Why house prices on the Holderness peninsula near Hull have suddenly boomed

The location has certainly brought much joy to Linda, who also used it as inspiration for the colours in her own brand of eco-friendly paints, www.lindabarkerpaints.com: “A lot of people don’t realise that Holderness exists. They think everything stops at Hull but there’s another 20 miles to go and that’s where we are. I love the quietness and the wildness of it and it doesn’t get any wilder than Spurn Point, at the end of the peninsula,” she says.

Hilary Pegrum, of Blenkin and Co. estate agents, agrees. She too was “blown away” by the wide, low lying finger of land that sits between the Humber and the North Sea, stretching from just outside Hull down to coastal towns and villages, including Withernsea, Hornsea and Easington.

Hilary had travelled to visit Enholmes Hall in Patrington, on the market for £1.5m, which featured in Property Post recently. She describes Holderness as having an “otherness” about it and it has been said that this largely rural, flat stretch of rich agricultural land has more in common with the Netherlands than with other parts of Yorkshire.

While its seaside resorts are busy in summer, the villages inland are generally peaceful year round, not least because Holderness is served by just two “A” roads.

“It is a wonderful, profoundly rural area that has been largely overlooked and its seclusion and relative isolation will be viewed by many as its greatest asset in the post Covid era,” says Hilary. “For people who want to get away from it all, it is one of the remaining corners of Britain where you can do that and yet Hull is half an hour away. There are very few places like it.”

Judging by Rightmove data the area is creeping onto the radar of buyers. House prices in Holderness rocketed by 18 per cent last year, almost double the average 10 per cent in Yorkshire. However, the average price of a home there is £199,185, still lower than the Yorkshire average of £219,820.

This comes as no surprise to Karen Goodwin of Goodwin Fox estate agents, which is based in Withernsea. She says: “Our area traditionally attracts retirement buyers. However, with more people able to work from home, we have found more family buyers moving into our area. We have seen an uplift of 30 per cent in property sales since the market reopened in May.”

She puts the double figure price rise down to supply and demand with stock levels at an all-time low. “People have reevaluated their lives. Some have had a taste of what retirement is like and have decided to sell their property in more expensive areas to buy a nice house here at a lesser cost. This enables them to release a lump sum to live on until their pensions kick in, enabling them to retire early.

Karen adds that buyers who have moved abroad are also coming back to the UK and find Holderness affordable. Hotspots include pretty Patrington, which is a well-served village with a host of amenities, and anywhere on the coast though buyers must take note of coastal erosion.

Goodwin Fox has a two-bedroom terraced house on Waxholme Road in Withernsea for £117,000. It has a garden and sea views at £117,000. In Whitby, it would be almost triple the price.

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