Are holiday homes ruining the British seaside?
August 19, 2018 10:36 AM Subscribe
“Second home. Second home. That one’s a second home. Second home. Second home. That’s a holiday let. Second home. These people live here all the time. Second home.” St Ives is a lovely seaside town in Cornwall in the UK, home for years to artists because of the quality of its light, and where Virginia Woolf was inspired to write To The Lighthouse. It's still home to thriving culture like the iconic Tate St Ives (one of only four Tate galleries in the world) with its programme of international modern and contemporary art, theatres, museums and art spaces, pubs and restaurants - but Cornwall is one of the most deprived areas in western Europe, and the average house price in St Ives is 18 times the typical local salary.
Southwold is a pretty seaside village in Suffolk, with pastel-painted beach huts, a pier, and a working lighthouse. There are about 1400 houses in Southwold: around 900 of them are second homes, only around 500 are lived in full-time. A small ‘two up, two down’ house in Southwold costs around half a million pounds. The average salary is £19,459.
Of 63 properties on one street in Cawsand in the UK county of Cornwall, only 29% are occupied all year round; 36 of them are second homes, nine are holiday lets. Last year in Cornwall, nearly one in ten properties bought were bought as second homes, some of which are used as investments - to be kept until they can be sold for more. It's not just the south-west and the Suffolk and Norfolk coast - much further north, in Northumberland, 55% of homes in Beadnell , and 47% in Bamburgh had no permanent occupier.
Coastal communities are fighting back: in Cawsand, a plan will ensure that all new builds are sold as principal residences. The beautiful Cornish town of St Ives introduced a similar plan, which was unsuccessfully challenged in the High Court by developers - 83% of voters in St Ives were in support of the plan. Fowey (one third of properties second homes) and Mevagissey (a quarter) both followed suit.
These coastal communities know that they are very dependent on tourism and holidaymakers for income and for jobs for locals. But children who have grown up in these towns and villages cannot afford to live there. Many of them become ghost towns in the off-season. There are funky restaurants, and shops that sell expensive children's wear with jaunty nautical themes - but local schools close, local doctors’ practices close, pubs close, shops close, because there is no permanent population large enough to sustain them.
This tension is not easily resolved, but following the examples of St Ives, Fowey, and Megavissey, communities are taking action under the powers given to them in the 2011 Localism Act to stem the tide.
'“It’s really tricky living here,” says a waitress at Porthminster Cafe, who doesn’t want to be named. “Most young people work and work in the summer and then go backpacking in the winter. The rest of us have it really easy to rent in the winter – and most of us have to rent property – and [the landlord] will promise you it’s a long-term let, they swear, but then as soon as Easter comes you’re out. And that’s how you have to live.”'
Southwold is a pretty seaside village in Suffolk, with pastel-painted beach huts, a pier, and a working lighthouse. There are about 1400 houses in Southwold: around 900 of them are second homes, only around 500 are lived in full-time. A small ‘two up, two down’ house in Southwold costs around half a million pounds. The average salary is £19,459.
Of 63 properties on one street in Cawsand in the UK county of Cornwall, only 29% are occupied all year round; 36 of them are second homes, nine are holiday lets. Last year in Cornwall, nearly one in ten properties bought were bought as second homes, some of which are used as investments - to be kept until they can be sold for more. It's not just the south-west and the Suffolk and Norfolk coast - much further north, in Northumberland, 55% of homes in Beadnell , and 47% in Bamburgh had no permanent occupier.
Coastal communities are fighting back: in Cawsand, a plan will ensure that all new builds are sold as principal residences. The beautiful Cornish town of St Ives introduced a similar plan, which was unsuccessfully challenged in the High Court by developers - 83% of voters in St Ives were in support of the plan. Fowey (one third of properties second homes) and Mevagissey (a quarter) both followed suit.
These coastal communities know that they are very dependent on tourism and holidaymakers for income and for jobs for locals. But children who have grown up in these towns and villages cannot afford to live there. Many of them become ghost towns in the off-season. There are funky restaurants, and shops that sell expensive children's wear with jaunty nautical themes - but local schools close, local doctors’ practices close, pubs close, shops close, because there is no permanent population large enough to sustain them.
This tension is not easily resolved, but following the examples of St Ives, Fowey, and Megavissey, communities are taking action under the powers given to them in the 2011 Localism Act to stem the tide.
'“It’s really tricky living here,” says a waitress at Porthminster Cafe, who doesn’t want to be named. “Most young people work and work in the summer and then go backpacking in the winter. The rest of us have it really easy to rent in the winter – and most of us have to rent property – and [the landlord] will promise you it’s a long-term let, they swear, but then as soon as Easter comes you’re out. And that’s how you have to live.”'
I mean, obviously, landlords exist and there are certainly people who find themselves as landlords for reasons other than profit. My understanding is that the issue is less "the owner of this property does not reside here" but rather "there is no permanent resident, effectively reducing the housing stock", whether it's a vacant second home or being used for AirBnB.
posted by hoyland at 10:55 AM on August 19, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 10:55 AM on August 19, 2018 [10 favorites]
Mevagissey.
posted by Segundus at 10:57 AM on August 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 10:57 AM on August 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
Totally blocking ownership where the owner is not resident might well present other problems for Cornwall since tourism is the main industry and it would block holiday homes and thus income for the county. I guess the solution would be more hotels but that is not super desirable in many places.
