Cornwall's broken housing market

[FoxEye]

The first house I ever lived in was a small cottage in a tiny hamlet in Cornwall a few miles inland from the coast. I lived there for the first 5 years of my life, only.

We must have bought it for somewhere between £10k and £20k, back in 1980. My parents were stony broke, mostly. And it was a fixer-upper, for sure. We had to use a ladder to get to the first floor, as the staircase was rotted away..

The valuation of this property in 2023? A shade under £700k. All the surrounding properties in roughly a 10 mile radius are more than 1/2 million squid.

Note, this is not a trendy coastal/ ex-fishing village. This is a few miles inland. When people say that Cornwall is affordable outside of coastal villages, what they really mean there are a couple ghettos for locals - Camborne and Redruth. Where everybody priced out of literally every other place in the county is inevitably forced to locate to.

But hey ho, that's Cornwall for you. The UK's retirement home and BTL + 2nd home paradise. Where people from London retire to en masse, and thereafter attempt to block any new housing developments in "their" area, citing lack of infrastructure or spoiled views from their villas. But I digress.

What is your childhood house worth today, and what do you think it was worth when you were a child?

 

[FoxEye]

Thats impressive, clearly the house must have been improved some since then (costs to maintain etc. are reasonable in a price). Also put your price into a inflation calc as money has at least halved, maybe a third of its value start of 1980. I know my old house from that era was a similar price (2000) and it was normal, we had a staircase and everything Uk currency got destroyed in the 1970's into 80's with 30% inflation

According to various websites that value property, our childhood house gained +50% value between 2019 and now.

That's not explained by general inflation, is it.

 

[FoxEye]

Camborne and Redruth are not exactly the most amazing places in the world, but you can do worse, especially in places near them but not actually in them. I lived at the foot of Carn Brea for 3 years and it was bleddy ansum I tell ee

I guess it's slightly better than living on that floating garbage island in the middle of the ocean. Slightly better.

But yeah, that whole area is a ghetto for locals. It's a dive. Massive issues with drugs, family abuse, crime, gangs, vandalism, etc, etc. The usual things you get with high rates of poverty and disillusioned youth.

 

[FoxEye]

Another entitlement thread -Simple , do what I did and move.

And where do you suggest people move to?

 

[FoxEye]

As certain posters have trotted out the tired line about "Locals can't afford coastal properties, so what?"

I want to draw attention to the fact that I stated quite clearly in the first post, this is now happening all over. My childhood home is not a coastal property. It is several miles inland.

For the record, already some years ago coastal properties were 70-90% holiday homes. That ship sailed literally years ago. The nearest coastal (and riverside) properties from me are in the region of 1-4 million. The inland properties are now experiencing the same rapid acceleration in price.

People who grew up here now can't afford to live in many (most?) places in Cornwall.

And the idea that it's only unaffordable for those living on benefits is rubbish, too. Plenty of people with OK/modest jobs still can't afford anything in Cornwall (outside the Camborne/Redruth/Pool ghetto).

And therein is the rub. You can't out-move this problem. It's happening all over, and eventually everywhere will be unaffordable. Moving is not the solution.

 

[FoxEye]

So your thread title is wrong then. It should read "The UKs broken housing market".

This situation isn't unique to Cornwall, it's happening up and down the country.

Yes, other places have started to feel the same pain we've had for years (and London has had for years).

It's a problem both growing in scope and severity, now, across the UK.

Feel free to change the thread title if you would like.

 

[FoxEye]

My second childhood home cost £48k iirc in 1983, worth perhaps £800k today... hard to say, as there aren't many houses on the street but a couple sold for £750-800k in the past 5 years, they will be worth around £0.9-1m now but my dad's house is a classic case of 'in need of modernisation'. 70s Avocado bathroom, fireplaces are all sealed off so would need restoring for people that want period features. Pretty sure the gas pipework in the kitchen wouldn't meet modern standards either, with exposed pipes on top of wooden lattice 'tiling' behind the cooker, so if anyone wanted to replace the ~30(?) year old kitchen I imagine that would be quite an undertaking. Needs some remedial plastering work in places etc etc.

