Seaside towns in Devon and Cornwall remain among the most expensive places to live in the UK and have seen an inexorable rise in house prices, a new study has shown.
According to the Halifax, Salcombe in South Devon remains the most expensive place to purchase a little slice of seaside life. Meanwhile St Mawes and Perranporth, in Cornwall, have made it onto the top 10 list of fastest rising house prices.
Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, said: "Seaside towns are highly popular places to live.
"They offer a unique lifestyle with a typically high quality of life and a healthy environment and as a result, living by the coast can come at a price."
Despite the popularity of living on the coast, seaside towns are still relatively affordable compared with average house prices across England and Wales.
Prices across the country generally are 17% higher than the typical price of £197,938 for a house by the sea, according to Halifax, which used Land Registry sales figures.
In a top ten of the seaside towns with the biggest house price increases in England and Wales over the last decade, the lovely Roseland port of St Mawes, was fourth where an average house costs £369,224, which is an increase of 115% over the last 10 years.
Surfers paradise Perranporth was eighth on the list, where an average houses fetches £262,113, a 104% increase over the same period.
The Halifax index of the most expensive seaside resorts to purchase bricks and mortar has seen Salcombe nudge glitzy millionaires' playground Sandbanks out of the top spot. An average house in the South Devon town costs £570,378, around £50,000 more than the Dorset town.
Padstow took fourth spot, with an average house costing £386,261. St Mawes was fifth and Fowey sixth, with an average house costing £369,224 and £342,577 respectively.
Dartmouth in Devon was eighth in the rankings, following by Wadebridge in Cornwall and Budleigh Salterton where average house prices cost £335,956, £333,897 and £330,436 in that order.
According to the Halifax study, the least expensive places to live by the sea are all in the north of England, with Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, being the cheapest where a average house costs £81,442, and where seven houses could be snapped up for the price of one in Salcombe.
