Online House Hunter: South Lakeland’s home win

Woodside: A four-bedroom property for sale in the south Lakes

THERE is never any shortage of news stories arising from some fresh interpretation of data from the housing market. And the latest is an interesting set of facts from the research team at Halifax.

They looked at house prices in council areas around the UK since the housing boom of 2007. Surprisingly they found only two that had seen a rise in the value of houses: Rochford in Essex and South Lakeland in Cumbria.

Even these showed rises of only one per cent (Rochford) and 0.1 per cent (South Lakeland). The explanation was put down to retired folk and second/holiday home hunters. Certainly South Lakeland – which covers Kendal, Ulverston, Windermere and Grange-over-Sands is popular with both. The Lake District is popular with walkers, climbers, lovers of the countryside and thsoe just looking for a quiet life. It was also very popular with lovers of water-sports but a 10mph speed limit on Windermere snuffed out that economic lifeline! The purchase of second/holiday homes has distorted the make-up of some of the communities and the battle continues to somehow make local homes affordable for local young people.

But I’m afraid you only have to see some of the chocolate-box cottages for sale in the beautiful Lake District to understand why so many fall in love with the romance of a holiday or retirement in Beatrix Potter country. And with the M6 just a short dual-carriageway journey away, you can return to the ‘real’ world very quickly. The property pictured above is Woodside, a four-bedroom stone cottage between Kendal and Windermere which is on the market for £595,000. Also in the village of Ings, is this seven-bedroom gentleman’s residence which is on the market for £950,000. The Independent property search engine details a number of properties alongside the edge of Windermere itself. The A591 links up with Kendal which is the nearest town to the M6. And while Kendal has no lake it certainly has plenty of stunning views and stunning properties.

USEFUL LINKS:

• Independent property search engine
• Independent House & Home section
• Independent: Good news in two areas
• Properties for sale in Kendal
• Properties for sale in Windermere
• Properties for sale in Rochford
• South Lakeland Council
• Rochford District Council
• And finally if you want to see how the value of your home is doing: The Halifax House Price calculator

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