As for locals being priced out, that's just how it goes, my views on this aren't very popular but generally I don't believe people have a divine right to live where they grew up and/or near to friends and family. Would I like to live on my dad's street? Yes. Can I afford to live on my dad's street despite earning more than double (in real terms) what he ever did? No, not really. Tough ****, HangTime.

Nobody is demanding to live on the same street, or the same postcode. Telling people to move 300 miles "up north" to find some property is an entirely different proposition.

Anyway, why not apply that logic on a country-by-country basis? Can't afford the UK? Go live in Siberia! Nobody has the "divine right" to live in the UK, you could say... although I'm sure you wouldn't. Because it would be ridiculous. But it's not all that different to telling people to go move 300 miles north, effectively.

 

[FoxEye]

Don't local councils have the ability to charge more for second homes? Something like, "According to HMRC your registered address is 123 Acacia Avenue, Abingdon so we're going to charge you 5x rates for your property at 234 Trevises Terrace, Fowey."?

Nope, not yet.

e: And that extra charge was only applicable to 2nd homes left empty, so probably not too difficult to circumvent. Converting the 2nd home to a "business" would probably be enough to entirely avoid the taxation.

Exclusive: Bill delay to deny councils £93m from new second home premium | Local Government Chronicle (LGC)

Councils will miss out on over £93m in income that could have been raised through a new council tax premium on second homes from next year due to delays

www.lgcplus.com

 

[FoxEye]

For those that think that "just move" is not a valid argument, what's your suggestion then? Does moaning about it on the Internet help, or are you suggesting a revolution would be in order? Pragmatically speaking, what options are there, if you can't afford to buy where you want to? The real entitlement is thinking you are "owed" affordable housing where you want it. Well, tough, that's not how the world works (unfortunately - I do sympathise, to an extent), and unless you're planning on changing how the world works, then "just moving" seems like one of the very few realistic options. Or you can just rent all your life while whinging on the Internet, if that's what you prefer.

I'm sure you're aware that rents are also at an all-time high in many places.

Would you be in favour of seeing people go homeless, instead?

We currently pay many £billions per year subsidising BTL landlords by paying them housing benefit.

Would you like to see housing benefit reduced or scrapped? Are you happy with the increasing bill for housing benefit? Are you, in fact, a BTL landlord?

Do you think housing should be in any way protected, or is a person's desire for a 2nd/3rd/5th/10th home equal in weight to the family that seeks a first and only home? If the former can afford to pay more, is that all that matters? Even if he leaves his 10 houses empty most of the year? That's capitalism, folks! We all worship capitalism, don't we? Praise be to the 1%!

 

[FoxEye]

It's literally the most productive area of the UK, without London the rest of the UK would be way poorer.

Imagine Cornwall trying to fund all their expenditure from local taxation without help from central government and money provided by London and the South East.

LOL. It's a fact that for many years central govt took more from Cornwall in taxation that it gave back. That only changed in the last few years.

It's also a fact that the EU gave Cornwall most of its funding before Brexit. And that funding was lost, forever, rather than matched by the UK govt.

Cornwall has never received much in the way of funding from Westminster. We are also one of the first regions to trial a scheme where Council funding was cut to (near) zero, and instead the Council was allowed to keep all of the Council tax it raised.

London is hardly the saviour of Cornwall (lol).

 

[FoxEye]

So, erm, no actual useful suggestions then?

And no, not a BTL landlord. Just a normal guy more interested in taking responsibility for his own situation than whinging about it.

What that normally equates to, I've found, is an attitude that everybody should be a lawyer or a doctor or an "entrepreneur". And that people doing lesser jobs should have nothing. Nothing at all.

And so often you find that the people with that kind of attitude had/have wealthy parents and a decent chunk of help to be the "self-made man" they are today

 

[FoxEye]

So the solution is what exactly?
What would you propose is done about where your local area is?

