Selling a buy to let may play into Airbnb's hands, warns agent

Cornwall has been in the spotlight as an area with an acute shortage of long-term rental properties because landlords have switched to holiday and short lets instead.

Some critics of the rental sector say it would be best if landlords sold up - but Cornish agent Deborah Plowright has told Cornwall Live why that may make little difference, or even worsen the rental shortage further.

“Landlords by default tend to be older, tend to be 50s-plus. The latest wave of legislation meant to support tenants has had a detrimental effect. They make the older landlords say - I can't do this, it’s too complicated and they leave the market” she tells the website.

“So they sell. The problem is they then sell to a new investor, and they think it’s easier to set up a holiday let than a residential let since there’s less legislation there.

“The new investors think a holiday let is a cash cow, that tends to be the route they’re going.

“But if you speak to any long-term holiday let owner, they will tell you horror story after horror story and how hard it is. But the perception is that it's easy. That you just have to keep it a bit clean, but holidaymakers leave their brains at home.

“We’ve owned both holiday lets and residential over 20 years, I speak from experience. They are much harder than residential lets. The only reason people go down that route is it’s less legislated, don’t have to tick so many boxes.”

Plowright tells the website that the summer of 2021, dominated by staycations and crowds in locations such as Cornwall, has fuelled the misconception that an Airbnb is easier to operate than a long-term residential property on the rental market.

“Say someone inherits a property. We spoke to a landlord recently who had inherited a house. She wanted advice on whether to go residential or holiday. We tried really hard to persuade her to make it a home, but she went down the holiday let route, because she thought it would be easy.”

The whole article - here - gives a snapshot of the market now in Cornwall, and some expectation by Plowright that 2022 will see fewer Airbnb conversions than in 2021.