The Cornwall buyers under £200k who already have a home

If you’re saving for your first home in Cornwall and looking at anything under £200,000, other kinds of buyer may be looking at it too.

New figures from Compare My Move show that one in five purchase enquiries from Cornwall residents for properties under £200,000 were for a second home or a buy-to-let. That’s 20.4%, compared with 17.9% across the UK.

And in one price band the gap is wider still.

Where the interest sits

Compare My Move looked at conveyancing purchase enquiries made between January 2022 and May 2026. It split them by price to see how many were for additional properties.

For homes between £150,000 and £200,000, 22.1% of enquiries from Cornwall residents were for second homes or buy-to-let. Nationally the figure was 13.4%. That puts Cornwall roughly 65% above the UK average in that bracket.

Property price	Cornwall	UK
Under £150,000	19.2%	21.2%
£150,000 to £200,000	22.1%	13.4%
£200,000 to £250,000	13.7%	11.4%

Share of purchase enquiries intended for second homes or buy-to-let. Source: Compare My Move conveyancing purchase enquiries, January 2022 to May 2026.

The average first-time buyer in Cornwall pays £227,000, so the £150,000 to £200,000 band sits below that. For people working with a smaller budget, it’s an important part of the Cornwall housing market.

The bigger picture since 2022

Across all enquiries, not just the cheaper end, the trend runs the other way.

In 2022, 29.5% of purchase enquiries from Cornwall residents were for second homes or buy-to-let, well above the UK’s 17.8%. By the first five months of 2026 that had dropped to 11.0%, broadly level with the UK figure of 11.2%.

Year	Cornwall	UK
2022	29.5%	17.8%
2023	22.3%	15.2%
2024	14.4%	11.6%
2025	11.3%	11.1%
2026 (January to May)	11.0%	11.2%

Share of conveyancing purchase enquiries for second homes or buy-to-let. Source: Compare My Move conveyancing purchase enquiries, January 2022 to May 2026.

What about the second-home premium?

Cornwall Council brought in a 100% council tax premium on qualifying second homes in April 2025. By 7 March 2026 it had raised £24.7 million in additional revenue.

But the fall in enquiries started before the premium came in, so Compare My Move says the drop can’t be put down directly to the tax.

What it means if you’re a first-time buyer

Dave Sayce, founder and managing director of Compare My Move, said it was still worth looking at where that interest is concentrated, even though it has fallen overall.

“Although overall interest in second homes and buy-to-let properties has fallen, it’s important to look at where that interest remains,” he said.

“Properties below £200,000 can offer first-time buyers a more affordable route onto the property ladder, but they can also appeal to landlords and other additional-property buyers.

“When these groups are competing for the same properties, it can make an already challenging market even harder for those trying to buy their first home.”

He added: “Cornwall’s second-home tax may be influencing the wider market, but the real measure of success will be whether more local people can access homes they can afford.”

The latest Office for National Statistics figures put Cornwall’s average house price at around £275,000 in August 2026. That’s 2.9% lower than a year earlier.