Spectator Life

Offering a choice of three stunning coastlines, historic villages and dozens of wine-making regions France has long been one of our favourite places to buy a holiday home. Queen Victoria loved Nice, Noel Coward adored Cap Ferrat and the ‘old’ French Riviera between Toulon and Hyères features in the new Downtown Abbey film out next month, with Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess enjoying a Belle Epoque holiday home there. Our nearest neighbour has remained a popular choice during the pandemic because it’s really the only feasible place to drive to, and Brittany, Normandy and the Loire have seen an uptick in demand from British buyers less keen on flying.

That Essex County Council is spending £300,000 on an advertising campaign to rehabilitate its reputation can’t come as a surprise. The only surprise is that it didn’t think to do it before – or that somehow they believe £300,000 is enough to turn the tide. As far as I can tell, £300,000 won’t touch the sides. And in a strange way, I'm glad. Because Essex, as Britain's most underrated county, is something of an undiscovered haven for ex Londoners like me. Don’t believe me? Let’s do a test: if I say the word ‘Essex’ to you, what images come to mind? The cast of Birds of a Feather, perhaps? The boy band Bros, a Mark III Ford Escort and perhaps Sir Alan Sugar?

Being Henry VIII’s confessor must have been a nerve-racking job, but it’s one John Longland – who also held the titles Dean of Salisbury and Bishop of Lincoln, and was thus a major ecclesiastical figure of the Tudor era – held with aplomb. Although he was closely associated with influential men (and bigger names) such as Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, his role in one of the most turbulent chapters in British history has secured his legacy, and given him a walk-on part in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, as well as many a modern-day small screen bodice-ripper.

Hands up if you’ve ever had your house decorated and strategically placed a couple of empty tins of Farrow & Ball Dead Salmon on the doorstep so the neighbours appreciate your excellent taste. It happens a lot, says Henry Prideaux, a London-based interior designer who agrees that a certain kind of paint brand, 'can appeal for a variety of reasons, whether it is for its environmental credentials, ease of use, or value for money. Sometimes though, it’s a case of keeping up with the Joneses and impressing your friends by using the best and most expensive.' At £52 for a 2.5L tin, it's clear that Farrow & Ball has become a dictum for a certain kind of smug.

Back in the day, saving for your first home used to be a bit of a doddle. Find a nice savings account paying 5 or 6 per cent, stick away as much as you can every month, and, within a few years, head for the estate agents.  Talk of a ten-year slog to get on the housing ladder and using the stock market to build up your deposit was unheard of. But that was then. Kirstie Allsopp provoked controversy earlier this week by saying she felt 'enraged' when young people claimed they couldn't afford their first home because 'there are loads of people who can do but don't.' But is it merely a case of cutting back on life's luxuries?  In such a tough financial climate, it would be tempting to see investing as a magic wand that can conjure up the keys for that longed-for first home.

Wiltshire’s property prices have been given a shot in the arm during the pandemic. It’s one of those desirable rural locations that has suddenly became even more popular as we have veered from daily commuting towards flexible working. Historic towns such as Salisbury, Marlborough and Warminster have been perennial favourites but are attracting buyers looking for more bedrooms (and larger gardens) for their buck, with the low-key villages of bucolic areas such as the Vale of Pewsey and Nadder Valley in demand. 'Buyers who previously might have been looking in Oxfordshire and Hampshire are now looking at Wiltshire where prices are typically 25-30 per cent less,' says Mark Lawson of the Buying Solution, a property search agent.

All the best houses can be found on Rightmove, right? Well, actually no. Increasing numbers of properties are being sold 'off-market' in an environment where there’s very little supply and a range of motivated buyers. How can you access these properties if you’re looking to move and how can you avoid getting stung? There are some interesting misconceptions about the way the property market, particularly the residential market, in the UK works. Understanding the competing forces is wise in such a competitive market. Many forget that the role of an estate agent is to look after the interests of the seller, not the buyer. When you see a property online or via an estate agent, they’re showing you what they have on their books.

The preponderance of publicity over the last 24 months exhorting Londoners to abandon ship has left some areas of the capital looking like relative bargains or at least lagging behind widely hyped price rises elsewhere in the UK. Indeed, the average property price in Cambridge is now higher than that of the capital. Anecdotally, the stress of moving under duress has meant a significant number of those recently ‘lost’ have now returned to areas like Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham. Many buyers have rented for a time in order to attempt a rural purchase before deciding to return. According to data from propertymark, there were an average of 29 buyers for every available property in December, meaning many house searches no doubt ended in vain.

