Blame it on on Rick Stein. Since the celebrity chef first hit our television screens in 1995, signing the praises of British seafood, and by association the charms of his adopted Cornwall, we have been heading southwest in droves.

The Oxfordshire-born chef was lucky: he got in early, opening his first restaurant in the seaside port of Padstow in 1975. But as with Stein’s own operation — which has expanded to include three other restaurants, a delicatessen, patisserie, seafood cookery school and 33-bed hotel, turning Padstow into Padstein — it is only really in the past decade that the southwest has really taken off, as buyers from all over Britain swoon over its rolling, verdant hills and postcard-perfect seaside spots.

That enthusiasm has helped drive property prices across the region ever upwards; figures from the Halifax show average house prices in Dorset have risen by 217% since 1996, just ahead of 212% in Somerset and 202% in Devon. All three counties have been surpassed by Cornwall, up 268%.

Musican Kate Bush is the latest to buy in Devon, joining broadcaster Jenny Bond, and actor Rik Mayall, and his Young Ones co-star Adrian Edmondson and equally funny wife Jennifer Saunders, who all have homes little more than a grilled scallop’s throw from John Burton-Race’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Dartmouth.

Indeed, the southwest is a theatrical haven: actor Martin Clunes and Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning scriptwriter, live in Dorset, near the home and cookery school of Lesley Waters, the daytime television chef. Footballer Jamie Redknapp and his wife, pop singer Louise, live in the exclusive, if overhyped Sandbanks near Poole.

Initially, it all sounds a bit depressing if you haven’t already bought there, although at least if you are on a visit you are assured of finding somewhere decent to eat. But despite the recent stellar growth in the property market, do not think that you have missed the boat. Indeed in some spots, if you buy now your boat is likely to come in a few years hence. For across the length and breadth of the southwest, from the Isle of Purbeck in its southeast corner to Newquay in the west, there are still plenty of spots with considerable potential — often in the most unlikely places.

Take Weymouth. For King George III, who first put it on the map in the late 18th century, this was the “First Resort”. As the famously dippy monarch tried to introduce his subjects to the newfangled delights of “dipping”, the strains of God Save Great George our King rang out from musicians hidden in carefully positioned bathing machines on the beach.

Even the most devoted fans of this Dorset town would admit that Weymouth has struggled to retain such premier league status in the two centuries since. The elegant Georgian terrraces that line the curving esplanade have long since been transformed into uninspiring B&Bs, while one of the first sights greeting people emerging from the railway station is a taxi-firm sign offering “low low prices to Portland prisons and local holiday camps”.

Yet the naming of Weymouth and nearby Portland Harbour as a site for the sailing events for the 2012 London Olympics promises to transform the town from faded seaside resort to unlikely property hot spot.

The opening of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy has given the place an enormous boost. The academy’s presence here was instrumental in the town being chosen to host the Olympic sailing events. Its clubhouse sits on Osprey Quay, a mixed-use development incorporating some homes and a 500-berth marina on the site of an old Royal Naval helicopter base.

The old pavilion on a peninsula near the ferry terminal, used for traditional end-of-pier shows, is being redeveloped into a more cutting-edge venue that, as one local put it, will be “more Arctic Monkeys than Jim Davidson”. An increasing number of divers, meanwhile, are growing to appreciate coastal waters said to contain the largest concentration of maritime wrecks in Europe.

Local agents are hoping the “Olympic effect” will add some glamour to Weymouth and nearby villages — of the sort possessed by rapidly gentrifying Bournemouth and Poole to the east and south Devon and Cornwall to the west. Indeed, it is already starting to kick in.

“The Olympic decision has undoubtedly given the place an air of optimism,” says Mark Baker, manager of the local office of Goadsby estate agency, which has 19 offices in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. “Bournemouth and Poole have already gone all ‘footballers’ wives’. There are attempts to create that same kind of cafe society here and move us away from fish and chips and kiss-me-quick hats.”

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