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10,000 Airbnbs and nowhere to live: Cornwall’s housing crisis

By:   []

Date: 2021-09

Cornwall is a county of two halves. Green fields and bright blue seas. Tourists and locals. A playground for the rich and famous, and the second poorest region in northern Europe. More than 18,000 empty homes and 16,000 people on a waiting list for council housing. Some 10,000 Airbnbs and, at one point last month, fewer than 50 homes available to rent.

The county’s long-established housing shortage has been worsened by COVID-19. A new-found ability to work remotely delivered an influx of buyers to the area, which along with the stamp duty holiday, led house prices to soar. Of the eight UK postcodes where the average house price rose by more than £100,000 in the past year, three were in Cornwall – and the county overtook London as the most searched place on property website Rightmove. Many landlords saw flashing dollar signs, and quickly put properties up for sale. Others realised the potential to make money amid a boom in staycations – week-long rentals in Cornish towns have been reported to cost up to £8,000 – and turfed out tenants to establish holiday lets.

All of this created a perfect storm: a county so desirable that almost no one can live there. Sophie, an estate agent with 17 years’ experience in Cornwall who asked if we could withhold her surname, told me she has “never seen the demand as high and supply so low”. This has resulted in “extreme responses to any [rental] property we put online”, she said, with “between 75 and 100” enquiries on each.

“We are seeing a lot of desperate people, which is leading to properties going above the advertised rental price,” Sophie added, explaining this is “not something I have ever seen before”.

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‘It’s just a nightmare’

Maddy King is one such desperate person. When we spoke in mid-August, Maddy was isolating at home in the coastal town of Falmouth. It was the third time one of her six housemates had tested positive for COVID, locking the whole house down, and it was bad timing: she had less than four weeks until she needed to move out, and was suddenly unable to go to any house viewings for ten days.

The 23-year-old gardener, who also works part-time in a local pub, moved into her current home a year ago, when she relocated from Plymouth to begin a horticultural course in nearby Camborne. “I didn’t really plan far ahead this time last year,” she said, of her house search last summer. “But there were so many places available that it was just fine. This year it’s just a nightmare.”

This time around, aware of a shortage in rental properties nearby, Maddy hoped to line up a new house well before she needed to move. “I’ve been looking [at property websites] every single day pretty much, and I’m on email lists for property listings that come up,” she said. “I was trying to plan a place to move into two months in advance, but, literally, there were zero listings at all for renting in Falmouth.

“At one point I thought I might live somewhere else for a bit; I’ve looked in Newquay, Penzance,” she said – but she quickly realised the housing shortfall was affecting the entire county.
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