Now that school is out and the sun is making an overdue appearance, a property
buyer’s thoughts inevitably turn to holiday homes. And, whether because of
rising air fares, carbon-footprint dilemmas or the strong euro, Britain is
looking increasingly attractive. But where should you buy - and, given all
the doom and gloom out there, is now the time to snap up a bargain?
The prices of large homes in traditional honeypots such as Salcombe, in south
Devon, West Wittering, in West Sussex, and Southwold, in Suffolk, appear to
be remaining steady despite these straitened times, because buyers don’t
want to miss the chance to purchase property with direct sea access and the
best views. “In these hot spots, houses don’t come up often, so they are
holding their own,” says Michael Bedford, of Bedfords estate agency in
Aldeburgh, Suffolk. “People are increasingly looking to holiday in England –
they say to themselves, ‘Petrol’s gone up 50p, so let’s buy a £500,000
house.’ ” Elsewhere, however, it is possible to pick up a bargain, as
overstretched second-homers find their beachside pad is one luxury too many.
“At Garrington South West, we’ve seen an increase in supply in secondary
holiday areas,” says Phil Spencer, the property-search expert and Sunday
Times columnist. “While Salcombe is holding up well, more people are
releasing property in cheaper locations nearby, such as Dart-mouth, that
they perhaps shouldn’t have bought in the first place.”
Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, agrees: “Many of
the prestige properties in top locations might not come on the market in two
or three generations. Prices haven’t collapsed, as some predicted, but look
to negotiate a bargain if you’re breaking into the market. Houses are likely
to be cheaper than last year and cheaper than in two years’ time.”
When searching for your summer pad, make sure you aren’t buying it only for
the roses around the door, Spencer advises. “Don’t buy a house just because
it’s pretty. Summer holiday homes are all about ease. Make sure the house is
within walking distance of shops and the beach, has access to parking and
has a good view.”
1 St Ives, Cornwall
Two years before her death in 1941, the writer Virginia Woolf wrote: “St Ives
gave me all the pure delight which is before my eyes, even at this moment.”
It is still possible to see why. The young City set may prefer the stretch
of north Cornish coast from Padstow to Watergate Bay – home to a Jamie
Oliver restaurant – but St Ives, further west down the coast, has white-sand
beaches, turquoise water and a subtropical climate. It’s also substantially
cheaper. “There’s something for everyone, so you get families from the
Midlands and the north, as well as sailors, the art crowd and City types,”
says Jonathan Cunliffe, head of residential sales for Cornwall at Savills.
Fishermen’s cottages and terraced townhouses sell for £300,000-£750,000; a
centrally located flat with a sea view can be yours for £350,000. In the
next cove, Carbis Bay, detached houses overlooking the sandy beach cost up
to £1.5m. You may also be able to pick up a cheap B&B. “When the
Eden Project came to Cornwall, a lot of people flocked to the area and set
up B&Bs, flooding the market,” Cunliffe says. A five-bedroom B&B,
Chy an Gerra, with sea and beach views but in need of updating, is on sale
for £550,000 through Savills
(01872 243200).
2 Salcombe, Devon
Winding cobbled lanes, quaint houses tumbling towards an idyllic harbour and
cosmopolitan boutiques and restaurants have made Salcombe a favourite with
the sailing set and City folk. Two-bedroom cottages in town start at
£300,000, while Marchand
Petit has a two-bedroom townhouse with a garage in central Salcombe for
£365,000 (01548 844473). Detached houses with coveted views of the
Kingsbridge estuary cost more than £4m. Beach-lovers must catch the
passenger ferry from Salcombe harbour to East Portlemouth, where more than
70% of properties are second homes.
Rick Marchand, the director of Marchand Petit, says that in general it is
possible to pick up a house in Salcombe for £10,000 less than last year, but
adds that the best properties are still in demand. “These houses have been
in the same family since before the second world war,” he says. “If it has
water frontage and is in a good spot, it will still sell well.” This is
borne out by research by Knight Frank (see table, right). While average
values in Salcombe have dropped by 5.5% over the past year, larger detached
properties are up by 18.6%. Salcombe’s popularity also ensures
better-than-average rental yields. In the summer months, houses with sea
views in the best locations can bring in anything from £900 to £10,000 a
week.
3 Lyme Regis, Dorset
Thanks to its Georgian architecture and location on the stunning Jurassic
coast, Lyme Regis has long been a holiday favourite. In 1805, HMS Pickle
landed at the port to announce Admiral Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. The
town will also be familiar to cinema buffs: one of the most memorable images
in The French Lieutenant’s Woman is of the mysterious Sarah (played by Meryl
Streep), in a big cloak, standing on the Cobb, the curving breakwater built
in the 13th century by Edward I to improve the harbour.
