for a ridiculously overpriced property when they move.

The Cornwall AirBnB market is saturated OP. Lots of vacancies this year. I hope it’s the start of housing stock returning to local occupation (whether rented or owned).

Quite. How wonderful it would be to wake up tomorrow and find I'd accidently acquired additional properties, which I'd accidently rented out, to accidently make a profit on.

Oh purleasseee, there's nothing accidental about it, just be honest fgs.

There's a lot of dedicated holiday accommodation in Cornwall, which has restricted residency and is therefore unsuitable to become permanent accommodation - houses on holiday parks like Atlantic Reach for example. Why don't you look at buying one of them OP? You get to use it when you want to, and the rest of the time you can let it out without removing accommodation from the housing market

All these people complaining that second hime owners and landlords/BTL in general are to blame for 'locals' being unable to afford housing are deluded. If everyone sold up tomorrow the locals still wouldn't be able to buy them as there aren't the jobs there. Currently private landlords are exiting the market in droves due the government's vendetta, and all this dies os drive up rents on those few remains lets, plus the house prices continue to rise. Demonising landlords is just envy politics.

This wouldn't work. What about all their stuff?! Just use all your nice extra landlord money to take yourself on holiday to Cornwall once a year? And don't steal more property from an already insane market.

It's really not envy politics. That's a stupid and lazy argument.

I deeply object to anyone owning more than the property they need to live in. There is no need and I find it immoral.

Hi just a thought nothing wrong with second or third homes just as there's nothing wrong with that cornish man skipping all the way to the bank with your money in is pocket. 😎