Holiday Homes Banner
 
Home
 

HOLIDAY HOMES AND SECOND HOMES

  

There are as many as is 328,000 second homes in the UK with roughly 156,000 second homes owned abroad by British citizens. These numbers, which are already large, are seeing significant growth each year.

The office for National statistics estimates that the number with overseas second homes has increased nearly 50% since 2000. A report by the Centre for Future Studies on behalf of Direct line estimated that the demand for second homes in the UK would rise by 24% during the next decade taking the total to roughly 405,000 -about 156,000 more than will be owned overseas.

This growth seems to be driven by an overall increase in UK property values, an increasingly wealthy society (for the majority, although obviously not everyone) and, in the case of overseas second home ownership, the rapid growth of the low cost airlines which have had the effect of reducing one of the main costs of over-seas holiday home ownership.

These overseas figures are partly driven by a large number of people from immigrant backgrounds, often countries such as India, Pakistan south Africa and the Caribbean, buying holiday properties back in their countries of origin.

 

The UK government puts these figures lower but this is partly because of the confusion that can exist in what exactly a "second home" is. In general the categories and definitions are broken down into three: firstly the town or city "pad" where ownership is driven by the main wage earner relocating for work purposes but not wanting to relocate the family. The second main category is the weekend retreat that is used regularly throughout the year.

And the third category is the classic "holiday home" which is used for the occasional week or two week break and is often rented out as a holiday home on a commercial basis the rest of the time.
Estimates vary, but approximately one in four second homes are situated in the South West of England with the main focus being on the popular areas of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. Second homes in Suffolk and Norfolk are also popular with Kent being predicted as one of the areas of the country rapidly growing in popularity. of the population who own a property abroad as a holiday home home, roughly 70,000 of them or about a quarter of all second homeowners, have chosen Spain.  
   
The traditional attractions of the second home in Spain (Sunshine, lower cost of living, established ex pat British community) still remain but there is also the growing attraction of more and more low-cost flights to Spanish destinations which means people can afford to commute back and forth far more regularly than they would have done before.  
This increased availability of cheap flights back and forth to the UK mean that people who might not like the idea of retiring permanently to Spain now find that they can effectively live in two places -spending the British winter overseas in Spain and coming back to the UK for the English summer. When asked in surveys why people want to own a second home the most common reasons given are as a "holiday home" for retirement, or simply as an investment to complement other pension provisions.  
 
         
bottom_panel
Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the weekendplace.co.uk Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Weekendplace.co.uk partners with many companies who have huge experience providing mortgages, buy-to-let mortgages, home insurance, house insurance,contents insurance,travel insurance,life insurance,permanent health insurance, home security, building services, holiday letting, property maintenance and other financial services.
Click for "Home"