The town has received a further boost in recent years from an updating of its
coastal defences and promenade. but it is beloved of second-homers for its
part sand, part pebble beach, the rock pools of Church Beach, to the north,
and the shingle of Monmouth, to the west. At only three hours’ travel time
from London, more city-dwellers are seeing it as a desirable weekend
destination.
“People like the mixture of houses available in the town,” says Kevin Hunt,
director of agents Fortnum, Smith and Banwell. “We recently sold a tiny
two-bedroom cottage for £185,000 and a house 10 times the size, only three
doors up, for £995,000.”
A two-bedroom flat in a new block, with a parking space, will cost at least
£150,000; detached houses on Sidmouth Road, within a mile of the town
centre, sell for about £600,000. Fortnum,
Smith and Banwell has a three-bedroom, Grade II-listed flat with views
of the Cobb for £349,000 (01297 445666).
4 West Wittering, West Sussex
“Most people compare the resort to the Hamptons,” says Pamela Phelan, who
handles waterside and country properties for the agent Henry Adams. “There
is the Strand, a fabulous stretch of beach with big rollers, popular with
kitesurfers, but it is also a private place, with large beachside
properties.”
Houses on East and West Strand, with sea access and, on a clear day, views to
the Isle of Wight, sell for more than £2m and rarely come on the market. Henry
Adams has a six-bedroom, three-bathroom, 4,480 sq ft house with a pool
and pool house, gardens and direct beach access for £2.75m (01243 672721).
If you can do without that front-line sea view, a mixture of modern, 1960s
and historic properties is available for £250,000 to £1m.
Prices drop substantially in neighbouring – and less glamorous – East
Wittering and Bracklesham Bay. Typical, if rather uninspiring, two-bedroom
bungalows within a few minutes’ walk of the sea start at about £200,000.
5 Southwold, Suffolk
The East Anglian coast is fashionable with second-homers from London,
Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. Southwold (where Gordon Brown has
chosen to spend his holidays this year) and Aldeburgh, a few miles down the
coast, are especially popular thanks to their old-world charm. This comes at
a price, however: you can pay as much as £1.5m for a house with a sea
view. “Southwold is less holiday-home territory, more year-round second
homes,” says Michael Bedford, of Bedfords in Aldeburgh. “It is cosmopolitan:
it’s not just the musical types coming for the Latitude festival.”
Prices, so far, appear to have bucked the credit crunch, rising by 12.4% in
the past year, according to the Knight Frank figures; larger detached
properties have gone up by 31.7%. There are signs, however, that properties
are beginning to be marked down, if only by 5%-10%. Savills
(01473 234816) is selling a five- to six-bedroom house with three reception
rooms and a roof terrace on South Green, in the heart of town, for offers in
excess of £1m.
6 Broadstairs, Kent
The plethora of David Copperfield cafes and Dickens pantries is testament to
Broadstairs’s pride in its history as the author’s holiday retreat.
Whitstable, further to the west, may be favoured by oyster-loving foodies
and trendy “down-from-Londoners”, but Broadstairs has lower prices and is
popular with families, who appreciate its sandy, rather than shingly,
beaches.
“People like somewhere that isn’t Notting Hill-on-Sea and has retained its
indigenous atmosphere,” says Charles Bainbridge, partner at Colebrook
Sturrock, which has offices across east Kent. Those in search of quieter
beach life head to Joss bay (popular with local surfers), Kingsgate Bay
(where steps makes pushchair access tricky) and the horseshoe-shaped Viking
Bay.
Prices are relatively low: you can pick up a basic one-bedroom flat in town
for about £100,000 and a four- or five-bedroom semi or detached house for
£250,000. Ancient Lights, a three-bedroom Edwardian maisonette overlooking
the pier, is on the market for £495,000 with Colebrook
Sturrock (01843 863100).
By contrast, it is difficult to buy a beachside house in Whitstable for less
than £500,000. “It’s a good bet for investment over the next five to 10
years,” Bainbridge says. Along with the rest of the Kent coast, Broadstairs
is likely to benefit from improvement in rail services from December next
year, which will see domestic services travelling at 140mph down the
high-speed track from London St Pancras to the Channel tunnel, used so far
only by the Eurostar.
