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The Easter holidays are upon us and I am enjoying a short break, as I’m sure many of you are too. But you won’t find me staying in an Airbnb.
My reasoning is simple: when Airbnb launched, the USP was you could “live like a local” while on holiday. However, in doing so, you might be depriving a local person of a home.
They are also calling for a loophole to be closed which allows the property’s use to be changed from residential to business to avoid increased council tax charges.
square ALLEGRA CHAPMAN
Living next to an Airbnb has ruined my life - they should be bannedRead More
It’s not difficult to understand why landlords are keen on running an Airbnb. They can be lucrative and, while housing long-term tenants requires adherence to rules and regulations, short-term lets carry fewer obligations or checks and balances.
Added to this, local economies in tourism destinations don’t necessarily benefit from Airbnb in the same way as they might from a local hotel or holiday let.
However, when you stay in an Airbnb, you might do a food shop and cook at home, meaning you spend less in local shops and restaurants.
Similarly, while on holiday in Cornwall recently, I spoke to concerned locals who told me they were being made homeless by rent increases that they could not afford.
So far, this move seems to have cooled local housing markets based on early data in Gwynedd, but it’s too soon to know what the long-term impact will be.
square SCOTLAND ExclusiveEdinburgh urged to copy Barcelona’s ban on Airbnb-style rentals
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In London, you do have to apply for permission if you want to Airbnb a home for more than 90 nights per year. Whether that’s enforceable is another question entirely. Some London councils, including Wandsworth, are also bringing in a council tax premium for second homes which could be used as holiday lets.
Until it does, you’ll find me in local hotels whenever I go away because I don’t want to visit somewhere where there’s no locals in the pubs, bars and restaurants because they can’t afford a home.
Not only has Trump upended the existing global economic order, he has also increased the risk of recession for many countries, including his own by making it more expensive to buy and sell certain goods and starting trade wars with countries such as China.
In the first instance, Trump’s tariffs may appear to be good news for mortgage rates. Swap rates – this is how mortgage lending is priced on global financial markets – have fallen. This means that major lenders are offering some slightly lower rates already.
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square MORTGAGESRead More
As Neal Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics, explained to me: “Rates are falling because expectations of the outlook for the economy have soured.”
“Mortgages might get cheaper,” Shearing said, “but that’s only because the economy is weaker.”
I can’t count the number of times I’ve written that “uncertainty is the only thing that’s certain right now” in recent years. But, once again, it’s true.
Ask me anything
Yesterday, a worried reader sent me the link to an article in The Daily Telegraph which had the headline “Why Labour wants your house price to fall” and asked me if it was true?
While it’s true the Labour Party is doing things which could stabilise house prices, it would be a stretch to say the intention is for house prices to fall significantly. In fact, they’ve said some things which imply they want the opposite.
The Labour Government has tightened up regulations for landlords and holiday lets, as above, which will cool down housing markets in certain desirable parts of the country – like Welsh holiday hot spots, Cornwall or the Lakes – where demand has previously been very high.
square PROPERTY MappedThe areas where house prices have risen by more than 800% over 30 years, mapped
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The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has said a 0.5 per cent increase in housing supply would bring house prices down by 0.8 per cent. However, when you put that figure in the context of overall house price rises year on year, it’s not enormously significant.
It was a good headline, but not quite a true story.
Vicky’s pick
On Sunday night, I went to the cinema to see the new Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag. There’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned British spy drama to set you up for the week.
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