Revealed: The eight most unwelcoming places to buy a second home in the UK - plus the eight villages where you can buy a stunning property AND be embraced by the locals By Fred Redwood Updated: 12:17, 6 August 2024 e-mail 1 View comments Second homes have never been so popular. Before lockdown, just 3 per cent of Britons had a retreat in the countryside or the coast – somewhere to recharge the batteries. Since then, every successful city-dweller has sought a spare pied a terre.
Parts of Cornwall, where one in ten properties are second homes, are full to bursting over the summer months, as are the Lake District and yachting centres of Devon and Dorset. This mass migration has meant big business for celebrity chefs, bar owners and fashionable clothes chains. However, not everyone is delighted when half of London and the Home Counties arrive as part-time neighbours.
Locals blame the incomers for escalating property prices. The residents of harbour towns get squeezed out to live on the outskirts. And young people who work all year round are unable to get on the housing ladder.
Legislation is going through in an attempt to claw back this situation. Second homeowners in England could face paying twice the amount of council tax from April 2025 , while in Wales (as of April 2023) the maximum level at which local authorities can set council tax premiums for second homes has already increased to 300 per cent. Whether these increases will have the desired effect – to bring more firs.