Second Homes

I think that local councils should try and do something about this. The sort of prices well off second home or Holiday lets owners can afford are way above what most people in those nice rural areas can afford.

The locals cannot afford to live there, as their picturesque rural jobs tend to be very poorly paid and seasonal. They cannot afford to live in the area they need to be in to work at all.

I have a feeling the North Yorkshire Moors national Park has tried to do something to secure a %tage of housing for locals only.

Perhaps local councils should get some legal rights to commandeer property that has been empty for a set amount of time and make it available to housing associations for use as affordable housing, or make the property owners do the same or forfeit that property completely.
We have a national housing shortage so ration property. Bang up council tax on empty property even further and ring fence the profits for new housing.

It's a problem isn't it? Do you remember the Welsh 'activists' who used to threaten [and sometimes did do it] to burn holiday homes?It's all market driven of course,sometimes locals don't want or can't afford to buy so unless somebody does, the homes would be empty, and the householder in a real mess if he has to move and can't sell up.

I agree with every ones comments about this situation, what annoys me is the people who buy in this area always outbid any local who may want to buy, they cannot possibly compete pricewise

My thoughts too, jings

I can't understand why people buy houses to use as holiday homes. Have they stopped to work out how many weeks in a nice, ready-cleaned-for-you, bed-made-up, holiday cottage you could have for that price? And you can go to different locations.

It's not just pretty rural areas that are hit by this situation - at the weekend the news reported on a number of empty mansions in Bishops Avenue in Hampstead that have been left to effectively rot over decades... something should be done about it. It seems the wealthy can have as many empty homes as they want but the poor can't have a spare bedroom!