One problem with a lot of the villages which start to get taken over by holiday homes and second homes is that they start to lose their amenities. Shops, pubs, etc stop being economic when homes are occupied for only a quarter of the year so they shut, which means jobs are lost and residents sell up and the village becomes less liveable for the permanent resident. Another problem is that once a small town or village starts to become dominated by second home owners it can lead to a lot more opposition to any new development such as affordable homes in that village since these are often perceived as reducing the value of existing homes. Both of these problems make it difficult to row back once a shift in village demographics gets under way.
posted by biffa at 11:02 AM on August 19, 2018 [19 favorites]
One problem with a lot of the villages which start to get taken over by holiday homes and second homes is that they start to lose their amenities. Shops, pubs, etc stop being economic when homes are occupied for only a quarter of the year so they shut, which means jobs are lost and residents sell up and the village becomes less liveable for the permanent resident. Another problem is that once a small town or village starts to become dominated by second home owners it can lead to a lot more opposition to any new development such as affordable homes in that village since these are often perceived as reducing the value of existing homes. Both of these problems make it difficult to row back once a shift in village demographics gets under way.
posted by biffa at 11:02 AM on August 19, 2018 [19 favorites]
Um, yes. The Cornish village is Mevagissey.
Megavissey is a Cornish Transformer.
(I have no idea how I did that!)
posted by reynir at 11:12 AM on August 19, 2018 [12 favorites]
Megavissey is a Cornish Transformer.
(I have no idea how I did that!)
posted by reynir at 11:12 AM on August 19, 2018 [12 favorites]
This sort of thing is why I am a strong proponent of second-home and pied-à-terre taxes.
posted by slkinsey at 11:17 AM on August 19, 2018 [29 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 11:17 AM on August 19, 2018 [29 favorites]
Surely the loophole allowing these second homes to pay no taxes could be closed.
posted by jeather at 11:19 AM on August 19, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by jeather at 11:19 AM on August 19, 2018 [8 favorites]
I mean, obviously, landlords exist
Well there's your problem
posted by The Whelk at 11:21 AM on August 19, 2018 [45 favorites]
Well there's your problem
posted by The Whelk at 11:21 AM on August 19, 2018 [45 favorites]
Surely the loophole allowing these second homes to pay no taxes could be closed.
Isn't that a bit like expecting the rich to raise taxes on themselves and their friends?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:25 AM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Isn't that a bit like expecting the rich to raise taxes on themselves and their friends?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:25 AM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
I grew up poor in Cornwall. Believe me, the poverty there is some of the worst in the UK. The council estates are, by and large, well hidden, many of them on the edges of inland towns such as Bodmin.
The difference between the time I grew up there (the 70s) and now is totally down to rising inequality. While the average worker (or long-term unemployed person - there are many) is still no better off than they were when I was a kid, the wealth of visitors and part-time residents has rocketed. It used to be that there were holiday homes available at most budgets in Cornwall. It's now cheaper for me and my family to spend a week somewhere nice in Spain or Italy that is is to go to Cornwall. Many of the properties that were rented out are now owned, another big change.
I can remember when (this would have been the early 90s) a group of friends and I were looking to rent a shared house in a coastal town. Back then we could have rented a five-bedroom house complete with swimming pool at a price affordable to a teacher, a nurse and a couple of other low-to-medium income people. In the end we opted for a smaller place, but I can recall groups of students and other young people renting what seem now like huge properties. The situation 25 years later is unrecognisable. Nobody growing up in the area in a working-class family can afford to buy a home there - ever. Most move away. Last time I was down there I barely heard a local accent - it feels like the Cornish people have been wiped out in a generation.
posted by pipeski at 11:38 AM on August 19, 2018 [58 favorites]
The difference between the time I grew up there (the 70s) and now is totally down to rising inequality. While the average worker (or long-term unemployed person - there are many) is still no better off than they were when I was a kid, the wealth of visitors and part-time residents has rocketed. It used to be that there were holiday homes available at most budgets in Cornwall. It's now cheaper for me and my family to spend a week somewhere nice in Spain or Italy that is is to go to Cornwall. Many of the properties that were rented out are now owned, another big change.
I can remember when (this would have been the early 90s) a group of friends and I were looking to rent a shared house in a coastal town. Back then we could have rented a five-bedroom house complete with swimming pool at a price affordable to a teacher, a nurse and a couple of other low-to-medium income people. In the end we opted for a smaller place, but I can recall groups of students and other young people renting what seem now like huge properties. The situation 25 years later is unrecognisable. Nobody growing up in the area in a working-class family can afford to buy a home there - ever. Most move away. Last time I was down there I barely heard a local accent - it feels like the Cornish people have been wiped out in a generation.
posted by pipeski at 11:38 AM on August 19, 2018 [58 favorites]
This is a pretty common dilemma for places that are economically dependent on tourism, and I'm curious about whether there are models for dealing with it. Are there any places that have managed to protect the needs of local people without seriously harming the tourism economy? I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't. Reliance on tourism is kind of a nightmare. Tourism isn't necessarily a problem for places that have other industries, but if it's an area's main source of income, I think it's usually not great for local people.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:42 AM on August 19, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:42 AM on August 19, 2018 [5 favorites]
Are there any places that have managed to protect the needs of local people without seriously harming the tourism economy?
The biggest city in my Canadian home province, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, is currently in the middle of a housing crisis as rents have shot up and there are almost no vacancies, while AirBNB rentals have really grown recently and a lot of houses sit empty in the winter. Meanwhile a small village on the South shore of the island was seeing the same problem and actually brought in rules to shape the ways people use houses as businesses with an eye to keeping it a community and not a ghost town for tourists. It was rather embarrassing timing as that news story came out just after the city and the province pointed fingers at each other for solving the problem in Charlottetown. This FPP is giving me an idea of what things could look like in our future if we don't do something pretty substantial.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:59 AM on August 19, 2018 [11 favorites]
The biggest city in my Canadian home province, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, is currently in the middle of a housing crisis as rents have shot up and there are almost no vacancies, while AirBNB rentals have really grown recently and a lot of houses sit empty in the winter. Meanwhile a small village on the South shore of the island was seeing the same problem and actually brought in rules to shape the ways people use houses as businesses with an eye to keeping it a community and not a ghost town for tourists. It was rather embarrassing timing as that news story came out just after the city and the province pointed fingers at each other for solving the problem in Charlottetown. This FPP is giving me an idea of what things could look like in our future if we don't do something pretty substantial.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:59 AM on August 19, 2018 [11 favorites]
The rest of us have it really easy to rent in the winter – and most of us have to rent property – and [the landlord] will promise you it’s a long-term let, they swear, but then as soon as Easter comes you’re out. And that’s how you have to live.”
