Our seaside town is being ruined by tourists using second homes and Airbnbs – we’re being forced out
RESIDENTS of a seaside town say they are being forced out as it is ruined by tourists buying up second homes and renting Airbnbs.
Locals of Falmouth, Cornwall, say that the popularity of staycations and holiday homes is squeezing them off the property ladder.
Amid a cost-of-living crisis and with inflation pushing up mortgage costs and rent, has seen the housing crisis brought sharply into focus in the county.
Landlords have been converting former rental properties into Airbnbs, which can increase profits, but critics say this has left the community in the lurch.
Writing for The I, local resident Oliver Berry said: ” The competition’s fierce. Every property has dozens of applicants. There are too few places, and too many people looking.
“Post-pandemic, the “staycation” boom has made things worse, as landlords cashed in on the returns of short-term lets at the expense of long-term tenants.
“The work-from-home revolution has exacerbated the inequality equation: cash-rich buyers moving from more affluent areas of the UK wield a purchasing power with which local people can’t compete.”
The fact that the area hosts two universities, with Falmouth University within the town and a campus of the University of Exeter five minutes inland in Penryn, only adds to the competition for housing.
Some students have even reported sofa-surfing without anywhere to live months into their course.
House prices in Cornwall have jumped by 25 percent over the past two years, according to Rightmove, as locals are priced out of the market.
Solutions are thin on the ground as Cornwall Council has limited powers to regulate the housing market, leaving many uncertain of where they will live once if they can no longer afford their current deal.
It comes after residents of one Devon town said that they are crying out for young residents as it is being ruined by “too many old people“.
Meanwhile, the people of another picturesque destination say that they are blighted by thugs breaking windows, smashing bottles and vandalising beach huts.