Bracing sea air, walks along windswept dunes and early-morning dips in the surf …living by the seaside can be just the tonic for mind, body and soul. What’s more, with greater opportunities for remote working, it’s in vogue. According to the agent Knight Frank, the sale of coastal homes increased 19 per cent over the five-year average, in 2021 with the biggest increase in south-east England: 217 per cent. With Sussex spanning the lion’s share of the south coast, it’s often the go-to spot for movers and second-home owners from London, with train journeys between 60 and 90 minutes. But whether you seek sailing, peaceful beaches or the buzz of a bucket-and-spade resort, where to choose?

Life in the world’s newest republic is sweet. It’s peak season in Barbados, and another wave of Covid hasn’t stopped the rum sundowners flowing on the Caribbean island’s sugar-sand beaches. Given half the chance, many of us might well prefer to spend January wafting between beachfront restaurants and sun loungers, as the packed front-end of planes heading there during December have proved. Many of the island’s predominantly British holiday home owners have been heading to their properties on the West Coast of the island – and there will be no doubt a few villas changing hands too.

It takes a lot to put the British off buying a bolthole on the Continent. Not even the twin headwinds of the pandemic and Brexit have deterred some determined sun-seeking buyers over the past year, for whom endless chilly staycations don’t cut the mustard. There is no doubt some people who had planned to buy in southern Europe have purchased in Cornwall instead in in recent months but that has had the effect of driving up prices in UK coastal hot spots even more, highlighting the affordability of places such as Brittany. For the Anglo-French estate agency Leggett Immobilier, the biggest areas for British buyers this year have been Normandy, Brittany and the Loire Valley.

There’s nothing new about having a London pied à terre. For many based in the country yet working in the city having a ‘flat in town’ is a matter of convenience, whilst for those seeking to enjoy theatre trips or other metropolitan pleasures, it’s rather a luxury. Yet it’s been an increasingly expensive to acquire one since April 2016 when a stamp duty surcharge on second homes added an extra three per cent to each tax band, and when last year’s coronavirus lockdown made everyone flee to the country, flats in the capital were cast off rather than coveted. But what a difference a year can make. With the daily commute having partly revived for many, an appetite for metropolitan life regained, demand has shifted back towards London.

The pale honey-coloured Georgian terraces and elegantly colonnaded streets of Bath have seen a busy year. In the summer the crew for the Netflix Regency romance Bridgerton flew into town to film the second season of the hit series, whilst in October the Grand Parade was transformed into a winter wonderland for the forthcoming Warner Bros film, Wonka. A dream for film-makers, the compact Somerset city has also been a magnet for Londoners continuing to decamp for a new life within its World Heritage walls. Whilst the first wave of the pandemic induced rural exodus saw a rush for the coveted villages on its fringes, this year townhouses and flats have been in demand as we voraciously rediscover café culture and the small-city buzz.

Should homebuyers have to pay a higher rate of stamp duty if the property they are buying has a low energy rating? After all, motorists already pay a higher rate of road tax if they are buying a new car with high fuel consumption. The stamp duty idea has been advanced by a trade body called the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, which takes the example of a two bedroom end-of-terrace property with an agreed sale price of £250,000. At present, the buyers would pay stamp duty of £2500 (or zero if they were first time buyers). Under the new system they would pay £847 if the property had an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of A, rising to £4796 if it had a rating of E.

When designer, poet, novelist and social activist William Morris told members of a Birmingham arts society in 1880 to ‘have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,’ he unwittingly inspired legions of modern-day home influencers. Marie Kondo exhorts her acolytes to only own things that ‘spark joy’, minimalist Joshua Becker leads the way in radical decluttering, and Netflix star duo’s The Home Edit tames unruly celebrity spaces. But Morris, widely credited as the godfather of the Arts and Crafts movement, did it arguably more eloquently than anyone else.

It was never my intention to buy an eco-friendly home. However, when I purchased my house, two years ago, it had solar panels on the roof, insulation built into its walls, underfloor heating and a range of features designed to reduce energy consumption. Indeed, there’s no doubt that my energy bills have been lower. I find I'm not turning the heating on as often, even when it’s freezing outside. I have been able to keep the thermostat on low. In square footage terms, it’s just a bit larger than my previous abode. Yet, the energy bills are half.  The fact that energy efficient homes cost less to run should be reflected in the price. Except, in reality, that’s not the case.

