So I was reading the Scotsman today. Get to the Property section, okay, I will look through it and look at dream properties (can't afford any of them, of course). Then I get to an article about Nova Scotia- nice, maybe it's about having a nice holiday? NO! It's about buying a second home in Nova Scotia!
The buggers. First, people here in the UK start scooping up properties on a 'buy to let' scheme, and so drive first time buyers WAY out of the market. Now property prices have skyrocketed here because of it, why don't we buy up Nova Scotia...?
OOOH, that makes me mad. I just don't understand why you need more homes. So locals can't afford to live in a place, anymore. Unethical, socially irresponsible. Drives me mad.
I have emailed the Scotsman. Do it too and email these gits as well.
http://www.secondhomenovascotia.com/
Here is what I wrote:
So, Buy-to-let and second homes purchase has created a huge gap between the cost of a new home and the amount a first time buyer can afford in Britain. What to do? Drive up the cost of local housing abroad where we only have to see the effects for a couple of weeks a year...! I am a Nova Scotian, it's bad enough that in the Halifax Airport all the property advertising is in German, none of my contemporaries can afford a home, now we will have an influx of British home owners, that we all know, will not really save the economy. Get real. Socially irresponsible and unethical. Your are better than that, Scotsman.
5 comments:
Wow, did you really send that? I've heard rumblings that Nova Scotia is a great place to buy because it's beautiful, unspoiled and still affordable...I really don't think it can be kept a secret for that much longer. I just saw my old house on Echo Forest Dr. on MLS (web property listing) and I barely recognized it...it's for sale for almost 4x what we sold it for...mind you, that was 20 years ago!
Dana
It really riles me. I think if a person buys a second home they should be made to buy a third one for a local person to live in.
The problem I think will turn around when these people if they do not move here cannot keep up the properties and leave them to deteriorate whereby lowering their value. By that time your great grandchildren may afford them and recall that you came from this lovely province. Feel better now?
Possibly, Dad, but I think the only real answer is for the governemnt to step in and regulate things. In PEI there is a program where locals have a better deal, something like a foreigner's tax, you have to prove that you live there full time. And lucky Luxembourg can afford to give amazing tax breaks to its citizens, so people like us find it difficult to snatch up there beautiful little farms.
So after following up your emails, Jen, I think we should all write our local MLA's, or the equivalent.
It's nice creating a dialogue. I am just pissed that I am not rich and can't own five homes myself! No, really, I think it's important to take care of locals in a local area. Fine if visitors want to come and see a place, but leaving houses to deteriorate and falsely 'helping' the economy can't be right.
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