Whenever two or more yachtsmen are gathered together, you can bet the conversation will soon turn to the subject of where is the best little harbour town in which to buy a home. Somewhere near the top of the list will be Lymington in Hampshire. With its lovely Georgian main street packed with quality shops, coffee houses and timber-beamed pubs, Lymington makes an ideal safe haven for the sailor home from the sea - or, indeed, for the weekend boatie home from the city.

“It's certainly got everything we hoped for,” says Kate Hopkinson, 40, who moved with her husband, Manley, a professional yachtsman, and their two children, Frey, 5, and Arabella, 3, from Twickenham, West London, in August 2006. “You can be in the New Forest or on a beach in ten minutes. There are places near here where you can experience real solitude, and that is so refreshing after London.”

Not surprisingly, the word is spreading about Lymington. It has for many years been well known for its retirement homes, full of high-ranking military types. Now a younger generation is coming to town. “Demand is fuelled by middle-aged professionals, 30 per cent of whom are moving from London,” says Charles Birtles, a property search consultant. “That number increases to 60 per cent at Easter, when sales go through the roof.” Lymington is close enough to London to make this a main selling point. Although nobody would fancy a return trip to work in London every day, there is a growing number of “occasional” commuters who make the 90-minute railway journey to Waterloo from Brockenhurst, four miles away.

The town has much to offer young families, as well as older residents. Its community centre has for many years hosted the arts club and the University of the Third Age (U3A), but it also runs a pre-school club and junior dance classes, and doubles as a 100-seater cinema, showing children's films during half-term. The local schools, both in the state and independent sector, are well regarded. The Montessori School, where children grow their own vegetables and play with their pet sheep, is extremely popular.

BACKGROUND

• The cost of a sea view

• Bargains on the coast

• FOCUS ON . . . TRURO

• Do floods scupper sales?

• Once more unto the beach

Seaside house prices soar

City-dwellers driving up property prices by the sea

• The boom town rocks

BACKGROUND

• From winos to wine bars

BACKGROUND

• Ramsgate rules

• Shoreham gets trendy

• The coast’s next wave

• House Hunter: Sideways to Brighton

• A change in the tide

For leisure amenities, you still find old-fashioned tea shops and the bridge club is renowned for its “formality”, but there are modern bars too. “There's a real cool vibe going on here now,” says Kate Robinson, owner of Graze bar and restaurant. “It's created by the younger yachties, who are a very laid-back crowd.”

However, the lifestyle does not come cheap: property in Lymington is seriously expensive. “South of the High Street carries a premium because it is nearer to the water,” says Victoria Delville-Cutts, of Woolley & Wallis estate agents. “And there are also some highly sought-after villages outside the town, including Boldre and Sway.”

The recent dip in the UK housing market has not caused the slightest wobble to the top end in Lymington, where demand continues to outstrip supply. One house sale was recently set up by a search agent, and the house fetched 20 per cent more than the likely asking price had it been for sale on the open market.

It is hard to generalise about price because location is so important, but a two-bedroom terraced house in Lymington will cost at least £250,000, a semi-detached will cost from £300,000, a small detached house will cost £370,000 plus, and after that, say estate agents, “the sky is the limit”.

“The prices are obviously high for the area,” says Delville-Cutts. “But as the majority of our buyers are moving out of London, they are selling similarly high-priced properties there.”

Albany House is an example: a refurbished, fourstorey Regency Grade II-listed townhouse with five bedrooms, it is for sale for £1.5 million.

There is also a spate of construction, with Barratt, Linden and Antler Homes building new homes on fairly small sites near the centre of town. However, there is no chance of Lymington being marred by overdevelopment. Once these developments are finished, the South East Development Agency will allow only 154 more new homes to be built before 2026.

As for sailing, there are two clubs in the town: the Royal Lymington Yacht Club is more “high church”, with serious yacht racing and blazers on show, while Lymington Town Sailing Club offers fewer cravats but more in the way of rough-and-ready dinghy sailing. Newcomers should be warned, however, that whichever club they join securing a mooring is rather difficult.

“Just as important,” says Manley Hopkinson, “there is also the Salterns Sailing Club which is run on an enclosed pond for kids. The club chairman is only 11 years old. Lymington is changing. More and more young families are breathing new life into the town and that can only be a good thing.”

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