7 Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk
With sweeping golden sands bordered by pine woods and 100 brightly painted
beach huts, Wells-next-the-Sea is ideal for those fond of brisk seaside
walks and good food. The town is now a mile from the North Sea, as a result
of the silting-up of the harbour, but has a long, flat beach accessible via
a narrow-gauge railway that runs part of the way alongside the mile-long sea
wall north of the harbour.
Unlike neighbouring resorts, it is also open all year round. “Wells has long
been popular with families who come here picking crabs in the summer,” says
Kevin Sisman, partner at a local agency, Belton Duffey. “But in the past
five years, more young couples have come from London for weekend fine
dining.”
Continued on page 8 Continued from page 7 Wells beach is owned by the Holkham
private estate, so there are no houses for sale with direct beach access –
but you can buy on the quayside. Belton
Duffey (01328 710666) has a three-storey cottage there, in need of
updating, for £188,000. It also has a Grade II-listed cottage in traditional
Norfolk brick and flint, with distant sea views, for £285,000. Agents say
most sellers are accepting offers of 10% off the asking price this summer.
8 Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Spa waters made Scarborough the Victorians’ resort of choice. In the past 20
years, it has been rediscovered by second-homers and retirees. The dramatist
Alan Ayckbourn lives in the old town, which, with its castle and winding
alleys, is a stone’s throw from the beach and has easy access to North and
South Bays.
“Despite the market, people are still buying here after coming on holiday and
falling in love with the place,” says Stephen Short, residential sales
manager for CPH Property Services. “Not just from Leeds and the West Riding,
but from all over the country. In the past decade, we have seen more and
more second-home owners from the south, though that is slowing down a
little.”
The old town, just half a mile from the main town, offers a mixture of
cottages, fishermen’s houses and guest-houses. Three-bedroom houses start at
£150,000; count on paying £500,000 if you want five bedrooms and sea views. CPH
Property Services has a three-bedroom, Grade II-listed house in the old
town, with views of the harbour and South Bay, for £280,000 (01723 352235).
The resort should also benefit from the multimillion-pound Sands development
on North Bay, which is nearly complete and will have luxury flats and a
hotel. Further north along the coast, near the picturesque fishing town of
Whitby, a cottage a short walk from the beach at Robin Hood’s Bay is on the
market for £295,000 with Carter
Jonas (01904 558200). The same agent is selling a Grade II-listed
Georgian townhouse in Whitby, with four bedrooms, for £460,000.
9 Morecambe Bay, Lancashire/Cumbria
Popular for its stunning sunsets and Lakeland views, Morecambe Bay is
benefiting from huge investment as more buyers move in from Manchester, east
Lancashire and the Midlands. “There are new restaurants on the promenade;
Costa Coffee has just opened; and the art-deco Midland Hotel has been
renovated, with a rooftop bar and spa,” says Peter Dowbiggin, of the local
agency GF Property Sales. “Houses that used to belong to Victorian mill
owners had been turned into grim flats and boarding houses, but these are
being updated with ensuite bedrooms to suit a modern buyer.”
Prices, though, are still fairly modest, at an average of £129,462, making
this by far the cheapest of our 10 seaside locations. Along the three-mile
stretch of promenade, four-storey Victorian terraced houses with sea views
sell for £180,000-£230,000, with detached properties going for up to
£500,000. GF Property Sales
has a three-bedroom house on Marine Drive, overlooking the bay, for £395,000
(01524 401402).
10 Tenby, Pembrokeshire
With its pastel-coloured Georgian townhouses, ruined Norman castle and
13th-century town walls, Tenby still has the charm that so attracted the
Victorians. There is also easy access to more than two miles of sandy
beaches – three of which, Tenby Castle, Tenby North and Tenby South, have
Blue Flags – because the town’s walkways were built for nannies pushing
prams.
The most prestigious properties are five-bedroom late-Regency townhouses with
sea views. “These come up for sale about once a year; you can expect to pay
from £500,000 up to £895,000 for direct sea access from the cliff,” says
Luke Rem-ington, head of sales for Tenby at FBM
(01834 842207). “The town centre is now pedestrianised in summer; there are
more cafes with tables in the street. There’s almost a Mediterranean
atmosphere, and prices have doubled in the past five years.”
A former courthouse has been transformed into OneTenby, a luxury flat
development with beach and harbour views, on sale through FBM. Prices start
at £390,900. Surfers head west to the sandy cove at Manorbier, where a
three-bed dormer cottage recently sold for £450,000. East of Tenby,
Saundersfoot is slowly shedding its candyfloss shops for upmarket boutiques. West
Wales Properties has a five-bed home there, with a summer house and sea
views, within walking distance of the sandy beach, for £460,000 (01834
845584).
Additional reporting by Emma Wells
