Region home to some of UK’s cheapest seaside housing

According to high street bank Halifax, all of the 10 most expensive seaside towns are in the South West, with Sandbanks in Dorset leading the way with average property values of £532,652, followed by Padstow in Cornwall at £381,916.

Wadebridge and Fowey, both also in Cornwall, and Lymington in Hampshire, complete the top five most expensive seaside towns.

Outside of southern England, the Mumbles in Swansea has the highest house prices, with homes valued at around £263,494, followed by Tenby at £229,690 and Alnwick in Northumberland at £220,228.

But not all seaside towns command high prices, with properties in Withernsea in the East Riding valued at an average of just £99,153, while homes in Fleetwood, Lancashire cost only £102,908, and those in the traditional resort of Blackpool average £111,003.

Overall, house prices in seaside towns in England and Wales have soared by 128 per cent since 2001, with seven out of 10 towns seeing greater increases in property values than for the country as a whole, Halifax said.

Wadebridge in Cornwall has seen the biggest gains, with house prices more than tripling in the past 10 years, from an average of £100,406 to £370,902.

It is followed by Maryport in the Lake District, with average property values jumping 192 per cent to £119,604, while in Tenby in Wales they have risen by 186 per cent.

Six of the top 10 seaside towns that have seen the biggest gains since 2001 are in the North or Wales, with three in the South West and one in East Anglia.

Nitesh Patel, housing economist at Halifax, said: “Seaside towns have always been popular places to live, but they have perhaps become even more so in recent years. This is certainly true if we take house prices as an indicator of desirability.

“Seaside towns have a distinct advantage over urban areas in offering that all important sea view, and they typically have a high quality of life and a healthy environment.

“There is a romance associated with living by the sea and this is evident in the high house prices seen in many of these areas.”

However, in terms of seaside property as an investment, Yorkshire did not feature in a table of the top places to buy.

The rankings in the seaside buy-to-let market, compiled by property website Globrix.com, showed that Plymouth was the most profitable place to invest based on rental returns.

Properties there raked in a 6.51 per cent rental yield and cost an average of £135,412, while average prices in Portsmouth were £164,464, but still returned a favourable 5.86 per cent average rental yield. Blackpool was third, with a rental yield of 5.14 per cent, making it the most profitable in the North. It has average prices of £105,387.

Jennifer Warner, from Globrix.com, said: “Our results reveal that buyers are more likely to get a good return on their investment if they buy in the larger seaside towns on the South Coast and in south Wales, where regeneration money has poured in over the past decade or so.

“With the exception of Blackpool, towns in the North are notable by their absence from our list and there’s a complete lack of towns from the North East, such as Whitby, Scarborough or Bridlington.”