Is that not criminal in the UK?
posted by Slackermagee at 12:27 PM on August 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Is that not criminal in the UK?
posted by Slackermagee at 12:27 PM on August 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
there are similar things going on in south haven, michigan - it's changed a lot - weekly rentals are changing the nature of the town and things are getting so touristy that chicago area pizzaria chains are actually opening up franchises in town
posted by pyramid termite at 12:28 PM on August 19, 2018
posted by pyramid termite at 12:28 PM on August 19, 2018
Regarding new properties reserved for locals. I couldn't see it in the linked articles, but what happens when the new properties mature? Is there a covenant permanently attached to a house or are the owners free to sell to whomsoever they please?
posted by StephenB at 12:39 PM on August 19, 2018
posted by StephenB at 12:39 PM on August 19, 2018
I live in a (Canadian) tourist town and the change has been dramatic. We are also close enough to Toronto to make commuting for work feasible, and increasing our attractiveness for (potentially millions of) day trippers.
There seems to be a confluence of different factors, as the wealth inequality (and possible foreign money) drives up home ownership and rent way beyond local incomes, very little community economic activity from tourists (they bring their own food to the beaches, rent from airbnb’s that don’t pay the taxes the hotels do, avoid paid parking lots by parking at the grocery shop and walking to the beach), highway expansion, and a lack of social cohesion. We call the Airbnb’s “party palaces” as they squeeze 20 plus people into a three bedroom cottage and blare music till 3am on the dock “because we are on vacation”, while the neighbour has to get up at 6am to commute into work. Meanwhile, none of the locals can go to the few public access beaches on weekends as daytrippers arrive early and sit cheek to jowl generating a huge amount of garbage they do not pay to dispose of.
It appears the only solutions are based around making homeownership so expensive that the vast majority of people can only afford one house. I have heard of ideas such as Land Value Tax to increase the property taxes, and/or tying in a rebate on exorbitant property taxes to income reported to CRA so that owners can claim one residence but if they are outside of the country/owning multiple properties they pay a much larger amount of property taxes to the municipality. That a legal loophole allows the Cornish properties to neither pay council tax or business rates is appalling.
Where I live is a cute little village with narrow roads and a peaceful view over the water, but we do not have the infrastructure to handle so many people at once, and we are losing the local residents who brought character to our village when it was possible to live here on a variety of income levels.
posted by saucysault at 12:59 PM on August 19, 2018 [11 favorites]
There seems to be a confluence of different factors, as the wealth inequality (and possible foreign money) drives up home ownership and rent way beyond local incomes, very little community economic activity from tourists (they bring their own food to the beaches, rent from airbnb’s that don’t pay the taxes the hotels do, avoid paid parking lots by parking at the grocery shop and walking to the beach), highway expansion, and a lack of social cohesion. We call the Airbnb’s “party palaces” as they squeeze 20 plus people into a three bedroom cottage and blare music till 3am on the dock “because we are on vacation”, while the neighbour has to get up at 6am to commute into work. Meanwhile, none of the locals can go to the few public access beaches on weekends as daytrippers arrive early and sit cheek to jowl generating a huge amount of garbage they do not pay to dispose of.
It appears the only solutions are based around making homeownership so expensive that the vast majority of people can only afford one house. I have heard of ideas such as Land Value Tax to increase the property taxes, and/or tying in a rebate on exorbitant property taxes to income reported to CRA so that owners can claim one residence but if they are outside of the country/owning multiple properties they pay a much larger amount of property taxes to the municipality. That a legal loophole allows the Cornish properties to neither pay council tax or business rates is appalling.
Where I live is a cute little village with narrow roads and a peaceful view over the water, but we do not have the infrastructure to handle so many people at once, and we are losing the local residents who brought character to our village when it was possible to live here on a variety of income levels.
posted by saucysault at 12:59 PM on August 19, 2018 [11 favorites]
There are very few protections for renters from landlords. Retaliatory evictions of tenants who ask for repairs are common, and you have a very short notice period.
The media often paint the housing crisis as a problem of supply and demand of properties, but really it is supply and demand of credit.
UK banks prefer to lend to second homeowners and landlords because they are lower risk - if a landlord's tenant stops paying rent for whatever reason they can be kicked out and a new tenant found = low risk to the bank, if a second home owner stops paying the rent, but they also have a million pound house in London, again theres plenty of room for the bank to get their money back.
Until that inequality is addressed nothing is going to change. You could build an extra 1000 houses in Mevagissey and with the current tax breaks, they would all be bought up by landlords.
The new section 24 rules for taxing landlords are going to make a difference but I don't know if it will be enough.
posted by Lanark at 2:10 PM on August 19, 2018 [19 favorites]
The media often paint the housing crisis as a problem of supply and demand of properties, but really it is supply and demand of credit.
UK banks prefer to lend to second homeowners and landlords because they are lower risk - if a landlord's tenant stops paying rent for whatever reason they can be kicked out and a new tenant found = low risk to the bank, if a second home owner stops paying the rent, but they also have a million pound house in London, again theres plenty of room for the bank to get their money back.
Until that inequality is addressed nothing is going to change. You could build an extra 1000 houses in Mevagissey and with the current tax breaks, they would all be bought up by landlords.
