An estate agency is being criticised for marketing properties as second homes in an area reportedly suffering a housing shortage.
Local media in the Scottish Highlands report that Molly Nolan - Liberal Democrat candidate for the Caithness, Sutherland and Ross constituency in this year’s elections to the Scottish Parliament - has called the Galbraith agency a "repeat offender" with properties in some areas listed as having “second home or holiday let potential”.
The Ross-Shire Journal reports Nolan as saying: “Working age Highlanders cannot afford to live in their own communities because house prices have been driven sky-high by second home owners and holiday let operators. Meanwhile, estate agents are profiting off the Highland housing crisis.
“Our local communities are being torn apart at the seams, surrounded by properties that lie empty for the vast majority of the year.The Scottish Government needs to take urgent action to regulate second homes in the Highlands and stop property agents like Galbraith from exacerbating this crisis.”
Nolan claims to be “filled with despair” by the advertising.
Estate Agent Today has asked Galbraith for its comment on the subject.
Meanwhile, also in Scotland, the pro-Gaelic website Daily Gael has made a sharp attack on holiday homes.
It says: “Second homes drive up prices, and people out. There may be a place for holiday homes, but we are so far past that. People making a living servicing holidays homes can't afford to buy homes at inflated prices.
"The Highlands and Islands could be so much more than a glorified scenic service station.
“Proliferation of second homes and over-reliance on tourism is a scam that keeps the Highlands easy to buy in to and impossible to live in, unless you have already established a base somewhere else.
“I am sure that most that grow up here feel that deep sense that things are not right – it shouldn't be so empty, my friends shouldn't all have to move away, we should know what the place names mean and who our neighbours are. There should be lights on in the winter.”
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Its an unpopular view, but I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment.
Property would be a lot more affordable, if we only had one each.
Come home to a real fire.....buy a holiday cottage in Scotland!
And we would all be a lot healthier if we only had one alcoholic drink on a sat night. Ha ha ha.
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