Second homes and their uses.

• Latest data from the English Housing Survey reveals that there are 3.3 million second homes. Of that, the vast majority are rented out (69%).
• A small portion are second homes which are due to be rented out or sold shortly (6%) and a very small slice are used by student children (just 1%).
• Which means the remainder (24%) are used exclusively as a second home. Source: #Dataloft (https://dataloftinform.co.uk/), English Housing Survey, data for 2021–2022.

Second home ownership has become quite divisive.

What’s wrong with second homes and their uses.

Many think that there is nothing wrong with people owning a second home regardless of use. 93% are used as a source of income or as a holiday home or a genuine second place of residence.

However, many think that with 3.3 million second homes in the UK, it has been a major factor in the rapid rise of rent, and the lack of property for locals in seaside resorts and picturesque locations.

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

There is no right or wrong is the answer.

Geoff Flewers, the co owner of Jukes Estate Agents Harlow has clear views on this however.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with people having a second home. Have second homes led to rises in the rental sector? The answer is actually complicated”.

“Where it has all been allowed to get out of control, is the sale of local authority housing stock (council houses)”.

“Now, I do not want to get into the rights and wrongs of ‘right to buy’ your council property. However, it seems to me that where it all went wrong was the government of the day and indeed subsequent governments not allowing councils to use the proceeds from those sales to build more social housing”.

Harlow and second homes.

Harlow has 39,710 properties.

74% are houses and 26% are flats

15.1% are privately rented. Therefore, that equates to almost 6,000 people living in privately rented properties.

56.4% of properties are lived in by people that own that property.

When it comes to second homes and their uses, Harlow second homes are used almost all in the privately rented sector.

While social housing levels stay ridiculously low, this is unlikely to change and indeed will probably get worse!

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