The new section 24 rules for taxing landlords are going to make a difference but I don't know if it will be enough.
posted by Lanark at 2:10 PM on August 19, 2018 [19 favorites]
Same situation here in Santa Cruz, California. Lots of second home which sit empty most of the time only to light up with party-party weekends in the summer.
posted by marylynn at 3:37 PM on August 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by marylynn at 3:37 PM on August 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
I only know Cornwall from Doc Martin/Broadchurch, but it sounds super familiar, going back to the early days of the explosion of tourism of North Carolina’s barrier islands on the US east coast. Within twenty years of regular ferry service and first tourism development, the distinct dialects of English spoken on many of the Outer Banks islands were no longer present in any speech but that of the oldest, least service-sector-oriented residents. Cornwall’s circumstances seem like they might be exacerbated by council and Parliament district borders that group historically independent or federated Cornwall with historically integrated and unitary Home Counties; is that actually the case, UK Mefites?
posted by infinitewindow at 4:15 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by infinitewindow at 4:15 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
And if second homes weren't enough, you also have the Duchy of Cornwall being a pain too.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 4:32 PM on August 19, 2018
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 4:32 PM on August 19, 2018
Cornwall had two traditional industries, mining and smuggling. The mining that my forebears did is gone now (though I enjoyed touring Geevor Tin Mine, it explained a lot I never understood). But smuggling might be the one industry Brexit brings back!
posted by rikschell at 4:34 PM on August 19, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:34 PM on August 19, 2018 [17 favorites]
And if second homes weren't enough, you also have the Duchy of Cornwall being a pain too.
Ah...it doesn't take reading that article very carefully to figure out that the people occupying listed buildings and complaining about the Duchy having the nerve to build NEW HOMES in the area prrrrrrobably aren't really aligned with small seaside shopkeepers.
posted by praemunire at 4:48 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ah...it doesn't take reading that article very carefully to figure out that the people occupying listed buildings and complaining about the Duchy having the nerve to build NEW HOMES in the area prrrrrrobably aren't really aligned with small seaside shopkeepers.
posted by praemunire at 4:48 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
In Australia we have places called hotels, and motels, and bed-and-breakfasts that cater to holidaymakers without taking many residences away from locals. I suppose there are still winners and losers from the tourist industry, but maybe this would be a way forward? The only other alternative would seem to be, I don't know, laissez-passers and curfews to keep strangers out.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:46 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:46 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Re Australia -
We just bought a house in Tassie and had trouble getting a mortgage because it had been on the market "too long"... Listed for three years because the owners were letting it on Airbnb and they could just sit and wait. Not at lot of turnover locally, as there aren't tons of jobs that would pay for a house unless you're white collar and commuting to Launceston. The first house we put an offer on ended up being worth more to the owner rented and she pulled it off the market entirely - and by rented I mean it is also listed on Airbnb. I've seen a number of articles in this vein on the housing pinch in Hobart as well.
Really, I've been to a dozen countries on four continents - everyone is well aware of motels, hotels, bed and breakfasts.
posted by jrobin276 at 7:04 PM on August 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
We just bought a house in Tassie and had trouble getting a mortgage because it had been on the market "too long"... Listed for three years because the owners were letting it on Airbnb and they could just sit and wait. Not at lot of turnover locally, as there aren't tons of jobs that would pay for a house unless you're white collar and commuting to Launceston. The first house we put an offer on ended up being worth more to the owner rented and she pulled it off the market entirely - and by rented I mean it is also listed on Airbnb. I've seen a number of articles in this vein on the housing pinch in Hobart as well.
Really, I've been to a dozen countries on four continents - everyone is well aware of motels, hotels, bed and breakfasts.
posted by jrobin276 at 7:04 PM on August 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
Whew, I hope folks that got lucky and married rich can tell us all how to smash capitalism properly! It’ll feel good doing it from rent we can’t afford!
posted by Kitteh at 7:06 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 7:06 PM on August 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is a nice incredibly depressing change of pace from articles about the standard rent/housing prices in London are absurd because of all of the overseas money buying and not using most of the new housing. Reading the comments, and seeing people talking about how what's happening in Cornwall is happening pretty much everywhere else is kind of sickening. It all feels like the sense I got from the election in 2016: if society, the social contract, and everything in it was a game, there were rules, and for the most part, they were being followed. Now, it seems like the pleasant game we've all been playing has been descended upon by people who've been going through the rule books and finding every possible loophole, exploiting every possibility that, up until now, most people avoided because playing that way just breaks the game.
The problem is that "the game" is a reasonable assurance of work that will allow the players to survive, raise a family, and contribute to the continuance of the game itself. The game used to come with certain basic guarantees, like the existence of affordable housing, the concept that health care wasn't a luxury, and too many other things that have been stripped away by the people whose only goal is to create an artificial way to win in a game that wasn't ever supposed to have an end point. Airbnb, Uber, task rabbit, and all the rest of the gig economy bullshit jobs aren't even the cause, they're just the latest iteration of rules lawyering, the finest toothed comb that has yet come along.
Now that the game is well and truly broken, those of us who had been playing the game by the spirit of the rules, we're well and truly fucked, and have basically two options, neither of them all that tenable: one, we can turn on each other, and fight over the smaller and smaller scraps left over as algorithms grind more and more away from us, or we can stop playing this bullshit game, and start a new one.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:15 PM on August 19, 2018 [26 favorites]
The problem is that "the game" is a reasonable assurance of work that will allow the players to survive, raise a family, and contribute to the continuance of the game itself. The game used to come with certain basic guarantees, like the existence of affordable housing, the concept that health care wasn't a luxury, and too many other things that have been stripped away by the people whose only goal is to create an artificial way to win in a game that wasn't ever supposed to have an end point. Airbnb, Uber, task rabbit, and all the rest of the gig economy bullshit jobs aren't even the cause, they're just the latest iteration of rules lawyering, the finest toothed comb that has yet come along.
Now that the game is well and truly broken, those of us who had been playing the game by the spirit of the rules, we're well and truly fucked, and have basically two options, neither of them all that tenable: one, we can turn on each other, and fight over the smaller and smaller scraps left over as algorithms grind more and more away from us, or we can stop playing this bullshit game, and start a new one.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:15 PM on August 19, 2018 [26 favorites]
"The new section 24 rules for taxing landlords are going to make a difference but I don't know if it will be enough."