Abolish right to buy.
Abolish restrictions on Councils building and owning housing stock.
Return to the post-war system of 1/3 of people being housed in (good quality) council housing. Council housing, btw, was initially built to combat slum housing in the private sector. It's only recently that it's become stigmatised as a place to hold ne'er-do-wells.
And we are quickly returning to slum-landlords running the lower end of the market, with a full one-third of private rented housing stock being declared "not fit for human habitation".

Soon thereafter, abolish housing benefit to private landlords.
Abolish overseas ownership of UK housing.
Abolish corporate ownership of residential property (offices/factories only).
Tax 2nd homes and empty properties harshly.
Prevent residential properties from qualifying as businesses (kill off the Air BnB market).

But all of this will be called communism and the markets instead must decide who lives and who dies.

 

[FoxEye]

You don't know me, and that's an ad hominem anyway.

But it's OK when you do it? Your first contribution to this thread was to say that everybody who doesn't own their own house is lazy and doesn't take responsibility for their predicament.

 

[FoxEye]

Oh dear me. I'm done. Good luck changing the world. I'm off to bed, in the house I own. Good night.

I expected nothing less. You have nothing to add but condescension.

For those that think that "just move" is not a valid argument, what's your suggestion then? Does moaning about it on the Internet help, or are you suggesting a revolution would be in order? Pragmatically speaking, what options are there, if you can't afford to buy where you want to? The real entitlement is thinking you are "owed" affordable housing where you want it. Well, tough, that's not how the world works (unfortunately - I do sympathise, to an extent), and unless you're planning on changing how the world works, then "just moving" seems like one of the very few realistic options. Or you can just rent all your life while whinging on the Internet, if that's what you prefer.

So, erm, no actual useful suggestions then?

And no, not a BTL landlord. Just a normal guy more interested in taking responsibility for his own situation than whinging about it.

Next in your playbook is telling me I "misunderstood the context" of your posts, no doubt.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, buddy.

 

[FoxEye]

Yup, so the best thing to do is make things as difficult as possible and as non profitable for landlords.
Sooo, landlords exit the market (and they are) and where does that get people looking to rent???

Need to pivot away from landlords providing housing on a for-profit basis, to those who can least afford to pay the landlord's mortgages for them.

It's landlords that are the entitled ones. They believe others should be ensnared and entrapped in a position where they must pay the mortgages for their 2nd,3rd, 4th homes.

Council houses must make a massive comeback. Councils will charge affordable rents, and any profits reinvested into society, not entitled landlords.

 

[FoxEye]

You do realise some of the taxation you pay goes towards things like defence, social security & pensions etc.. it doesn't all just come back to fund your local government?

Also, the UK was a net contributor to the EU.

You do realise that Cornwall was (and is) one of the most deprived areas in the entire UE, even including former Soviet bloc countries. More deprived that the Welsh valleys, even.

And the UK still saw fit to extract more than it put in. Meanwhile, in London... you have the most spending per head of any UK region.

 

[FoxEye]

We've done this to death on another thread, but go on.
When my EPC comes into affect in 2027 I'm going to have to sell because it's impossible to meet the criteria, and I haven't put up the rent, nor will I ever as long as my tenant looks after the place (as she has for the last few years).
So, please tell me how I'm entitled or I'm entrapping someone, especially as I'm charging way way less rent than I could command?

Well yes, I forgot that OcUK has all the benevolent landlords. Taken as a whole, however, including the slum landlords that operate at the lower end of the market, the result of BTL landlords on poverty is a detrimental one. Rents are often higher than mortgages. Rents are often completely unaffordable, and tenants have to be subsidised by the govt in the form of housing benefit.

In that other thread I linked to the (Panoroma, I think) episode, showing former council houses bought up by slum landlords, who then divded them up and charged £1k per room. Often with leaky roofs, etc.

Let me repeat: A full 1/3 of private rentals were found to be not fit for human habitation.

Of course, you charge less than market rates and make a loss on every property. Of course you do. All the OcUK landlords do. We learned that in the other thread.

 

[FoxEye]

Just outside St Austell in Cornwall - hardly a fortune given the present price of property.

