Price of being beside the seaside doubles since 2019 to hit £50,000
BEACH hut prices are rising faster than houses with the average now costing more than £50,000, analysis has shown.
Owners have made huge profits on their huts after demand for properties near the sea soared during the pandemic.
The average asking price has risen by almost £11,000, or 28 per cent, in the past year and stands at £50,336, according to property website Rightmove. This surge has dwarfed the increase in average property prices – which climbed by 10 per cent in the same period.
Prices have almost doubled since 2019, when the average hut went on the market for just £25,999. Desperate buyers looking for a beach hut have been locked into bidding wars over the properties.
Demand for the roughly 20,000 beach huts in Britain soared thanks to years of foreign travel restrictions and lockdowns – even though overnight stays in the huts are often prohibited and many do not have electricity or toilet facilities. The number of beach huts has remained static for years as archaic laws limit how many can be added alongside the coast – with the scarcity factor boosting prices.
Tim Bannister, of Rightmove, said: “Beach huts have become increasingly sought after over the past couple of years and this has driven prices up. The demand has been so frenzied that some are being sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds.”
Last year three huts in Mudeford, Dorset, one of the most sought-after areas, sold at asking prices of £325,000 each, higher than the average price of a house in the UK.
James Eniffer, of Sheen’s Estate Agents in Clacton-on-sea, said there had been a “huge” increase in demand. Waiting lists of prospective buyers and bidding wars have become commonplace.
He said: “Most are selling for their asking price. We often find that once people have a beach hut in the area, they hold on to them for many years for each generation of the family to enjoy.”
Felixstowe in Suffolk, Hayling Island off the coast of Portsmouth and Frintonon-sea and Walton-on-the-naze in Essex have been particularly popular with buyers, according to Rightmove. Huts are priced anywhere between £30,000 and £85,000.
A renovated beach hut, complete with kitchen and bathroom, in Hunstanton, Norfolk, is currently on the market for offers in excess of £250,000.
Meanwhile, a small hut, containing a single dresser, on the seafront at Friars Cliff Beach, with views of the Isle of Wight, can be bought for just under £100,000.
Leasehold huts require owners to pay an annual licence fee or ground rent to the landowner – often the council or an estate owner.
The staycation market boomed last year as closed borders forced holidaymakers to look closer to home for summer trips.
Investors turned their attention to beach huts, which can be rented out for anything from £20 a day to thousands of pounds for a month.
Mr Bannister added: “Some buyers will have seen the popularity and growth in house prices in coastal areas over the past two years and have used their beach hut as an additional source of income, renting it out for the summer.”