We’re forever reading about the transformative power of infrastructure projects. As house hunters contend with the lottery of which project is actually going to break ground, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned from Crossrail. Since Gordon Brown approved the plans in 2008 and building work began a year later, research from agent Benham & Reeves indicates postcodes with a Crossrail station show rises 17 per cent higher than surroundings, with some centrally placed stations adding over 140 per cent. Hamptons International investigated projections in 2012 that prices of properties close to Crossrail stations would rise by 25 per cent by 2021.

With their private jets and gas-guzzling mansions, delegates at Cop26 have been widely criticised for an elitist attitude towards the environment. Nothing better demonstrates the gulf between policymakers and ordinary people than over the charging points for electric cars. It is one thing to install a home charging point for your car if you own a large house up a crunchy gravel driveway – indeed, according to the property website Rightmove, owners of such properties have been fitting charging points with great enthusiasm, with a 541 per cent increase in the number of homes being advertised with such a facility over the past year. But what do you do if you live in one of the 43 per cent of homes which do not have off-street parking?

The heart breaking story of the Luton vicar who had his house recently ‘stolen’ from him by fraudsters has rightly touched a nerve with property owners everywhere. The horror of arriving at your own home to find your keys no longer work in the lock and the house now legally belongs to someone else might seem like a rare experience.  But unfortunately it's more common than anyone might imagine. Indeed the first time I can remember it happening was in the early 80s and involved a house in one of the most expensive streets in London and a foreign Princess. The major problem with investigating, let alone reporting, this sort of fraud is that victims and their advisors, be they estate agents or solicitors, are loathe to ‘fess up.

Those still contemplating an exit from the big smoke will no doubt be eyeing up the well-worn path down the M3 to Winchester and, beyond it, Bournemouth. Winchester notched up one of the highest levels of population growth in the south last year – more than Guildford and other popular areas of Surrey: a phenomenon that has no doubt been expedited this year as increasing numbers of house buyers look to the South.  Winchester has often featured in lists of the best places to live in the UK. Large enough to be considered a city with all the services, culture, and connections that entails, it offers house hunters a pleasing compromise between urban convenience and rural charm. Plus it's 1 hour 23 minutes to London on the train.

Year after year, Oxford and Cambridge vie with other world universities for coveted top dog status. Unsurprisingly for such a concentration of brainpower, science and tech industries have blossomed in both cities over the past two decades, bringing with them an influx of young professionals on the look out for houses. Both are within an hour of London with good links of their own into the capital. What has been missing, however, is a strong transport link between the two. As anyone who has done battle with the M25 or, worse, the maze of roundabouts surrounding Milton Keynes, will tell you, travelling between Oxford and Cambridge is far from straightforward, even by road.

According to the latest forecast from estate agents Hamptons, a second wave of property demand could keep house prices rising by up to 3.4 per cent a year between 2022 and 2024. Now that the pandemic is moving into our rear-view mirror, it seems many buyers are still plotting a move from the city. If you’re not going into your office every day, you might be forgiven for thinking that you can cut ties with London completely. As the great city reawakens post-Covid, you should think again. Its vibrancy, shops, history, world class cuisine and incredible arts and culture should still be the guiding light of any property search - even if it is simply to make sure that you can still reach the capital by train. With that in mind, why not follow the two-hour rule?

With its elaborate castellated pediment, arched and oriel bay widows, three round towers and snowy-white stucco façade, Hunter’s Lodge, in affluent Belsize Park, is anything but your average North West London home. Throw into the mix 500 years of history, the untimely demise of a British prime minister, scandalous royal shindigs and a recent, lavish three-year-restoration project providing a basement spa, glass-walled champagne cellar and cigar room, and this Georgian gothic revival castle makes for all-round drama.

I'm not quite sure what the average age of Spectator readers is, but for many a pink floating pig is their abiding memory of Battersea Power Station. Since 1983, when it stopped producing energy, there have been many unfulfilled promises and dreams for the building. I went inside it back then and it was immense. So vast and bleak was the space that the majority of Londoners simply couldn’t envisage anything happening there. 30 years of will it, won’t it, were brought to an end ten years ago when current shareholders SP Setia, Sime Darby Property and the Employers Provident Fund acquired it and started to make good on their vision.

Queen Victoria famously described William Gladstone as a 'half-mad firebrand' who 'addresses me as if I were a public meeting.' The monarch reluctantly put up with the Liberal politician as her prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894, while considering him – among many other things – 'arrogant, tyrannical and obstinate.' Quite what she made of George Warren, the 2nd Baron de Tabley, who Gladstone appointed as her Treasurer of the Household at the start of his first term as premier, is unclear – but we do know he quit his job monitoring the widowed, querulous and reclusive monarch’s finances on behalf of Parliament two years before Gladstone’s electoral defeat of 1874.