The coast of North Devon is beautiful. It has wide, sandy beaches, charming villages and beautiful, unspoilt countryside on the doorstep, in the form of the Exmoor National Park.
It's also home to one of the most unsual properties for sale in Britain today: The Manor House in Lynmouth. It's set in a seaside village that's tucked away amid slopes steep enough to earn the area the nickname 'Little Switzerland'. And while it's a pretty place, it's not exorbitantly expensive by most standards; a four-bed semi-detached home costs £350,000, for example, and for £500,000 you could own a guest house.
Not everything on this stretch of coastline is quite so affordable. Just around the headland from Lynmouth you'll find Glenthorne, one of the most striking homes in the West Country, for sale at £6.5 million and located in a place dubbed 'the most beautiful spot on Earth' by its former owner.
That makes it all the more incredible, then, that local estate agents Stags are listing The Manor House at just £350,000. So what's the catch? Is there a catch?
Well, yes: of course there's a catch.
The Manor House comes with a separate coach house, two cottages, an acre of land, outbuildings and more — but it also comes with a vast amount of work to do, a leasehold agreement, and a ground rent of £30,000 a year. There are just under 110 years of the 120-year lease remaining, and as the listing states, 'the tenant is obliged to carry out considerable renovations'.
That's putting it mildly.
As the pictures show, those renovations have started in parts of the property, and some rooms appear to have been finished up — but others are still largely building sites. This is a huge project to take on, returning a place that has been run both as a hotel and a care home to profitable use.
It could become a hotel once more, but the agents add that it could as easily become a restaurant, wedding venue, wellness centre or anything else, subject to planning and permission. And while £30,000 a year is a lot, a successful business would potentially be able to recoup that amount and then some.
One thing is for sure: the new buyer will need a great team in place — architect, builder, lawyer and more — before they even think about submitting a bid. The phrase caveat emptor has rarely seemed more appropriate.
With the housing market running slowly, prices wobbly, and interest rates causing headaches for anyone either buying or remortgaging, there's no surprise that The Manor House in Lynmouth is far from the only interesting fixer-upper on the market right now.
There's another great example in Margate, the Kent seaside town that has seen huge gentrification in recent years, not least thanks to local girl Tracey Emin. Here, you'll find a three-storey, six-bedroom townhouse for sale via auction with a starting price of just £135,000.
As well as the work that needs doing, there's also a lot to get your head around — both in terms of the space, as well as the effort required. The house is on an angled plot, and several of the rooms, as shown in pictures and floorplans, are parallelograms rather than rectangles. It might be quirky, but in a town now full of modern art it seems fitting. And if it doesn't bother you, this seems an incredibly reasonable price for a house close to the Old Town, the beach and the station.
Slightly more expensive, but just as much in need of TLC, is this farmhouse on the wild north-east coast of Scotland, half-way between Brora and Wick.
Listed at 'offers over £160,000', it has a gorgeous setting overlooking the North Sea, and it's enormous, with seven bedrooms.
That's the good news. The pictures make the bad news pretty clear.
Still, the potential is massive, and the house is also just off the main NC500 tourist route around the coast. The route's popularity has brought traffic and people to places not used to either, and that has caused friction. But it's also created huge opportunities to do new things with buildings in amazing settings such as this one.
For brave buyers willing to look part the problems and take on a big project, it'll be a tempting prospect.
The Manor House and Estate in Lynmouth is for sale via Stags.
The house on Charlotte Square, Margate, is for sale via Miles & Barr.
Shantry Farm in Latheron is for sale via Yvonne Fitzgerald.