Can people buying second homes in villages and towns negatively impact the local communities?

Second home owning can be extremely harmful for smaller communities with a limited housing stock in terms of house prices. The ability of young people who grew up in that community to afford to get a foot on the housing ladder, or even afford a place to rent, can be severely impeded if the housing stock is bought up. If those buying those houses are preventing others from affording to live in the town or village they grew up in, when the homeowners aren't even living in that community, it can cause considerable resentment.

It can also lead to a demographic shift. Increasingly smaller communities are aging in Britain, as younger people are forced to move out to nearby towns in order to find affordable housing to buy or rent. This denudes small commuters of the younger adults who often make a place dynamic, as well as denying people an opportunity to live their early adult lif in the town or village they grew up in. Many young people who move away from a small community will also not move back, intensifying that demographic shift to an aging village.