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Buy before property prices take off in East Kent

Buy before property prices take off in East Kent

Margate is better known for its crumbling Georgian buildings and blustery seafront, lined with derelict amusement arcades, than for its cultural cachet. But with the £17.5m Turner Contemporary art gallery set to open later this month — a modernist structure in white glass, built to reflect the special light of the north Kent coast — the town is hoping for a revival in its fortunes. As Tracey Emin, its most famous daughter, says with artistic licence: “David Chipperfield [the architect] is not just creating an art gallery there, but a phoenix that will raise Margate out of the ashes.”

Emin is well known for championing her home town in her work, but it is Thanet district council's plan to smarten up the place, for the tourists it hopes the gallery will attract, that should put Margate back on the map. The town's rock-bottom property prices should also receive a boost: this, after all, is a place where you can buy a one-bedroom flat, a couple of roads back from the seafront, for as little as £60,000.

We are seeing a 25% increase in London buyers due to the gallery and a growing art scene Turner Contemporary has generated a lot of interest in the past six months, and we are seeing a 25% increase in London buyers,” says Andrew Dickinson, director of Oakwood Homes, which specialises in Margate's attractive 18th-century old town and nearby Hawley Square, home of the resort's first luxury B&B, the Reading Rooms.

Theodora Brady, 34, a civil servant who works in Westminster and whose main home is in Brixton, south London, fell for Margate's charms when visiting friends in the area. In January, she bought a four-storey, three-bedroom townhouse in the heart of the old town for £115,000. With her husband, Michael, 33, a lawyer, she spends every weekend there, as well as holidays.

“Margate's lovely Georgian architecture really attracted me,” she says, “as well as the lovely beaches in the area and great restaurants. There is also the gallery and a growing art scene.”

Oakwood Homes is marketing a four-storey, three-bedroom house on Duke Street, in the old town, for £285,000. Set over four floors, it has a 23ft kitchen/diner and a garage (01843 221133, oakwoodhomes.biz).

If Margate is still too gritty, there are plenty of other options in the area, from the Regency splendour of Ramsgate, round past the sandy beaches of Deal towards the bleak shingle of Dungeness. Compared with the beautiful, if overpriced, coastal hot spots of Devon and Cornwall, the towns of north and east Kent “have not been a terribly fashionable place to buy”, concedes Simon Backhouse, associate partner in the Canterbury office of Strutt & Parker estate agency. But he insists that this is changing. “The advent of the high-speed rail link is slowly turning what has been seen as a distant, unloved backwater into an accessible and keenly priced area to live.”

In December 2009, the launch of Southeastern's services from London St Pancras to Ashford and parts of the Kent coast slashed up to 50 minutes off many journeys. Margate and Broadstairs are now less than 1hr 30min from the capital, Ramsgate and Herne Bay just under 1hr 20min at peak times.

Here's Home's pick of the best of the rest of Kent's 350-mile coastline.

Whitstable
This harbour town, as little as 1hr 11min from St Pancras, has long been a favourite with seafood-loving Londoners, earning it the nickname Islington-on-Sea. The summer oyster festival adds to its appeal, as do the burgeoning arts scene and the weatherboarded fisherman's cottages.

While many just pop down for the day, others bought during the boom years, sending the market soaring. Five-bedroom clifftop homes still go for up to £1.2m, but prices are beginning to fall back, says Martin Jordan, director of the Canterbury office of Chesterton Humberts estate agency, which covers the whole Kent coastline. “There is great value,” he says, “especially if you look for somewhere without sea views.”

A three-bedroom cottage on Albert Street, in the conservation area near the harbour, with original floorboards and slate hearth, has just been reduced from £240,000 to £235,000 (Harvey, Richards & West; 01227 771196, hrwest.co.uk).

Herne Bay
A 15-minute drive to the east, Herne Bay has a smart seafront, with a modern pier and a colourful rank of beach huts. It's a world away from Whitstable's chic eateries, but, says Karrina Oki, head of new homes for the southeast at Strutt & Parker: “It's an up-and-coming area, as more Londoners head here for weekend retreats next to the coast.” It's also more affordable. In the converted Georgian Marine House, the agency has five one- to three-bedroom flats with sea views, from £175,000 to £360,000 (01227 473718, struttandparker.co.uk).

Broadstairs
Between Margate and Ramsgate, with its quaint chalk-clifftop town, lies the seaside resort of Broadstairs, where Charles Dickens spent summers. It is best known today for its seven golden bays — many of them with Blue Flag beaches — including Viking Bay, Joss Bay, Botany Bay and Kingsgate Bay. Around them is a wide range of property, from new-build waterside flats (starting at about £250,000 for two-bedders) to 1930s five-bedroom houses (from about £500,000).

“We sell 60% of our properties to out-of-towners,” says James Painter, general manager of Terence Painter Properties (01843 866866, terencepainter.co.uk), who is based in Broadstairs. “They'll often start with a smaller apartment, then trade up to something bigger, or even move down permanently. It's highly commutable and the lifestyle is appealing.”

