TV Doc Martin’s surgery for sale
AFTER 20 years as the star of ITV drama Doc Martin, Grade II listed Fern Cottage is up for sale.The pretty stone house has had rave reviews for its part as the surgery of actor Martin Clunes’ grumpy doctor, thanks to its views of Port Isaac, which doubles up as the fictional village of Portwenn.
The classic Cornish fisherman’s cottage is on a hillside above the pretty harbour and has a tiered garden and slate terrace.
Currently a successful holiday home, Fern Cottage has two double bedrooms, a large bathroom, modern galley kitchen, dining room and a lounge with a log burner, plus off-street parking.
Its £1.25million price tag (01208 862601; johnbrayestates.co.uk) reflects not only its celebrity status but also the huge demand for homes in Cornwall, where property prices in the most popular areas have gone up by around 30 per cent since before the pandemic.
A new report by Sykes Holiday Cottages has identified some unexpected areas as holiday let hotspots, based on average gross income, house prices and price growth.
Blaenau Gwent, in the south Wales valleys just below the Brecon Beacons, tops its list of best places in the UK to invest in a holiday let, thanks to the potential revenue holiday homes here can earn – £20,000 a year on average – plus the expectation of continued price rises.
Denbighshire in north Wales, the Isle of Bute in west Scotland and Tyne and Wear in north east England also come high in Sykes’ The Holiday Let Outlook Report 2022. It highlights a 78 per cent increase in enquiries from would-be holiday home investors in 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.
And with continued enthusiasm for staycations, the report reveals that the average holiday let owner earned £28,000 from their holiday let last year, up from £21,000 in 2019.
Cumbria and the Lake District were the highest-earning holiday hotspots, followed closely by Devon, Dorset and the Peak District.
“The shift towards staycations had already begun pre-pandemic. Covid has just accelerated this trend,” says Graham Donoghue, Sykes Holiday Cottages CEO. “Although international travel is becoming easier, we now have new types of staycationers that are here to stay.”
But second homeowners in places like the South West, Cumbria and Wales are increasingly pricing out locals who are struggling to get on the housing ladder or move to family-sized homes. For this reason second homeowners in England andWales are facing new rules from April 1, 2023.
In England, at the moment, anybody intending to let out a holiday home doesn’t have to provide any evidence of having done so to claim small business rates relief but from next year they will have to prove holiday lets are rented out from 70 to 140 days a year to get the tax break.
New rules for second homes inWales will see council tax increased by up to 300 per cent.TheWelsh Government also plans changes for holiday let homes, which will have to be available to let for at least 252 days a year and actually let out for 182 of those days to qualify for rates instead of council tax.