A Tyrol municipality’s holiday-home list suggests a different ownership pattern than many assume in Austria. The question is who benefits from the system
More than half of the approved holiday homes in one tourism-heavy municipality in Tyrol are owned not by foreign buyers but by locals and local tourism figures, according to research presented by the Tyrolean Greens and reported by ORF Tirol.
The finding runs counter to the usual image of second-home pressure in Tyrol as mainly a story about German and Dutch buyers snapping up scarce property.
Instead, the Greens say the data from one municipality in the Tyrolean Oberland points to a local business model in which approved holiday homes are owned by well-connected residents and then rented out to foreign visitors.
The municipality was not named publicly. But the Greens said their research covered almost 600 approved holiday homes there, with more than half in the hands of local residents.
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Greens say local elites dominate ownership
The Greens obtained access to a list of owners through indirect means after the municipality itself did not make the information public. Party representative Gebi Mair told ORF Tirol that the results were “striking”.
Among the owners, he said, were prominent local figures from tourism and business. Regional banks, notaries and housing companies were also represented. In some cases, several holiday homes were reportedly registered to the same address. That is legal, Mair said, but he argued that it also showed how much influence local economic interests may have over municipal politics.
He suggested that where local politics is closely tied to the same economic networks, genuinely independent controls on second homes may be hard to expect.
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Property politics remain highly sensitive in Tyrol
The debate around holiday homes is especially tense in Tyrol because of the wider housing and land pressures in the province.
A recent ruling by the regional administrative court forced a municipality in the Brixental to disclose its own list of holiday-home owners. Illegal holiday homes also remain a recurring issue in local and regional politics.
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Key vocabulary
Freizeitwohnsitz – holiday home or second home not used as a main residence
ortsansässig – locally resident
Eigentümerliste – list of owners
Gemeindeleitung – municipal leadership
Bodenpolitik – land policy
illegaler Freizeitwohnsitz – unlawfully used holiday home