The new editor of an influential newspaper property supplement has come up with a way of solving what she calls “the fraught issue of holiday lets” - boycotting them.
Carol Lewis, the new property editor at the Sunday Times, wrote yesterday that: “If everyone who claims to be opposed to second homes and holiday lets refused to sell to buyers with such aspirations and vowed never to rent a holiday home again the market would collapse. All but the most wealthy landlords would sell up or switch back to long-term letting. Job done.”
The idea came at the end of an opinion piece by Lewis looking at what she called the “divisive” issue of Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms.
She says that on the one hand most people wouldn’t disagree with someone letting a spare room occasionally but many disagree with those who let entire homes in the same way, especially if they are considered to have diminished stock from the long-term lettings market.
But Lewis adds that public distaste for this is only temporary, saying: “That is until they want to stay in a holiday house in places such as Cornwall, north Norfolk, the Lake District. Then they seem happy enough.”
She cites familiar statistics about the reduction in long-term lets in popular holiday areas, coinciding with the proliferation of short lets on Airbnb and rival platforms, and raises the much-debated problem of enforcement of other so-called solutions - like insisting on planning consent for short lets, and licensing via local or central government registers.
Lewis adds that a recent House of Lords committee looked at the issue and recommended precisely those measures but she ponders: “If the Lords recommendations are put in place we will find that in some areas of England there will be short-let registers and planning restrictions, and in some there won’t be. Where there are registers and restrictions councils will need to charge enough (and hike council tax) to fund enforcement — a cost landlords are likely to pass on to customers.”
Before she comes to her suggestion of a boycott of Airbnb and holiday lets by sellers and tourists, she says: “The Lords are right: there needs to be registers and restrictions, and all homeowners need to be made to pay towards the local council’s services. We need to collate data on the effect of holiday lets on local rents, house prices, employment and tourism.”
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Its the same with HMOs - people campaign against them citing ASB & loss of family homes, but if people didn't need need them to live in LLs wouldn't rent them!
There is a difference. HMOs increase the supply of accommodation for people in work. Airbnb reduces it.
Boycott AirBnB you morons that you created with Section 24, why not deal with the cause that caused owners to switch.
Ah so you are also scratching around to levy more tax hikes and c/tax to grab even more money from property owners and their customers.
The Country must be in an awful state is there no other way of raising a few bob.
100% agree. I have 6 short let flats purely because of S24. Remove S24 and I’d go back to BTL. Put S24 on short let’s too and I’ll still stay with short let’s. It’s a shame that new editors (and housing ministers and shadow housing ministers) still appear unable to grasp this simple factor.
Boycott holiday lets....and watch the local tourism industry go down the pan..
Or watch hotels and holiday parks flourish. Also experience an improvement in service when all those businesses catering to tourists can actually recruit staff as there is suddenly somewhere for them to live.
If I'm selling a property, (and I'll be selling quite a few) the new owner can use it for whatever they like. I don't care as long as they pay up. I have a few short lets which were a result of the crap I've had to put up with as a PRS landlord. Maybe if they looked into being fair to landlords there wouldn't be so many properties used for short term letting.....it's not rocket science.
100% agree! It really isn’t rocket science it’s GCSE maths when it comes to S24. Simple maths commentators and politicians don’t appear to be able to grasp.
Telling wealthy people not to rent a holiday home would be a bit like telling just stop oil not to use their cars or be a passenger in one
Oh dear Andrew?
You're beginning to sound like a socialist!
I'm on my third "second home", having bought all three nearly derelict and shunned by the locals.
I funded them through not having foreign holidays, doing much of the renovation myself and letting them out for six month winter let's and to tourists from April to September.
I may now be a wealthy second home owner but it was only achieved through sheer hard work and sacrifice, both of which I know you have also experienced.
Socialist ! never Robert, I'm no different to you, hard work, derelict houses, and no foreign holidays, the last time I went overseas was to visit my wife's sister in Cyprus when her husband was serving in the RAF, my son was a year old, he'll be 39 in July, I don't have a holiday home but I have no problem at all with those that do
Hope I didn't cause you to choke on your breakfast avocado Andrew?
What a nonsense article, as said above there has been an explosion in them as a direct result of this governments attacks on the PRS.
She should be writing for the mirror group !
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