Second home owners ‘feel unwelcome’ while locals struggle to buy

Rhodri Lewis is desperate to buy a house in his home county of Pembrokeshire, an area in which the Welsh government estimated 6.5%, external of all properties were second homes in 2023-24.

“When I did have a look around, there was no chance I was going to be able to afford a house,” the 23-year-old said.

“So, yeah, I had to move back in with mum and dad, unfortunately.”

Rhodri is a Welsh speaker and like many other people, he said he worries that a lack of affordable housing for local people can affect the language.

“Tourism is fantastic for us for three months of the year in the summer,” he said.

“But then the other eight, nine months, where a lot of the second homes, for example, don’t have people in them, it just kills the community for the rest of the year.”

Rhodri is planning to travel in the near future and hopes he’ll be able to afford his first home upon his return.

Carol Peet, who sells properties in Pembrokeshire, said she believed in some areas there are two housing markets: one for locals and one for second homes.

“The obvious answer to it, I think, which I’ve been selling for the last 25 years is to stop houses under the average price of a property in this area, which at the moment is about £250,000, being sold as second homes,” she said.

“Those are the properties that young local families can afford, not the million-pound houses that second homers buy.”

She added that a number of “chocolate box pretty cottages” are great for holidays but are “totally impractical” for full-time living as “they’re cold, damp and dark in the winter”.

She said that while second homes were “absolutely vital” to her local economy in Narberth, she understood the need for affordable housing for local people.