Painter is selling a two-bedroom top-floor flat in a period sea-front building on Victoria Parade, with views over Viking Bay, for £285,000.

 Ramsgate
A 10-minute drive south, Ramsgate has begun to gentrify in recent years, recovering some of its former splendour. “In some lights it really does resemble Monaco harbour,” says Martin Jordan, of Chesterton Humberts, a little optimistically. You can pick up a renovated two-bedroom flat with sea views for about £150,000, but demand for large Georgian houses is high.

In the sought-after conservation area of Vale Square, a short walk from the bar and cafe scene around the Royal Harbour and marinas, Fine & Country is selling a completely refurbished Grade II-listed, Victorian semi-detached house with five bedrooms for £565,000 (01227 479317, fineandcountry.com).

Deal
The quirky town of Deal, 13 miles further down the coast, offers a Tudor castle, a cluster of organic stores and row after row of pretty Georgian houses. A recent makeover, centred on its impressive pebble beach, has added to the trendy feel — the boutique and luxury hotel specialist Mr & Mrs Smith has singled out Hector's Apartments, in a converted Victorian seafront villa.

Seeing an opportunity, Anthony Emmerson, 35, a mortgage broker, bought a Victorian house on Deal Castle Road last April, with a business partner, for “less than £300,000”. The pair gutted and renovated the property, which had been converted into four flats, with the help of a local interior designer. They are now selling the two two-bedroom flats and two one-bedders for £150,000 to £190,000 through Bright & Bright (01304 374071, brightandbright.co.uk).

“We wanted to bring a modern residence into the town, to meet demand from younger residents and holiday makers,” Emmerson says. “Deal has been pegged as the new Brighton, but it still has its old English seaside resort feel. We're really excited about it.”

Sandgate
Less than an hour from St Pancras and a short drive from the Channel tunnel terminal, from where crossings to France take about 35 minutes, Sandgate covers a 1½-mile stretch of coast. Here, Strutt & Parker is marketing two contemporary homes, both with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, for £320,000 each. There is access to the beach through a landscaped communal garden (01227 451123, struttandparker.co.uk). For something grander, Grade II-listed Grafton Cottage, on Sandgate Esplanade, has panoramic sea views and is on the market for £795,000 through Knight Frank (01892 515035, knightfrank.co.uk).

Greatstone-on-sea
Between a nature reserve and the English Channel, 14 miles from the East Sussex town of Rye, lies this largely undeveloped village. Its dunes, leading down to a sandy beach, are lined with smart renovated houses, as well as unloved shacks waiting to be snapped up and refurbed. The BBC radio DJ Liz Kershaw bought a dilapidated three-bedroom home there for £190,000 six years ago, after spotting a for-sale sign while on a caravan holiday.

“I can't think of anywhere else in the country where you can walk out of your kitchen doors straight onto a quiet beach, with views from the White Cliffs of Dover round to Dungeness, and even France on a clear day,” says Kershaw, 52, who has a show on 6 Music. Based in Northamptonshire, she uses the house as a holiday home, having spent about £130,000 extending it in both directions to make four bedrooms and an open-plan living area. “I love getting up in the morning and going out in my nightie with a coffee to sit on the sand dunes.”

Unsurprisingly, she has no plans to sell, but Geering & Colyer has a six-bedroom house, backing onto the dunes, for £385,000 (01797 363194, geeringandcolyer.co.uk).

Dungeness
Just four miles on lies the Dungeness estate, famous for its nuclear power station and Derek Jarman's witty “atomic” garden. But it has much more to offer. Not only is it one of the sunniest parts of the British Isles, its huge expanse of shingle beach and dunes is home to a unique variety of plants, under dazzling skies that were painted by Turner. And, among the cottages and beach shacks, there are still plenty of opportunities to create a dream home away from the stresses of city life.

Five years ago, Richard Newman, a film-maker, and his wife, Sara, an interior designer, bought a property made up of two old railway carriages, mounted on sleepers and extended, for about £110,000. “It was a rickety, run-down old place, but we immediately loved it,” Newman says. “When you look out of the back door, it's a 180-degree view of sea, just an hour and a half's drive from east London, where we are based.”

The couple, both 39, set about creating a second home for themselves and their children, Calypso, 6, and Emerson, 3. “We rebuilt the whole place,” Newman says, “although we kept the carriages and had to paint it white, according to planning rules.”

The house has been opened up, with three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen/diner and nursery, and decorated with inherited and second-hand furniture, seashells and Sara's murals and embroidered sketches (saranewmandesign.com). Newman uses the house to write midweek; the family come for weekends and holidays. “And the power station is beautiful at night,” he insists. “It's part of the charm of the place.”

By EmmaWells and Elizabeth Colman

The Sunday Times

3 April 2011