Talk to me about second homes...

[wonderingwondering]

We're considering buying a second home in the UK, to use for holidays, weekends. We've a location in mind - good access from where we live by plane/train, close to DH's extended family. What are the pros and cons?

We live in London (central is necessary for DH's work) but are looking for a weekend place with countryside nearby. I don't work so would envisage spending school holidays there with DH commuting for the weekends.

We can afford to move from our current house, but are thinking we'd rather stay put (our current home is adequate for our needs and good location/schools) so we thought a second home in a greener, more peaceful location might be a better investment (financially and in terms of lifestyle) than upgrading our current house.

Any thoughts?

[Quattrofangs]

Well the only thing I'd say about second homes and holiday homes is that they end up taking a lot of time and money to maintain.

Also the children are never as quite as keen on it as the adults IME - especially as they get older. They end up separated from their friends/sports/hobbies etc at vital times (all times are vital times).

[HarrietTheSpook]

If you find a cabin somewhere decent - please post a linkx

[wonderingwondering]

Thanks for the advice, Grendel, and for that link - had a quick look and there's some lovely places.

[GrendelsMum]

I think that's a great outcome - I'm feeling really jealous of all these lovely (and low hassle) weekends you're going to have in different parts of the UK.

A friend of mine who used to be a great traveller and lived abroad for many years now swears by the National Trust Cottages for holidays:
www.nationaltrustcottages.co.uk/

[wonderingwondering]

Thanks all, lots of food for thought.

I think I hadn't properly considered some of the practical implications, as well as the hassle factor, which could be considerable. And despite what I said earlier about the investment side, we are now thinking about a caravan (yay!) or a cabin, with a view to a purpose-built holiday home (I did not know such a thing existed before this thread!) some time in the future - depending on how the children get on and how we find being away for several weekends a month.

So, we're going to book a few weekends away around and about the UK, to find a spot we like, and also to see how going away for one or two weekends each month works. But I do agree that we need to think carefully, work out what we want - and that a second house might well prove more trouble than it is worth.

Thanks again, MN is a good sounding board, as always!

[miumiu]

How the hell are you paying my bills cheese sarnie?

[jabberwocky]

I have memories of being very angry and resentful of my parents carting me off practically every weekend and holiday of my life. I missed out on birthday parties, football games and lots of other social events just so my father could have his peaceful weekend. I remember thinking that I would never be that selfish towards my own children.

As a teen I also had a tendency to go a bit overboard on the few weekends that I did get to see my friends

[cheeseandeyeballsarnie]

dont buy one near us please.im paying your bills if you do.am fed up with 2nd homes.

[jellybeans]

Older kids DO NOT want to spend weekends away from their friends or with their parents. At about 12 or 13, their friends become much more important and they want to spend most of the weekend with friends.
I also agree with the comments re being selfish to buy 2nd homes, unless it is a caravan 0r purpose built holiday bungalows etc. This society is so me me me.

[Northernlurker]

Earlybird that is a ridiculous arguement! Vendors of properties sell according to the market price. The issue is that incoming buyers have more budget because of their higher earning potential than locals and so they outbid then and thereby push up future prices. I believe actually that some vendors do sell at lower prices to locals but that is their generosity acting and in any case properties which are being sold as result of death or divorce or bankruptcy can really not be sold below the market price. We can all live in only one house at a time, those buying second homes are doubling up on what they need and are taking an extra slice of a restriced size pie. It is the essence of greed - and I don't buy the arguement that you have to have it either because of the factors acting on your life. If Your life doesn't work then change it but you don't have to acquire another house to do that. OP - you've been very gracious about the adverse responses you've received and I'm not going to apologise for being blunt - you may very well find that a second home solves nothing and gives you a whole new range of problems.

[Earlybird]

Why are the purchasers of second homes the greedy ones? Why not get upset with the villagers who are selling the homes to weekenders? Surely they are the ones who are greedy...and they are (presumably) the ones who are extremely familiar with the communities and know exactly how their (selfish?) actions will affect/change the villages.

[wonderingwondering]

Grendel, I had only this morning also looked at Aldeburgh and Whitstable (great minds..).

I'm going to seriously consider the renting idea - perhaps a different location each year! - as well as the cabin/holiday home idea, which I can see has a reduced impact on the surrounding community.

But (to defend myself!) I'm not going to be swayed solely by accusations that wanting a second home outside of a city is selfish or greedy. Wanting a happy childhood for my DC's, wanting a more relaxing environment for my DH, and making the financial and time sacrifices required to make it work, is not selfish or greedy - but I think neglecting the needs of my children and husband would be. And treating 'the countryside' as some kind of drop-in theme park would also be wrong. But there's a happy medium, I hope, which I'm trying to achieve.

Wherever you live, whatever you do, has an impact on society: I suspect many of those who disagree with second homes on the basis that they damage society/communities didn't hesitate to consider the schooling opportunities and local crime rates etc when they bought their house: we all have to make decisions, in the interests of our families, that others might see as selfish. But it is a question of degree.

[HarrietTheSpook]

Squiffy - have you heard what's happening to Whitstable? accd to a local I know who just sold, the train time to London is going to two hours because of the new high speed link from Canterbury.

[miumiu]

Having said all this, unless I was a Beckham or a Bransom and didn't give a damn, I would never DREAM of buying a hh that needed a bloody flight to get there. Nightmare.

