Holiday let boom risks turning resorts into 'ghost towns'

Property owners on the North Coast could earn eight times more cash from short-stay tourists than from ordinary working families seeking long-term rented homes.

The disparity is causing misery for potential tenants born and bred in the area, and a house price bonanza for home owners.

That is one of the key conclusions affecting Causeway Coast and Glens from a government research paper on 'the future of tourism in Northern Ireland.'

The report published last month by the Department for the Economy recommends regulating short-stay rents and online booking platforms.

It reveals Tourism NI data showing an astonishing 163 per cent increase in NI's self-catering-registered accommodation stock.

The boom at least partly contributed to a 13 per cent increase in Causeway Coast and Glens House prices in 2021.

The authors go on to compare the average price per night for tourist accommodation advertised on one short-term rental booking platform with the average rent per month as advertised on a local residential property advertising website, across the key five tourist towns along the North Coast.

They priced the nightly rate for two-bedroom holiday lets available on March 27 and multiplied the figure by 28 to gain a comparable figure.

In Portrush the short-term figure was £5370.

MLA Claire Sugden has called for action before resorts are left resembling ghost towns.

“There is next to no long-term rentals across the whole north coast, the ones there are have gone up in price and stubbornly high house prices are out of reach of most people because the average wage here is among the lowest in Northern Ireland.

“Over time, locals will move out, leaving these places ghost-towns where services such as schools, doctors and businesses will become unsustainable.

Read the full story in this week's Chronicle