In the news

Yeah. Second homes really are for the truly minted. One is a money pit enough.

For what it's worth, I don't necessarily have a problem with people owning multiple homes - just don't bleet on if you're asked to pay tax on your assets.

Also, I think there is something perfidious about people in Wales / Cornwall etc, buying up homes and pricing out the locals - many of whom they will have grown up with.

Also, I reckon the writer / editor of the article I linked to must be the owner of multiple homes, because there was absolutely no balance in the article - just property developers moaning about taxation.

The few people I know with second homes (<--- golf club fodder) just treat them as investments.

They don't want to stay in their own second home as:

• They've done the area to death over the course of many years
  
• The place is now too big/small for them, and inviting friends to fill it can be its own hell
  
• In the weeks they can go there (school holidays mostly) they can get more money from renting it and use that to be a guest elsewhere
  
  

Personally I find the concept of second homes abhorrent.

perfidious

had to look that one up, probably won't remember it

And I dare say a lot here would see it the same.

And I dare say a lot here would see it like me - no desire at all to buy a second home. Plenty of things I'd spend money on first if I had it. But we both just speculating.

Most often used when talking about West Brom.

Don't get me wrong, I'd have to be financially well-enough off to view it like another bike! But I'd totally go for it.

I've found perfidious used most often when talking about Boris Johnson .

I’d buy a few acres of woodland with a stream and build a small off grid cabin to escape and teach my kids field craft. No boilers to fix and no people displaced.

In other news I do own another house (in Wales, mortgaged and rented out to facilitate a very fast move to Gloucester for school reasons). It makes me about £50 over mortgage at the moment per month before tax. The fucking expansion vessel on the boiler has just split. Ten months of rental profits to fix.

Steady now

Second homes should be illegal

We’ve got a second home, it’s in very rural Ireland - the next valley from my dads old home. I’ve got some land on the old family farm plot but it’s not building land. When we bought it the house had been empty for a year or so and there was no great demand for old farmhouses so no one was priced out, if anything the area has suffered significant population drop over the last few years.

It’s not an investment - it’s not been a money pit but not far off, we don’t rent it or air bnb it, it’s for us, family and friends to use.

If it were possible I’d spend all my time there, it’s the best thing we’ve bought and a real refuge from all the shit of everyday life and my life there is vastly different to London life.

My wee brother has a second home, so they're all dicks. Q.E.D.

Meanwhile, Tory councillor candidate thinks 16yo girls... well, eeew.

Sort of n+1?

When people chat about banning 2nd homes or wealth taxes, they're dreaming. Culturally the idea of telling British people what they can spend their money on or taxing their assets is a non starter. It's like the US introducing UBI or the French banning cheese.

Exactly. n+1. Home from home, like an AirBnB in your favourite place to get away to, but with a decent coffee brewer on the worktop!

Where I grew up they did 'the right thing' by making it harder for people to own second homes. Not outright banning it, but re-writing the tax code to a point where it became much less attractive to own and let out a second property.
The reform didn't make a noticeable dent in the housing prices, at least not longer term, but my sister got kicked out of her rented place soon after the implementation of the new code as the owner/landlord felt forced to sell the flat. In the following months a growing demographic of ex tenants now had to fight to find new places in a smaller rental market. The reform basically just pushed up rents and not much else.

Yes there are plenty of cunt landlords, but allowing for a large rental sector is a great way to ensure a vibrant city with plenty of young people coming and going. And a higher supply of rental properties should go some way to keep average rents down.

EDIT: I know the term 'second home' doesn't necessarily mean rental property, but I reckon you need to be really careful when you fiddle with the legislation around this stuff.

This is why it shouldn't be a ban on second homes but a ban on non-primary residences.

Yes there are plenty of cunt landlords, but allowing for a large rental sector is a great way to ensure a vibrant city with plenty of young people coming and going. And a higher supply of rental properties should go some way to keep average rents down.

Sounds like a good deal for the landlord. Wring every penny out of the vibrant young people who are too poor to buy, whilst your asset appreciates due to gentrification caused by their presence. Cool

There aren't enough houses. That's the fundamental issue and it means that someone gets fucked no matter what your policies are. At the moment it is all the young people, and locals in places like Wales and Cornwall where second homes are common. Increasing the tax on second homes shifts the balance towards more young people getting on the ladder and the second-home-owners and BTL property hoarders getting fucked over. Seems pretty reasonable to put the population of this country over the financial interests of a small proportion of wealthy people.

Alternatively we could start building a million houses a year... any day now...

There aren't enough houses.

That was a choice the government made.

Or alternatively all the houses are in places people don’t want to live…..

I'm still a big fan of banning mortgages for a non primary residence.

Or allow mortgages using your years of successful rent paying as evidence of affordability

Also, you would think a state owned builder and letting agent would be quite profitable and go some way to correcting the market

you'd need the people in the market to want to correct it though