I have a friend who is a professional landlord/property developer. His take on the tax changes is that it doesn't effect anyone who is running their property portfolio through a limited company. It's really only a change for the amateurs who have a second home they have a buy to let on as their retirement plan. It effects things certainly as there is lot of small scale property speculation. I kind of think of it as more of a "pulling up the ladder" move in that it blocks people starting a new rental property empire but does nothing about the existing ones.
posted by DoveBrown at 12:42 AM on August 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have a friend who is a professional landlord/property developer. His take on the tax changes is that it doesn't effect anyone who is running their property portfolio through a limited company. It's really only a change for the amateurs who have a second home they have a buy to let on as their retirement plan. It effects things certainly as there is lot of small scale property speculation. I kind of think of it as more of a "pulling up the ladder" move in that it blocks people starting a new rental property empire but does nothing about the existing ones.
posted by DoveBrown at 12:42 AM on August 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
Cornwall’s circumstances seem like they might be exacerbated by council and Parliament district borders that group historically independent or federated Cornwall with historically integrated and unitary Home Counties; is that actually the case, UK Mefites?
No, not really, its quite far from the home counties. Regionally its classed as the SW but that isn't that significant since government at that level has been pretty much dumped since 2010. One issue is that the local tax base is pretty low, impacting on local services. While there are other places in the UK where housing is as expensive in terms of the ratio of house price to average salary they tend to be fairly wealthy with just ludicrously high prices. Cornwall struggles because wages are low and then house prices are pushed up by retirees and buy-to-let investors. Many people have little income to save and it becomes very difficult to get on the housing ladder at all.
Cornwall is currently entitled to support from the EU since its average wage is so low against EU standards. It had had approaching €2bn over the last 15 years or so. It largely voted to leave so will not be getting any more if Brexit goes ahead. Its chances of getting funds from the Whitehall government to replace this seem slim. So things may well be see to get worse.
Ah...it doesn't take reading that article very carefully to figure out that the people occupying listed buildings and complaining about the Duchy having the nerve to build NEW HOMES in the area prrrrrrobably aren't really aligned with small seaside shopkeepers.
There's likely a big difference between the woman in that article who somehow got the guardian to write a feature on her and the people living on the Scillies where housing is limited and the duchy owns a quite a bit and by many accounts treats people like they are liege subjects.
posted by biffa at 2:02 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
No, not really, its quite far from the home counties. Regionally its classed as the SW but that isn't that significant since government at that level has been pretty much dumped since 2010. One issue is that the local tax base is pretty low, impacting on local services. While there are other places in the UK where housing is as expensive in terms of the ratio of house price to average salary they tend to be fairly wealthy with just ludicrously high prices. Cornwall struggles because wages are low and then house prices are pushed up by retirees and buy-to-let investors. Many people have little income to save and it becomes very difficult to get on the housing ladder at all.
Cornwall is currently entitled to support from the EU since its average wage is so low against EU standards. It had had approaching €2bn over the last 15 years or so. It largely voted to leave so will not be getting any more if Brexit goes ahead. Its chances of getting funds from the Whitehall government to replace this seem slim. So things may well be see to get worse.
Ah...it doesn't take reading that article very carefully to figure out that the people occupying listed buildings and complaining about the Duchy having the nerve to build NEW HOMES in the area prrrrrrobably aren't really aligned with small seaside shopkeepers.
There's likely a big difference between the woman in that article who somehow got the guardian to write a feature on her and the people living on the Scillies where housing is limited and the duchy owns a quite a bit and by many accounts treats people like they are liege subjects.
posted by biffa at 2:02 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
I grew up poor in Cornwall. Believe me, the poverty there is some of the worst in the UK. The council estates are, by and large, well hidden, many of them on the edges of inland towns such as Bodmin.
Not quite Cornwall, but doing election leafletting in Plymouth in 2001 for the Socialist Alliance and visiting some of the council estates there and yeah, that's not something I was used to seeing in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, on Dutch twitter there has been a minor outrage at foreign ministry advertising the Dutch housing market as a good place for foreign "investment" and I'm dreading to think we'll see more of the same sort of stuff that happened to London, happening to Amsterdam, which is already struggling with housing demands for real people.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:13 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not quite Cornwall, but doing election leafletting in Plymouth in 2001 for the Socialist Alliance and visiting some of the council estates there and yeah, that's not something I was used to seeing in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, on Dutch twitter there has been a minor outrage at foreign ministry advertising the Dutch housing market as a good place for foreign "investment" and I'm dreading to think we'll see more of the same sort of stuff that happened to London, happening to Amsterdam, which is already struggling with housing demands for real people.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:13 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is a pretty common dilemma for places that are economically dependent on tourism, and I'm curious about whether there are models for dealing with it.Well, sort of.
posted by fullerine at 2:36 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
I grew up on Mount Desert Island in Maine, US. All in all, there's a road to it and you could probably walk to it at low tide - though the mud would take the piss out of you for sure. There are 4 separate towns on the island and a bit more than 1/3 of the island is National Park. The park land was initially one of John D. Rockefeller's playgrounds... He built an insane amusement retreat for him and the rest of the Robber Barons just after the turn of the 20th century, and trusted it to the government for exactly this purpose. The rest of the island itself was a fishing and canning industry, with the notable exception of the Jackson Laboratory (founded in the late 1920s, also supported in part by Rockefeller and associates). The majority of the rich, settled in the town of Northeast Harbor, although if one knows where to look, there are some amazing properties and homes all over the island - some of the oldest standing hidden in Southwest, having avoided the fire of 1947, unlike many of those in Northeast and Bar Harbor.
My high school was highly funded, consolidated from the four towns and a few other surrounding towns (other islands and adjacent lands). Our roads were repaved regularly to compensate for the winter frost heaves. There were arts and facilities available to everyone that very few other areas in Maine had access to. Taxes were tough in Northeast (a.k.a. the town of 'Mount Desert'). But, they weren't that bad elsewhere. The reason? Northeast was filled with second home summer mansions still populated by the same folks, and the high property tax rate in Northeast meant that "we all" benefited. That meant Northeast had more elementary school than they knew what to do with, but the other schools were still able to put more funds toward their elementary schools than they otherwise would (since the high school was effectively disproportionately funded by Northeast's tax base), we still all had solid facilities to learn in.
