The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
How bungalows became the hot ticket in town
No longer seen as an eyesore, these properties are in demand from first-time buyers and downsizers. By Arabella Youens
Once the butt of architectural snobbery, the bungalow has emerged from its frumpy shell and is now the subject of bidding wars between eager buyers. Estate agents report that young professionals in their 20s and 30s are vying with pensioners looking to downsize and live on one level, which is leading to fierce competition and rising prices.
Figures from the property portal Rightmove suggest the average asking price for a bungalow has reached £356,957, just shy of £5,500 less than the average UK property asking price. However, the gap is narrowing – in 2022 the difference was £8,395. Overall, the number of people searching specifically for a bungalow to buy is up 11pc compared with February 2019, according to the website.
Alice Currie, 27, and her husband, James, had a stroke of luck when it came to finding their own bungalow.
The couple, who have a baby daughter, Sienna, were living in a two-up, two-down house owned by James, 29, in Helston, a town on the northern edge of the Lizard peninsula in south Cornwall.
When Alice’s great- uncle died in 2021, he left the three-bedroom bungalow which he had built for himself on land bought from the family farm in the 1960s to three relatives, including her mother.
“It was pretty much uninhabitable and none of them was particularly keen to take on a huge renovation project so when we realised no one wanted to keep the house, we stepped forward,” says Alice, who works as an assistant accountant at Tregenna Castle near St Ives.
“I’ve always loved the floorplan of bungalows – they are often quite a bit more generous than in a standard house – and this is just 10 minutes down the road from where we were living.”
Once word got out that the bungalow, which stands in 1.5 acres overlooking farmland on three sides, might be coming to the market, cards came fluttering through the letterbox containing expressions of interest from neighbours.
“That’s what the property market has been like here in Cornwall recently,” says Alice. “There are so many people keen to take on a project like this whether it’s turning the bungalow into a second home or an Airbnb, they stand to make a killing.”
Fortunately for them, the bungalow never went on the open market and, having sold their house in Helston, the Curries bought Meadowside and started work on the renovation which they are chronicling on Instagram (@ meadowside.renovation) to help inspire others who are thinking about doing something similar.
“There was no central heating and old carpet everywhere – even in the kitchen.
“It had been sadly neglected during my great-uncle’s final years, so the first stage involved stripping it back to the bones.” The original plan was to extend the property out to the back. “But then we asked an architect friend for advice and he came up with plans for the house that we didn’t know we wanted.”
The result of this intervention was that the couple pushed upstairs. By removing the shallow roof and replacing it with a steeper pitch with two A-frames at either end, they’ve almost doubled the size of the property without altering the main structure. Once the project is complete, which includes incorporating the garage into the main house, it will have grown from a three-bedroom bungalow to a four-bedroom family house.
“It means we have all the benefits of the bungalow and, from upstairs, we get the views over the surrounding countryside – it’s epic. Finding a family house in this part of Cornwall is so hard. We feel extremely lucky.”
Bungalows began to crop up during the late 1860s in the seaside town of Westgate in Kent designed by the archi
tect, John Taylor. Some believe a certain prestige was created by the association with the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. At the time of his death, in 1882, Rossetti was living in “The Chalet”, one of Taylor’s later prefab bungalows in nearby Birchington.
Queen Alexandra later had a bungalow built on the beach at Snettisham, near Sandringham in Norfolk, and that led to something of a bungalow building boom, particularly along the English riviera. The word derives from a traditional Indian hut made of bamboo which the British came across in Bengal, where they were referred to as “bunggalos”.
Greater numbers of suburban bungalows were built between the First World War and Second World War and again in the 1960s.
Brick- built and lying in generous plots, they are easily extendable. As they aren’t listed, planners are also flexible about owners going up into the loft space and adding dormer windows in a process known as “bungalow bashing” in developer speak.
The knockdown and rebuild potential of bungalows means that they are gold dust in beauty spots where permission for new-build housing is thin on the ground – and they can command some punchy prices.
Gareth Bowden, of estate agents Winkworth in the coastal town of Mudeford, Dorset, said his team are still seeing strong demand from those looking to retire to the area but now that more people are working from home, families are also in the mix of buyers.
“As developers very rarely build bungalows these days, they are in short supply and tend to attract a premium price.”
Jennifer Devall, 42, and her husband, are currently selling their four- bedroom bungalow about a mile south of Abbey Wood (and its Elizabeth Line station) in Bexleyheath, south- east London, through estate agent Anthony Martin.
A self- described “lady tradie”, she runs her own property maintenance company, Jen’s Property Maintenance, and her husband is also in the trade. When it came to working on the property, they were able to pool skills.
The couple bought the bungalow in 2007 as first-time buyers for £235,000. At the time, it raised a few eyebrows among friends – this was long before bungalows had attracted an Instagram following. “We weren’t specifically looking for a bungalow,” says Jennifer. “It came along at the right price and we just fell in love with it, even though it only had two bedrooms at the time, it suited us,” she says.
“We loved that it was a bit different and not a standard semi-detached in a suburban area.”
After 12 years, and with a young family, they decided to convert the loft space into two bedrooms and a shower room.
They also extended six metres to the rear giving a large family room, an extra bedroom and a study. The renovations increased the original 645 sq ft bungalow to 1,506 sq ft.
“Even with the loft conversion you’re not adding much in the way of mass above the eaves so it feels more open with just sky around you,” says Jennifer.
“Although you’re in town you feel as though you’re more in the country. With a bungalow you can get as creative as you want, your imagination is the only limit really.”
Seb Oliver, co-founder of the agents Mayfair Private Office, says it’s worth checking in the street to see if there’s a precedent for adding a floor to bungalows before buying. It’s also a good idea to see if anyone, a previous owner or a neighbour, has put a restrictive covenant on the bungalow limiting any changes and, crucially, when it was issued.
These are possible to remove and involves contacting whoever put the covenant in place. If they are still living, there will be some legal fees and possibly the need to pay compensation. The process can take time.
Another aspect to be wary of is the building material.
Some bungalows built in the 1960s were made of timber, which could be classed as a non-standard construction and run into challenges with mortgage providers.
‘Bungalow floorplans are often more generous than in a standard house’