Britain's most desirable home: why it's probably not what you'd expect

"Name: Britain's most desirable home. Age: Newly crowned. Appearance: Let's go with deceptively spacious. Deceptively spacious? But that's estate agent code for tiny. That's because the home in question is not as big as you'd have thought. It's a fairly ordinary-sized detached house in the Welsh countryside. Pencader, Carmarthenshire, to be precise. What's the sell? Well, it has two bedrooms, although you could partition off the landing to create a third if you wanted. It costs 230,000 40,000 less than the average British home."

"But hang on, people don't just flock to property listings because the houses are desirable. No, I know. They flock to them because they're horribly decorated, famous in some capacity (the most popular listing across Zoopla's social media was a terrace home in Barry, which belonged to Doris from Gavin & Stacey) or the scene of a recent crime. But in this case, it really does seem that people just want to live somewhere affordable and rural. Boring!"

Zoopla data show a fairly ordinary two-bedroom detached house in Pencader, Carmarthenshire, attracted more views than any other listing this year. The house is priced at 230,000, about 40,000 less than the average British home, and offers the option to partition the landing into a third bedroom. Zoopla estimates approximately 1.15m sales by the end of 2025, up 4.5% year-on-year. Listing views are often driven by unusual decor, fame, or recent crimes, but in this case affordability and rural location appear to explain popularity. Other highly viewed properties include a six-bedroom villa near Glasgow Prestwick airport and a 75,000 studio in Strathy Point lighthouse.

Read at www.theguardian.com