Proposed solution: consolidate and pool resources across multiple jurisdictions - particularly some inland where they may not have the resources and the "appeal for settlement by the rich" of the coast. Alone, yes, it becomes improbable to thrive on the low end with that much income inequality. But, consolidated resources allowed our towns a reasonable amount and you can counter the forces of the ultra-rich.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:47 AM on August 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
My high school was highly funded, consolidated from the four towns and a few other surrounding towns (other islands and adjacent lands). Our roads were repaved regularly to compensate for the winter frost heaves. There were arts and facilities available to everyone that very few other areas in Maine had access to. Taxes were tough in Northeast (a.k.a. the town of 'Mount Desert'). But, they weren't that bad elsewhere. The reason? Northeast was filled with second home summer mansions still populated by the same folks, and the high property tax rate in Northeast meant that "we all" benefited. That meant Northeast had more elementary school than they knew what to do with, but the other schools were still able to put more funds toward their elementary schools than they otherwise would (since the high school was effectively disproportionately funded by Northeast's tax base), we still all had solid facilities to learn in.
Proposed solution: consolidate and pool resources across multiple jurisdictions - particularly some inland where they may not have the resources and the "appeal for settlement by the rich" of the coast. Alone, yes, it becomes improbable to thrive on the low end with that much income inequality. But, consolidated resources allowed our towns a reasonable amount and you can counter the forces of the ultra-rich.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:47 AM on August 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
The media often paint the housing crisis as a problem of supply and demand of properties, but really it is supply and demand of credit.
This is the essential problem with the whole of the UK, and it's creeping into the rest of Europe. In the article, you see how houses have to go to people with the best credit, as they are no longer homes but things to make money from.
This also extends to businesses: a shop can't be rented out to anybody but the most credit-worthy, which means a big chain. Because otherwise the business that runs the shop is taking a risk on a low-credit performer, meaning they are opening themselves up to a loss. So shops are only rented out to big chains, and big chains have certain demands of shop sites, so small shops are turned into houses and there are estates with no shops within walking distances.
I am not an economist, a town planner, or somebody who would know how to stop it. But these processes have driven me out of one country, and I can see it happening where I live now. I'd like to see a solution, but the UK's governing bodies are deeply in thrall to a form of capitalism that makes this impossible.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:59 AM on August 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
This is the essential problem with the whole of the UK, and it's creeping into the rest of Europe. In the article, you see how houses have to go to people with the best credit, as they are no longer homes but things to make money from.
This also extends to businesses: a shop can't be rented out to anybody but the most credit-worthy, which means a big chain. Because otherwise the business that runs the shop is taking a risk on a low-credit performer, meaning they are opening themselves up to a loss. So shops are only rented out to big chains, and big chains have certain demands of shop sites, so small shops are turned into houses and there are estates with no shops within walking distances.
I am not an economist, a town planner, or somebody who would know how to stop it. But these processes have driven me out of one country, and I can see it happening where I live now. I'd like to see a solution, but the UK's governing bodies are deeply in thrall to a form of capitalism that makes this impossible.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:59 AM on August 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
Are there any good arguments for why people ought to be allowed to own a home they don't live in?
Northeast was filled with second home summer mansions still populated by the same folks, and the high property tax rate in Northeast meant that "we all" benefited.
Yeah in the Northeastern US that I know about, a lot of this is part of the uneasy tourist/locals relationship where if you own a second house in the area you pay significantly more taxes than people who live there year-round, a higher rate, not just more taxes because you may have a fancier house. There are also (in Vermont) even more property tax credits you can get by being a farmer or having a lower income, so that people who are year round residents get cut a break and people who are just there seasonally pay extra (money which goes into schools and libraries and roads which benefits the year-rounders) for the privilege of doing that.
It's super challenging because it does have the side effect Nanukthedog mentions which means that towns with slightly better amenities for tourists/second home owners will get this influx of cash whereas towns that are resource poor often don't have people investing in second homes. So Vermont has a thing where all the taxes that go to schools get "leveled out" at a state level so that really rich towns have to, literally, pay more for schools and that money gets given to the poorer towns ( they are called, I think, "sending" and "receiving" towns) in a socialist-like scheme that would probably be declared illegal if you did it today. This means that there is a minimum level to which schools in the state get funded that everyone gets regardless of how poor your community is. And this addresses, a little bit, the second home thing.
I have a second home because I had a parent who died. I am concerned about income inequality in the US and have been spending a lot of time looking into how to do this in the least-shitty way possible. Avoiding AirBnB is definitely part of that. Literally hanging on to it and keeping it in good shape is a better solution for the community than selling it to a developer.
posted by jessamyn at 7:45 AM on August 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
Northeast was filled with second home summer mansions still populated by the same folks, and the high property tax rate in Northeast meant that "we all" benefited.
Yeah in the Northeastern US that I know about, a lot of this is part of the uneasy tourist/locals relationship where if you own a second house in the area you pay significantly more taxes than people who live there year-round, a higher rate, not just more taxes because you may have a fancier house. There are also (in Vermont) even more property tax credits you can get by being a farmer or having a lower income, so that people who are year round residents get cut a break and people who are just there seasonally pay extra (money which goes into schools and libraries and roads which benefits the year-rounders) for the privilege of doing that.
It's super challenging because it does have the side effect Nanukthedog mentions which means that towns with slightly better amenities for tourists/second home owners will get this influx of cash whereas towns that are resource poor often don't have people investing in second homes. So Vermont has a thing where all the taxes that go to schools get "leveled out" at a state level so that really rich towns have to, literally, pay more for schools and that money gets given to the poorer towns ( they are called, I think, "sending" and "receiving" towns) in a socialist-like scheme that would probably be declared illegal if you did it today. This means that there is a minimum level to which schools in the state get funded that everyone gets regardless of how poor your community is. And this addresses, a little bit, the second home thing.
