Mapped: the designer villages where house prices are over £1 million
06-12-2016
A classic car in Chobham, a village in Surrey where average asking prices are over £1m Credit: Julian Andrews
By Isabelle Fraser
Who wants to be a property millionaire? As house prices continue to rocket, particularly in the commuter belt, more village residents are winning.
Below is a map of the 64 villages where asking prices are more than £1 million between October 2015 and May 2016. Click on each dot to reveal the village and the average asking price.
This year, eight villages in Essex, Surrey, Greater Manchester, Hertfordshire and Hampshire, have joined the so-called “Millionaires’ Club”, where average asking prices, recorded by Rightmove, have leapfrogged the £1 million mark.
The new eight include Chobham in Surrey; Chorleywood, Digswell and Tewin, all in Hertfordshire; Downham and Theydon Bois in Essex; Froyle in Hampshire; and Hale Barns in Greater Manchester.
“They are unspoilt retreats in the countryside, but they are accessible as well”
John Fisher, Sotheby's
The villages join 185 others that all have average asking prices of over £1 million, although some of this number may have been dragged up by a few high-value sales.
Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, says: “Established residents of these new millionaire villages have seen their houses increase in value rapidly over the past few years.
"Many have been helped by the appeal of being within commuting distance of London, and others boosted by people cashing in on London prices, tempted by a bigger house in the country.”
It’s no mystery why so many of the millionaire hotpots are in the South East.
The Home Counties benefit from the ripple effect from London as growing families get priced out of the capital, and there is often a supply and demand issue says Fionnuala Earley, residential research director at Hamptons International.
“The common denominator with places like this is their proximity to trains and roads,” explains John Fisher, head of the Sotheby’s UK country office. “They are unspoilt retreats in the countryside, but they are accessible as well.”
Hampshire
Froyle sits near the Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire borders, near pricey Farnham and amid unruined, rolling countryside. Comprised of Upper and Lower Froyle, it has a new gastropub, a village hall, an annual fete, and a gardening club, with excellent road connections to Guildford and Winchester. Ed Cunningham of Knight Frank Hampshire says that it hadn’t been tapped into for many years.
Golden Cottage in Froyle, being sold by Ann Clark for £550,000 through Knight Frank
“The village has traditionally been home to an older generation, with a slow turnover of properties, until recently when there has been a surge of new families from London, injecting more money into the area, renovating the old period houses.” Prices start from £700,000 for a cottage, rising to almost £3 million for a huge manor house.
“It’s been ‘Londonified’ in a nice villagey sense,” he adds. Ann Clarke, a charity worker who has lived in Froyle for more than 30 years, is selling Golden Cottage for £550,000. She describes Froyle as a “very well kept secret”, with a big sense of community and good work-life balance, with the added bonus that on the one-hour commute into London you are guaranteed a seat.
Hertfordshire
Chorleywood in Rickmansworth, and Tewin and Digswell, both just outside Welwyn Garden City, have all joined the club, and outpaced the county’s average house price at £329,542.
They are all around a 30-minute train journey from London, and have benefited from the ripple effect, all seeing huge price rises of more than £670,000 since 2010.
An Edwardian home in Chorleywood, Herts, on the market for £4.25m with Savills
William Furniss of Knight Frank in Beaconsfield says aside from the very easy connections into the capital, Chorleywood’s “small but proper high street and very wide range of housing” means that it has “something for everyone”.
“It’s often voted one of the happiest places to live in the country – because it’s a very easy commute, and at the end of it there are leafy lanes, green space and it is surrounded by the Chilterns,” he says.
Surrey
Chobham is the latest Surrey village to enter the list, joining Oxshott, near Leatherhead, the priciest village in Britain, with an average of £2,204,174. Just north of Woking, Chobham is a beneficiary of the ripple effect from expensive Surrey, says Fisher. “People are going to Chobham and seeing value. It’s the old story that once one place becomes too expensive, it pushes up its neighbours.”
Essex
The East of England has the second-fastest-growing house prices in Britain after London, according to Rightmove. One new eastern entrant into the millionaires’ club is Theydon Bois, a village near Epping which is on the Central line. You can be in the City in 30 minutes, and it will be on the Night Tube by autumn.
Average asking prices have climbed over £400,000 in the last five years, from £620,039 in 2011 to £1,021,260 in 2016. A Victorian cottage overlooking the village green, complete with a large duck pond, is around £700,000.
A house in Theydon Bois, Essex, on the market for £4.2m with Savills
David Bloomfield, head of Savills in Loughton, says that average prices have been pushed up by a few big Victorian villas which go for more than £2 million, but it remains an affordable option for commuters and Londoners seeking more value for money than in places such as Hackney and Islington.
“Essex is an insular county. Usually Essex people buy and sell in Essex because there is a bit of an image problem, from shows like The Only Way Is Essex.” In Downham, near Billericay, properties rocketed from a relatively conservative £662,067 in 2010 to £1,112,071 in 2016.
“Essex is an insular county. Usually Essex people buy and sell in Essex because there is a bit of an image problem, from shows like The Only Way Is Essex”
David Bloomfield, Savills
Stephen White, head of the Savills Chelmsford office, says Downham is “a leafy area surrounded by farmland and ideal for equestrian enthusiasts as there’s a good riding school close by and lots of bridleways”. Billericay is also just a 30-minute train ride into London’s Liverpool Street station.
“Downham is also adjacent to Stock, which is one of the most expensive villages in Essex, so those who might be priced out of Stock will look to Downham,” says White.
Greater Manchester
The only new northern entrant into the club is Hale Barns, historically part of Cheshire and now within the Manchester border. It joins nearby Mottram St Andrew, Nether and Over Alderley and Ringway near Altrincham.
In Hale Barns, house prices slipped over the £1 million mark, with prices hovering just below since 2010. It went from £953,305 in 2010 to £1,096,630 in 2016. Hale Barns is rising up thanks to “the power of Manchester and its ripple effect”, says Fisher. “And you’ve always had Cheshire money.”
A modern house in Hale Barns, on the market for £3.25m with Jackson Stops & Staff
The ‘golden triangle’ of Wilmslow, Alderley Edge and Prestbury has long been a haunt of footballers, their WAGs and other affluent types, who brought with them chic boutiques and restaurants.
But the popularity of this area is also down to “its proximity to the airport and the M56, which takes you very quickly to Manchester,” adds Fisher.
Crispin Harris, director at Jackson-Stops & Staff’s Wilmslow branch, says the Cheshire market has remained reasonably buoyant since the economic downturn, with house prices outperforming the county