We have friends with a holiday home which is over a couple of hours drive away- it is utterly divine, but they are on the edge of divorce as he wants to stay there and she wants a life in town and the house is too far to combine both comfortably and when one of the children has something on at the weekend, she has no choice but to stay in town and he goes there fore the weekend, EVERY weekend. The 5 hour return drive is a killer and would be a no option for me.

[Anifrangapani]

A lot of people are greedy - used to make my blood boil when people pulled the old I am pulling out of the sale unless you pay more trick. Usually done the day before completion.

Housing speculators should be burned at the stake and deserve everything they get in my opinion. It does nobody any favours, but that is a whole new subject

A word of advice - if you have any local events at your rural home offer to get involved in the organisation - committees in rural areas are always crying out for help. The typesetting and editing for our May Queen Festival Program is done by someone who lives in London via email. They are very popular.

[miumiu]

No, my vendor is greedy and rather foolish - he had the house on the market to make a killing, took out a bridging loan on a new build and then could not afford to do anything with the first house as no one was interested......The house stood empty and there is now damp on one wall, a frog ridden pond for a pool and an flooded cellar. Two days after he accepted our offer he renaged and said he would take the pool out (!!!) it is frigging built in, underground, unless we upped the price by 5K.

He is local who has moved to a seaside town, btw.

The estate agent was not selling up - we had already signed contracts and were asking about what was available in the holidays for children.

[Anifrangapani]

An estate agent will always talk up an area - I used to be one.... of course it is not going to damage a community. It is great to have so many new faces in a village. With one eye on the commission so they can pay their mortgage and feed their kids. I have been there and done that. Not my proudest moment.

Many people in rural areas love to live in isolated houses, but cannot afford it. Your vendor will have paid a price below which he could not accept - hence the house standing empty for years beacause the only people who could afford it would have had to come in from an area where wages are higher. I saw it all the time. Yes I feel for those individuals who paid over the local wage ceiling, but it is not a healthy thing for a community as a whole.

[shonaspurtle]

It's a hard one miumiu, but on the other hand from her chair she can watch red squirrels raiding the birdfeeders and the constant change of the loch across the single track road.

I do have sympathy with wanting to get away. We had that growing up because we went to stay with my grandma! They are very precious memories.

Your purchase is a very different prospect from the ones beside her. These were nice 2 bed cottages which would have been perfect for couples starting out and working in local businesses.

[miumiu]

Where I live, no one wants a house in the sticks (perhaps for the same reasons that SS's grandmother is feeling isolated, because it is difficult to live with nothing and no one close by). The local village houses were far more expensive and the local village schools were full - the estate agent was a local and was talking about the schools and local amenities.

[Anifrangapani]

SS's grandmother is not alone - it is a picture mirrored in many rural communities.

[miumiu]

SS - the house we are buying has been empty for years now. Neighbours 2/3rds of the time is better than no neighburs at all, and no, no gardeners or parcel-takers necessary here.

I have to say though, is one of the first things I thought when I saw the house was its isolation - how difficult it must be to live somewhere and be totally cut off, especially if there is no car or public transport locally. I feel for your grandmother, it must be terrible to feel isolated.

[Anifrangapani]

If the "normal price range" is inflated beyond the means of local people by people comming into an area who can afford the higher prices because of their higher wages it cannot be bought by those people who live there who have lower wages. House prices are set by who has the funds. If your house had been resonably priced for a local persons borrowing maximum I am sure it would have been bought by a local person.

Your children will not be using the local school - and falling rolls leading to mixed age group teaching is common. This is thought to contribute to increassed teacher stress and poorer teaching standards.

When you have people complain about local businesses or the building of new housing stock to the planning department because it will deminish the value of their home - and the majority list their address out of an an area it is galling. In many areas house price devalutation is not a material consideration in planning, unfortunately because we are in a National Park it is.

We have a very local issue here at the moment because a 2nd homer has applied to have a permissive ( for the last 247 years) footpath closed. It is the path that half of the school children use to get to school. Their alternative is to cross a busy carrige way. His legal team was better than the one we were assigned, so it looks as if due to a lack of funds it will be closed. Not all people with weekend homes are such twunts.

When the 2nd homers retire to the village (and many do) we end up having a much larger aging population to working population ratio than is the national standards - putting strain on Elderly People Services such as the Aids and Adaptaions budgets, NHS and Community Nursing. These are paid out of our much higher than national average Council Tax Bills, putting further strain on limited family budgets.

I applaud you for using local labour and amenities and wished more people here did that. It saddens me to see so many people here roll up with bags of food bought at Waitrose or Sainsburys as our nearest is 17 miles away.

I am not saying that all 2nd homers are bad - some contribute a great deal to the local communities, however many people when buying their weekend home do not realise the the issues that are caused by part time occupation of a property. If they were more cluded up and made a more active decision to participate in the local community then there would be less friction.

[shonaspurtle]

If you're thinking of what it might be like just you and your dc on a winters night, spare a thought for my 91 yr old grandmother who'll be the only human being in many miles tonight, as most nights, because in her small community of 4 houses the other three have sold for holiday homes in the last few years as the other elderly people, who were her friends and neighbours for decades, died.

She was appalled at the prices they reached. None of the many young couples living with parents in the area could have afforded them.

Never mind. Her new occasional neighbours at least have someone to organise their gardeners and take in parcels for them

A purpose-built holiday site seems the most ethical option and will be creating jobs in the local area.