Dorset's second home market priced at £1.6bn
Almost 5,200 properties across the county are considered second homes, the third most in the UK
Dorset has the third most ‘second homes’ in the UK, behind only Cornwall and London, with nearly 5,200 properties across the county.
There are now calls to restrict the sale of new build properties to local buyers and double council tax on second homes.
Councillor Nick Ireland feels the number of holiday-lets and Airbnb’s is “exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing in Dorset” and pushing house prices up.
He told us: “We need to stop people from being evicted. If you're evicting a local family because you want to make more money, maybe the local planning authority should be able to stop that.”
Local services such as pubs, GPs, dentists, and shops are said to be “suffering” due to a lack of population for most of the year in second home hotspots.
Cllr Ireland said: “When people buy second homes, they often only live her for the summer which means they don’t spend their money here and without people, local services can’t survive.”
The total market value of second homes across Dorset exceeds £1.6bn with the highest concentration of those properties located in Swanage with 1032 (the equivalent of 17% of total houses in the area).
Cllr Ireland said: “People have come to regard houses as an investment because we don’t build enough houses, so fewer houses on the market, means that there’s more demand for them and as a result prices go up which only people from London and the South East can afford.”
He proposes that “genuine affordable housing,” (i.e., social rent) is built or there’s a change in planning law to stop ‘land banking,’ the practice of accumulating land for future sale or development.