It’s affordable for a couple earning 50k a year between you . Sacrifices and priorities right for a few years and you’ll get there. It’s not that hard but as always depends on your life choices.

Check out this 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale on Rightmove

3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in Trenarren View, St. Austell, PL25 for £197,500. Marketed by Purplebricks, covering Plymouth

www.rightmove.co.uk

Wish I could get a 3 bed house for 200k

Finding £1177 pm is not affordable for probably 50-70% of people in Cornwall. Lots of jobs only pay NMW, or are entirely seasonal, meaning a scarcity of work in the down season.

I'm not wedded to buying, btw. If rents were genuinely affordable that would be better.

The only solution down here is to understand that Thatcher's Right to Buy is the exact opposite of what this county needs. This county needs affordable council housing, and lots of it.

Otherwise all the Londoner's who retire here will have to learn to wipe their own backsides as there will be no carers (etc) to service them.

Yes, but the owners would then have to pay their business a fair market rate to use it or have it as a taxable benefit.

Couldn't the business just loan them that money? I know there's ways and means around it, as it's a popular tactic down here. During the pandemic Cornwall alone lost over £100 million to 2nd home owners hastily registering their 2nd homes as businesses, and then claiming furlough money. Sad, but true.

 

[FoxEye]

I don't think I've asked anyone to move 300 miles "up north". Cornwall is tricky because is poorly connected to the rest of the country simply due to geography, one of the reasons housing will be expensive is because it is like a peninsular meaning people can't live in adjacent counties to the west/south, there aren't many options if you want proximity to others there and hence there is a premium to pay. Historically the poor connectivity would be have worked both ways in the sense that doesn't really work for commuters, but now you get more people working remotely who will buy with their city slicker salaries.

Country-by-country is different because of citizenship, language, probably other factors like pensions/tax etc. None of those factors would apply to someone moving 300 miles north within England.

I know it's different. But if we've arbitrarily decided that nobody has the "divine right" to live in the county of their birth, then why do they have the "divine right" to live in the country of their birth?

Surely the same logic applies. And if everywhere in the UK is too expensive, then that same logic must say, "Move away from the UK, then!"

To me it's just a convenient way to ignore the broken system, to avoid also the consequences of fixing it. For the "haves" to continue having, and to be able to basically put all the blame on the door of the individual, in the case of the "have nots". And to say that an easy solution is just to go somewhere better.

Do you think the current trends in the UK will be good news long term? Do you think current trends are even slightly sustainable?

 

[FoxEye]

Because you have citizenship of a country, not a county.

Yes, in the sense that it's already been this way for some time, so is at least "slightly" sustainable. To me it's more sustainable to have a [moderately] free market than imposing some arbitrary constraints to keep prices low in popular parts of the country with limited supply, resulting in everyone living on top of each other in concentrated sections of our limited land space. What should happen is that equilibrium factors start to apply thus raising the desirability of other areas. London is sort of an advanced microcosm of this situation, central areas grew too expensive so people moved further out, driving big regeneration and gentrification schemes. Places that were once deemed cesspits are now places people are happy to live.

If we are talking sustainability, with a growing population, we have no option but to expand our pool of living spaces, not just sustain piling everyone into your childhood hamlet at rock-bottom prices.

1. The people "piling in" to Cornwall are the people coming in from outside Cornwall. Hard to blame the people born here for that. Is it better than people born here are evicted to make way for rich people from up country?
2. Market forces *aren't* working. More and more housing stock is becoming 2nd homes and holiday lets. Essential workers can only exist here when heavily subsidised by the government in terms of benefits.

If you want to see market forces at work, remove housing benefit and the like.

Already tourists themselves complain of overcrowding. They complain of a lack of shops and basic amenities. Of deteriorating roads and services being mothballed. Whilst at the same time pricing those workers out of the county that they say they want to see more of.

Remove all housing benefits and see your market forces at work. I'd actually love to see that. I don't believe in housing benefits being paid to private landlords. It's a system that entrenches misery for many.