East Anglia - A Property hotspot

East Anglia – Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex – is currently one of the most popular parts of the country for buying a holiday home.

It has the fourth-highest percentage of second homes in the UK and just over 1% of properties are either second or holiday homes.

Direct links from both population areas has made East Anglia hot property for Home Counties and Midlands based buyers looking for either a second home or an income-generating holiday home to let. It has main line rail services from both London and Birmingham as well as motorway and A road networks that speed visitors in from all over the country.

A three bedroom detached property ideal for holiday letting averages at about £250,000 for the region.

While largely flat, East Anglia is proud of its scenic heathland, forests and coasts. Lapped – and often pounded – by the unpredictable North Sea, the East Anglian counties offer thousands of kilometres of coastline from the north bank of the River Thames to The Wash.

It is also one of the more historic regions of the UK with its fair share of castles, country houses and important events from the past. Largely rural, the hearts of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are packed with picturesque towns and villages each with their own histories and historic homes and pubs. It is here that terraced cottages can be found for around £150.000 as a quaint pied de terre and a cosy holiday let.

One of the best reasons for buying a property in East Anglia – whether a property for one’s own use or a holiday rental, is that one is never far from the sea. Apart from landlocked Cambridgeshire East Anglia has a very varied coastline, too, ranging from brash and noisy seaside towns, through historic resort towns to coastal villages where seals are part of the landscape.

Coastal East Anglia:

Property in Norfolk

the coast is very much the focus of the county with the popular family resort of Great Yarmouth and the nearby Norfolk Broads. Great Yarmouth is the east coast’s major resort area with its four mile seafront with piers, leisure centre, thrill rides, restaurants, pubs and clubs. Neighbouring beach holiday areas include Caister, Gorleston, Hopton and Corton. The Broads are a network of navigable waterways where a variety of craft can be hired either under sail or motor powered and are hugely popular with family and extended family groups who like messing about in boats. Recently, though, environmentalists have complained of overuse of the Norfolk Broads. The north Norfolk coast westwards from the family resorts of Sheringham and Cromer is a chain of coastal villages such as Holkham, Stiffkey, Cley-next-the-Sea, Wells and Blakeney which have some of the most picturesque landscapes in England. This part of the coast is an area of shingle banks and salt marshes and protected areas for the wealth of wildlife. Among the permanent residents are seals. Further west lie the striped cliffs of Hunstanton, massively eroded by the North Sea and the major population in The Wash is the Georgian town of King’s Lynn.

Property in Suffolk

in southern Suffolk the attributes of Felixstowe as a family resort is overshadowed by its “other half” being better known as a massive container port. The family Felixstowe is a long bay of red shingle beach with some patches of sand and well laid out gardens on the promenade and an ancient fort. The stretch of coast from Orford Ness to Dunwich is at the mercy of wind and tide and can change its face almost overnight. There are long stretches of shingle beach but along the way are picturesque and historic little towns such as Southwold and Aldeburgh, the later of which along with Snape is famous for its annual classic music festival. Minsmere is a paradise for bird watchers as there is a 1,500 acre reserve for a host of species including the marsh harrier. More traditional as a resort is the fishing town of Lowestoft which now has the Pleasurewood Hills theme park. The nearby beach resorts of Kessingland and Pakefield are home to family traditional holiday centres formerly known as “holiday camps”.

Property in Essex

Being closest to London, the county has developed a couple of the traditional “day tripper” resorts of Southend-on-Sea and Clacton. The former used to have the longest pier in the world until fires and ship collisions took their toll. The pier is still the focal point but the Thameside town also has the Peter Pan’s Playground theme park, several miles of shingle and sand beaches and Golden Mile seafront of pubs, clubs and amusement and games arcades. With a less tacky image is Clacton-on-Sea for its theatres, sandy beach and lively pier while just north Frinton and Walton-on-the-Naze have cultivated more gentile family resort images. All around the north Essex coast are tiny inlets and backwaters such as along the River Stour that sailing fans can explore.

Back to home page