Places in Cornwall have up to 20 times more Airbnbs than homes for locals to rent

If you think finding an Airbnb in Cornwall is much easier than finding a rental or a house to buy, you’re absolutely right.

In popular locations, there are far more places to rent for a weekend or short-term vacation than there are places to rent long-term or buy.

A review of the holiday rentals website and online estate and rental agents reveals the huge gap in Cornish towns amid a housing crisis that is leaving thousands homeless or on the verge of becoming it. Many are being evicted from private rental homes so owners can sell them or turn them into short-term rentals for tourists.

The worst example showed that Newquay has 20 times more Airbnbs than homes available to rent right now.

Last week, Labor peer Lord Berkeley, who lives in the county, cited data from the House of Lords which showed holiday rentals had increased more than sixfold in the five years to 2021.

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Lord Berkeley said there were 15,000 reported families on the waiting list for social housing in Cornwall, the same as the number of properties marketed for short-term rentals. Learn more about it here.

A Cornwall resident also raised concerns after he noticed that there were 252 Airbnbs in the parish of St Agnes, where he lives and struggles to find accommodation to rent as he is being evicted from his current home, when there were only 22 properties for sale and one property for rent on Zoopla in the same area.

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CornwallLive compared data from Airbnb and Zoopla in eight other areas of Cornwall to see if the trend was similar elsewhere.

We have excluded land, lodges and park houses from the properties available for purchase or rental.

Here’s what we found…

Newquay and St Columbus Minor

Airbnb: 279 stays

Houses and apartments for sale: 96

Houses and apartments for rent: 14

St Ives, except Carbis Bay

Airbnb: 119

Houses and apartments for sale: 68

Houses and apartments for rent: 0

Truro

Airbnb: 39

Houses and apartments for sale: 57

Houses and apartments for rent: 5

Padstow

Airbnb: 27

Houses and apartments for sale: 7

Houses and apartments for rent: 0

fowey

Airbnb: 60

Houses and apartments for sale: 8

Houses and apartments for rent: 0

Loe

Airbnb: 71

Houses and apartments for sale: 50

Houses and apartments for rent: 3

mouse hole

Airbnb: 27

Houses and apartments for sale: 8

Houses and apartments for rent: 0

penzance

Airbnb: 148

Houses and apartments for sale: 42

Houses and apartments for rent: 7

Since the start of the pandemic, housing prices, evictions, homelessness and demand for social housing have all skyrocketed. Meanwhile, the number of rental units available and the number of affordable units have fallen off a cliff.

It has been suggested that the housing crisis in Cornwall will not end this year.

Rental agent Deborah Plowright previously told CornwallLive: ‘It’s not as frantic as 2021 but we’re still getting a steady stream of people telling us they’re losing their house because their landlord is selling. It’s not at the level it was at the end of summer last year when it got crazy, but it’s still going.

“I think the owners, now, are seated. Not as many rental properties are sold. I see it slowing down even though the problem has not gone away.

But, she went on to say, the end of Covid restrictions on overseas travel could mean that some of the new holiday home owners, who have left residential rental, will take a bad shock this year.

Some vacation rental owners are already receiving cancellations for 2022 vacations, some of which were reportedly booked when things looked much less certain for overseas travel last year.

But, since that bad year for owning an Airbnb hasn’t happened yet, Ms Plowright thinks that means the problem won’t go away until next year at the earliest. You can read the full interview here.

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