Tired of tending the acres and mending the roof slates? Record numbers of country homeowners are packing up and selling up in search of an easier life, according to a new survey.
Across the country, 60% of sellers in the £800,000-£1.5m bracket are cashing in their chips and downsizing. In some areas the figures are much higher. Up to 90% of the best houses on the market in the Salisbury area are being sold because their owners hope to trade down to pocket a hefty tax-free profit. Around Exeter the figure is 85%; in the York and Norwich regions it’s 75%.
The survey by Savills suggests the traditional housing ladder is becoming a loop, in which sellers at the top realise their equity and bank the cash, shedding the burden of maintaining a large and expensive home.
Rupert Sebag-Montefiore, Savills’ chairman and chief executive, commissioned the research after he noticed lots of high-quality country homes — the type of properties that rarely come to the market — suddenly for sale. A survey of 57 Savills offices, to find out why the owners are selling now, revealed that downsizing has become the fourth “D” of the industry, joining debt, divorce and death as a big driver of property sales.
Conducted earlier this month, the survey covered the top 25% of country houses by value for sale with Savills and found that 11% of sellers plan to move abroad. The rest plan to move somewhere cheaper.
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The modern Brit, it seems, would rather own a smaller place than suffer the trouble and expense of a large house with big gardens.
“The cost of running property is much higher than it used to be,” says Richard Donnell, head of residential research at Savills. “And people have suddenly realised that the house-market cycle is quite close to the top. If you had sold 18 months ago, you would have got the same as you’d get now, if not more. Many have decided that now is the time to cash in their chips and trade down the ladder.”
But tax-free profit and a nice retirement nest egg are not the sole motivators of the downsizing phenomenon. At the very top of the market, says Donnell, many are simply after a better quality of life.
The ever-elfin Anne Robinson is presumably not short of a bob or two, but, for the sake of an easier life, the television presenter is selling her seven-bed modern country house in Ablington, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, at a guide price of £3.5m.
“It is unthinkable that we would abandon Gloucestershire,” she says, “But with the time and the wherewithal to travel, we now want a home we can shut up and leave when the fancy takes us.”
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She’s not the only one looking for less responsibility. Lord and Lady Norton, who are selling Fillongley Hall in Warwickshire, are doing the same thing. Their home is exactly the sort of place that prompted the Savills survey; a Greek-revival triumph with a wow factor that no amount of cantilevered glass walls could hope to replicate. There are three vast south-facing reception rooms (which can be opened up to create one great party space) and a marvellous, if slightly chilly, library.
There are 10 bedrooms, two thunderbox loos, and a large modern kitchen.
Tucked away in its own 400 acres, this house offers solitude within 15 minutes’ drive of Birmingham airport and comes with an entrance lodge, four cottages and a cricket pitch. “This is a nationally important house, with accessibility to London and abroad,” says Alex Lawson of Savills’ country department. “And it’s rare to be selling a house that is so authentic and unspoilt.”
Until recently the sale of such a house, which has been in Lord Norton’s family since it was built in 1824, would have been prompted only by the aforementioned trio of death, divorce, or debt. The eighth Lord Norton and his wife, Frances, however, are downsizing just because they feel like it. They plan to move with their three-year-old daughter, Alexandra, to Switzerland, where they met 16 years ago, and where they lived until James, 58, inherited the house and title in 1993.
They probably would have gone earlier, but first they wanted to renovate the house. “It was time for a bit of a revamp,” says Norton, who has a loss-adjusting business in Kent.
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“And it’s pleasing when you look back and see you can pass everything on in whizz order. Frances is the colour lady; I am quite good at sorting out bits and pieces, and I inherited a good builder who knew the house.” The house now has a new roof and has been replumbed and rewired. It has also been painted and papered top to toe, a not inconsiderable task accomplished by Lady Norton, who grew up in a house of similar size and spent years finding the right wallpapers and colours. Looking after the house, however, is a full-time job, and Lady Norton, 45, is not tempted to hang on to it.
“We’ve had fun doing it,” she says. “Now it’s superfluous to our needs. We are both free spirits and we are ready to get on with our lives.”
Her husband agrees: “Selling is a simplification of one’s life. Fillongley is a good place for children,” he says, “and I enjoyed building dams and climbing trees here with my brother, but I’ve grown up a bit since then.”
He points out that times have changed for everybody: “The tenants I have today stay two or three years; previously, they stayed for generations.”
But they won’t hand over to just anybody. “If nobody suitable comes along we won’t sell,” says Frances. “We’ve had fabulous times here and if Mr Frightful wants to buy, we won’t be interested.”
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Further down the housing ladder, sellers just want cheaper and easier. “Most people coming out of London aspire to the acres, the tractors, the dream,” says Simon Jacobs of Cluttons in Bath. “But it can all become
a chore, and if they have school fees they start to think, ‘Do I actually want to have all my money tied up in bricks and mortar?’ We are seeing a lot of people looking to downsize. They don’t want huge mortgages and they need their cash to be more liquid.”
Jacobs speaks from personal experience. His listed Cotswold farmhouse was too small for his growing family and to extend would cost up to £50,000. “I had a hefty mortgage and was beginning to feel a bit wobbly,” he says. “We decided our best bet was to find somewhere with less land and more house.”
Last year, he sold his farmhouse and 40 acres for £1.68m and bought a six-bedroom house for £1.2m. “This is a compromise,” he says. “We now live on the edge of a village, but that makes the school runs much easier, and we have much less land, but I was beginning to tire of all that mowing and harrowing and sticking my hand up the backs of sheep.
“Now I have a much happier wife, and a much happier bank manager, and, considering what has happened to the market this year, I’m mighty relieved that I did what I did when I did it.”
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Fillongley Hall is for sale for £5m with Savills, 020 7409 8882, www.savills.com; Knight Frank, Cirencester, 01285 659 771