I have a second home because I had a parent who died. I am concerned about income inequality in the US and have been spending a lot of time looking into how to do this in the least-shitty way possible. Avoiding AirBnB is definitely part of that. Literally hanging on to it and keeping it in good shape is a better solution for the community than selling it to a developer.
posted by jessamyn at 7:45 AM on August 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
Are there any good arguments for why people ought to be allowed to own a home they don't live in?
Yeah, I mean Jessamyn brings up The Problem Of Inheritance, but also - I think there's a huge difference between a second home people love and wish they could live in all the time but they can't because they need to keep earning money, and a second home being used as a tax haven. Like, there are a lot of people out here who have second homes that are cabins or whatever, or in a town they wish they could live in but has no jobs, and they're building on them the whole time on weekends and improving them, and then when they retire they retire to the home they've been slowly creating over thirty years, and they give the home they were previously living in to their kids, and I actually think that's really nice. That seems really different from people who are claiming they're renting the home half the year when they are obviously not.
posted by corb at 8:37 AM on August 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I mean Jessamyn brings up The Problem Of Inheritance, but also - I think there's a huge difference between a second home people love and wish they could live in all the time but they can't because they need to keep earning money, and a second home being used as a tax haven. Like, there are a lot of people out here who have second homes that are cabins or whatever, or in a town they wish they could live in but has no jobs, and they're building on them the whole time on weekends and improving them, and then when they retire they retire to the home they've been slowly creating over thirty years, and they give the home they were previously living in to their kids, and I actually think that's really nice. That seems really different from people who are claiming they're renting the home half the year when they are obviously not.
posted by corb at 8:37 AM on August 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
We're seeing similar issues in ski towns in the US mountain west. I thought this was a pretty well put-together piece on the issue (and I haven't been real impressed with Outside lately). One of the struggles pointed out in the piece is the number of full-time residents that now support themselves with short-term rentals (e.g. renting out their basement lock-off apartment lets them stay in town).
posted by craven_morhead at 8:45 AM on August 20, 2018
posted by craven_morhead at 8:45 AM on August 20, 2018
I'm not saying that Escape to the Country -- "Pat and Susan want to sell their humdrum semi in Chertsey and buy a small Somerset village" -- has fed into this, but it hasn't helped, especially as its emphasis shifted towards properties that included holiday rentals. The UK has a real amateur-landlord problem, and rolling back the landlord-friendly assured shorthold tenancy would make some difference.
That doesn't address the broader structural problems at the far corners of England -- not just Cornwall and the East Anglian coast, but also bits of Northumberland and Cumbria. There's a reason why they receive EU development funding (typically not heavily publicised, and won't be replaced post-Brexit). On the one hand, they need and deserve infrastructure investment, but would a fast(er) train to Penzance make much of a difference while the economic disparities remain?
posted by holgate at 8:54 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
That doesn't address the broader structural problems at the far corners of England -- not just Cornwall and the East Anglian coast, but also bits of Northumberland and Cumbria. There's a reason why they receive EU development funding (typically not heavily publicised, and won't be replaced post-Brexit). On the one hand, they need and deserve infrastructure investment, but would a fast(er) train to Penzance make much of a difference while the economic disparities remain?
posted by holgate at 8:54 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Here's some mapping from the telegraph as to who gets what money from EU structural funds. Cornwall receives slightly more per capita than Bulgaria.
posted by biffa at 9:12 AM on August 20, 2018
posted by biffa at 9:12 AM on August 20, 2018
Welcome to Asheville, NC. The city has been sort of trying to ban Airbnbs but it’s rough going and so far hasn’t been very effective. Meanwhile prices keep soaring, development runs amok, and locals don’t go downtown anymore. My kids, who grew up here, are paying insane amounts in rent in return for the privilege of working food and bev jobs and will never be able to buy a house. Myself, I am leaving, joining the general exodus. The system is broken.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:42 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:42 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
All interesting, sad reads.
(The "Second home. Second home." list is in fact from the article "Cawsand joins St Ives as the new frontline of Cornwall’s war on second homes" linked at the start of the third paragraph.)
posted by readinghippo at 10:06 AM on August 20, 2018
(The "Second home. Second home." list is in fact from the article "Cawsand joins St Ives as the new frontline of Cornwall’s war on second homes" linked at the start of the third paragraph.)
posted by readinghippo at 10:06 AM on August 20, 2018
Are there any good arguments for why people ought to be allowed to own a home they don't live in?
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
posted by lstanley at 10:24 AM on August 20, 2018
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
posted by lstanley at 10:24 AM on August 20, 2018
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
Spent the morning doing title searches, can confirm that it is literally anybody's business how many homes someone owns.
posted by asperity at 11:05 AM on August 20, 2018 [23 favorites]
Spent the morning doing title searches, can confirm that it is literally anybody's business how many homes someone owns.
posted by asperity at 11:05 AM on August 20, 2018 [23 favorites]
Are there any good arguments for why people ought to be allowed to own a home they don't live in?
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
agreed ... until it forces me out of the community I love and have contributed to for decades. That makes it very much my fucking business.
posted by philip-random at 11:44 AM on August 20, 2018 [6 favorites]
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
agreed ... until it forces me out of the community I love and have contributed to for decades. That makes it very much my fucking business.
posted by philip-random at 11:44 AM on August 20, 2018 [6 favorites]
> Are there any good arguments for why people ought to be allowed to own a home they don't live in?
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
Okay, then are there any good arguments for why people ought not to pay an equal rate of property tax on each of the homes they live in regardless of how much time they spend there?
Wanna own an apartment in my neighborhood as a second home? Sure, I don't give a shit. Just pay as much taxes on it as you would if you did live there, because if you wanted to own a home in my neighborhood, that means you need to accept the responsibility of owning a home in my neighborhood.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:36 PM on August 20, 2018 [13 favorites]
Because it is none of your damn business how many homes someone owns.
