Short-term rentals account for 7% of total housing in some areas

Holiday-lets now account for as much as 7% of total homes across 15 of the nation’s most popular staycation destinations, with just one seeing a decline in holiday-let property market prominence, research reveals.

The findings come from the estate agent comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, which looked at active holiday rentals in 15 popular tourist towns, including Southend, Scarborough, Brighton and Blackpool.

Researchers then compared this to the total number of dwellings in each area to see what percentage of the market they currently account for.

Holiday lets account for 3.5% of total homes

They found that there are currently 54,657 holiday lets, accounting for 3.5% of total homes in these locations – up from 2.8% since 2019.

Cornwall is perhaps predictably the nation’s holiday let capital, with holiday rentals accounting for 7.4% of total homes in the area – up 1.2% since 2019.

However, when it comes to the biggest take-over of holiday rentals, it is Scarborough that tops the table.

Not only is the seaside town home to the second highest percentage of holiday let housing stock – accounting for 7% of all homes in the town – the holiday let market share has increased by 2.3% since 2019.

Dorset ranks third, both where the current holiday let market share is concerned at 6.1%, as well as the increase since 2019 of 1.6%.

‘Holiday lets are an understandably contentious subject’

The co-founder and chief executive of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, said: “Holiday lets are an understandably contentious subject and one that has really come to the forefront during the pandemic due to sky high demand for staycations while travel restrictions were in play.

“At the same time, many traditional buy-to-let landlords have looked to holiday lets as a way of improving their financial returns, due to the far higher rental yield potential and following a sustained campaign by the Government to deter buy-to-let investment.”

He added: “For many local residents, this upward trend will be unwelcome news as the general consensus is that holiday lets put a further stranglehold on local housing availability, pushing the cost of both renting and buying out of reach.

“Of course, the flip side is that these local economies rely heavily on tourism and a higher provision of holiday rentals helps to boost tourism spend which, in turn, has a positive influence on the wider local area.”

The findings follow a Government review that was unveiled in June to examine the effects of short-term holiday lets and which could involve physical checks of premises to ensure regulations including health and safety, noise and anti-social behaviour are obeyed.