Cornwall's broken housing market

And who does he expect to do all the essential jobs that don't pay anything like enough to live near where the prices are silly high?

I think some people forget that if everyone moved to where housing was cheaper there would be literally no one left in some places to do the "little jobs" like street cleaning, rubbish collection, teaching little Tarquin.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that "everyone" moves. You can address the housing issues by building more housing, the other issue, of course, is employment and if you've got areas where some industry has gone (not so many fishermen or miners required or whatever) then it's perhaps a good idea for people who aren't able to find work to consider moving.... not necessarily to cheap areas but rather to areas that a re more productive and have jobs.
 
a massive problem where i live ( near the coast ) is people from away buying 2nd or more homes just to rent them out all summer to tourists.

a good chunk of housing next to the beach is empty all winter while locals struggle to find any housing at all.

Are they not ripe for burglary?
 
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.
I spent a lot of time around Camborne and Redruth in the late 80s and early 90s, helping out in the family business (on New Portreath Road) during college\uni holidays. It was a nice place to spend 6 weeks of summer. I haven't been back for over 25 years.
 
Camborne is a real hole ,half of the residents looked like walking dead cast members when I went house hunting there but the intention was just to get into Cornwall but we were flexible for north Devon also as had to cast a big net with just 100k but cash
 
We're having this issue now. Though probably not as bad as Cornwall, Bristol seems to be going up and up and up.

Unless we have some rich relative pop their clogs we're likely going to be forced out of our area when we want to get a bigger house. We've been looking at what's available just over the bridge into Wales and the difference is disgusting.

Yeah, some close friends in Bristol said the same last year.
 
Last edited:
We're having this issue now. Though probably not as bad as Cornwall, Bristol seems to be going up and up and up.

Unless we have some rich relative pop their clogs we're likely going to be forced out of our area when we want to get a bigger house. We've been looking at what's available just over the bridge into Wales and the difference is disgusting.

DO NOT MOVE TO MERTHYR.
 
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.
 
Are they not ripe for burglary?

I believe the 2022 records for Wales and England alone average 526 burglary a day, 1 every 164 seconds.

A fair few of those i would expect were targeted because the criminals knew nobody was home.

But i would imagine 2nd homes are left over winter with a bare minimum of cheap stuff inside to minimise losses.

Crooks probably want richer pickings with a better haul of goods perhaps but i really am just guessing.
 
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.

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.
 
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.

To be fair, it's much worse in some areas.

If you grew up in a coastal town in the North East, you can still easily afford to get on the housing ladder on an average salary.
 
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.
 
What is your childhood house worth today, and what do you think it was worth when you were a child?
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.
 
Last edited:
And who does he expect to do all the essential jobs that don't pay anything like enough to live near where the prices are silly high?

I think some people forget that if everyone moved to where housing was cheaper there would be literally no one left in some places to do the "little jobs" like street cleaning, rubbish collection, teaching little Tarquin.
All the delivery drivers, supermarket workers, waitresses etc. But I suppose they were all migrant workers before Brexit so middle class Guardian reading liberals could feel smug while living their comfortable middle class lives and not have to concern themselves with the lives of the plebs.

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.
His particular problem happens wherever its a tourist honeypot i.e. wales, cornwall and especially the lake district all the housing gets bought up for second homes holiday lets etc and the locals basically are on minimum wage jobs and theres no affordable housing being built either its all large properties going for presumably second homes again they were talking about it on Any Questions on R4 yesterday. But the housing situation in general yeah its not good.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
All the delivery drivers, supermarket workers, waitresses etc. But I suppose they were all migrant workers before Brexit so middle class Guardian reading liberals could feel smug while living their comfortable middle class lives and not have to concern themselves with the lives of the plebs.


His particular problem happens wherever its a tourist honeypot i.e. wales, cornwall and especially the lake district all the housing gets bought up for second homes holiday lets etc and the locals basically are on minimum wage jobs and theres no affordable housing being built either its all large properties going for presumably second homes again they were talking about it on Any Questions on R4 yesterday. But the housing situation in general yeah its not good.
It's not just true of holiday destinations, the same problems affect the commuter belts too.
 
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."?
 
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.

You've got Plymouth 50 miles away and Exeter 80 miles away. Bristol and Bournemouth are less than 200 miles away too.

I do agree that the housing issue needs to be resolved by building more inc affordable housing, inc housing allocated for people who have lived in the area X years etc.. but the other issue re: locals living in ghettos because they've got no jobs is going to require them to either move to look for work or perhaps adjust expectations re: what is available locally.
 
Last edited:
I don’t think many people understand how markets work.

If anything it’s a wealth distribution problem.
 
Last edited:
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?

My dads childhood home doesn't exist today but to get something similar in 7 sisters London you are looking at 1-1.5 million.

The house I was born in St Ives Cambridgeshire is around 500-650K which is equally mad. Ever since all the links to London made it an attractable place the prices have sky rocketed. When we moved to Lincolnshire in 91 the prices were cheaper but not the gulf that there is now.
 
Back
Top Bottom