Okay, then are there any good arguments for why people ought not to pay an equal rate of property tax on each of the homes they live in regardless of how much time they spend there?
Wanna own an apartment in my neighborhood as a second home? Sure, I don't give a shit. Just pay as much taxes on it as you would if you did live there, because if you wanted to own a home in my neighborhood, that means you need to accept the responsibility of owning a home in my neighborhood.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:36 PM on August 20, 2018 [13 favorites]
The rest of us have it really easy to rent in the winter – and most of us have to rent property – and [the landlord] will promise you it’s a long-term let, they swear, but then as soon as Easter comes you’re out. And that’s how you have to live.”
Is that not criminal in the UK?
No. Standard UK tenancy (which practically every renter is on these days) is an Assured Shorthold Tenancy. These are only guaranteed for the initial period of the tenancy, which is a minimum of six months. So a slightly sleazy landlord in the SW is going to rent the property in, say, October for a six month AST whilst swearing up and down to the new occupants that they're doing a long term let (ASTs devolve into a months notice from the tenant / two months from the landlord at the end of the term unless otherwise notifird by either party) & then serve notice in February that they're being booted out at the end of March just in time for the Easter holidays.
(ASTs can be fine - we were on one for years - but there's nothing in law stopping landlords from behaving in this fashion.)
posted by pharm at 12:53 PM on August 20, 2018
Is that not criminal in the UK?
No. Standard UK tenancy (which practically every renter is on these days) is an Assured Shorthold Tenancy. These are only guaranteed for the initial period of the tenancy, which is a minimum of six months. So a slightly sleazy landlord in the SW is going to rent the property in, say, October for a six month AST whilst swearing up and down to the new occupants that they're doing a long term let (ASTs devolve into a months notice from the tenant / two months from the landlord at the end of the term unless otherwise notifird by either party) & then serve notice in February that they're being booted out at the end of March just in time for the Easter holidays.
(ASTs can be fine - we were on one for years - but there's nothing in law stopping landlords from behaving in this fashion.)
posted by pharm at 12:53 PM on August 20, 2018
I do believe people should be able to own more than one home, least not while some people have 0, especially not while there are vacant homes AND homeless people in the same areas. Fuck the rich.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:02 PM on August 20, 2018
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:02 PM on August 20, 2018
It's kind of everybody's business, given that it's a collective political decision to reward capital over labour, and that most people do not own property as the direct product of their labour, but instead through a combination of inheritance and socially-constructed creditworthiness.
For tourist towns -- as opposed to a lot of American cabins or lake houses in out-of-the-way places -- the value of holiday rental property depends very specifically on having sufficient people willing to do low-paid service jobs in exchange for living in a relatively pleasant location (and/or where they grew up). The renters are betting on that being a renewable resource. It may not be.
posted by holgate at 4:04 PM on August 20, 2018
For tourist towns -- as opposed to a lot of American cabins or lake houses in out-of-the-way places -- the value of holiday rental property depends very specifically on having sufficient people willing to do low-paid service jobs in exchange for living in a relatively pleasant location (and/or where they grew up). The renters are betting on that being a renewable resource. It may not be.
posted by holgate at 4:04 PM on August 20, 2018
Local governments make all sorts of rules about what sort of houses you can build and what you can use them for. If they can stop you running other sorts of businesses out of a house, it doesn't seem unreasonable for them to stop you supplying it for overnight stays or short-term leases.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:13 PM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:13 PM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Local governments make all sorts of rules
Ha, ha, ha! Not in England, they don't.
posted by ambrosen at 2:08 AM on August 21, 2018
Ha, ha, ha! Not in England, they don't.
posted by ambrosen at 2:08 AM on August 21, 2018
Well, zoning isn't as prevalent and property owners get away with all sorts of modifications under the radar, but planning permission is still a thing.
posted by holgate at 12:44 PM on August 21, 2018
posted by holgate at 12:44 PM on August 21, 2018
This is a pretty common dilemma for places that are economically dependent on tourism, and I'm curious about whether there are models for dealing with it.
I lived in Taos, NM, for several years. The actual town is tiny, a bit more than 5K people, a tourist destination for many reasons. They do rely on tourist money, but the history of Taos goes back centuries- nobody (except maybe the Spanish colonists) has been able to bulldoze the locals with big ambitions. Basically, they are very, very stubborn about allowing new development and changes that affect the existing culture, especially when it's outsiders with money. Anyone new to town who starts buying up a lot of parcels of land attracts aggressive scrutiny and a lot of uncooperative neighbors and local govt bureacrats, who can be very effective in throwing sand in the gears. Many people have "discovered" Taos since the art colony days, and foolishly believed it was full of rubes with underdeveloped farmland, ripe for exploitation. They either adjust their expectations and enjoy living there, or they end up leaving in a few years while making a big stink about how "nobody can get anything done" in Taos. Yeah, pretty much, it's what brings people together.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:49 PM on August 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I lived in Taos, NM, for several years. The actual town is tiny, a bit more than 5K people, a tourist destination for many reasons. They do rely on tourist money, but the history of Taos goes back centuries- nobody (except maybe the Spanish colonists) has been able to bulldoze the locals with big ambitions. Basically, they are very, very stubborn about allowing new development and changes that affect the existing culture, especially when it's outsiders with money. Anyone new to town who starts buying up a lot of parcels of land attracts aggressive scrutiny and a lot of uncooperative neighbors and local govt bureacrats, who can be very effective in throwing sand in the gears. Many people have "discovered" Taos since the art colony days, and foolishly believed it was full of rubes with underdeveloped farmland, ripe for exploitation. They either adjust their expectations and enjoy living there, or they end up leaving in a few years while making a big stink about how "nobody can get anything done" in Taos. Yeah, pretty much, it's what brings people together.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:49 PM on August 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
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