Beachfront property (Beach front property): All year in the sun, all day on the beach – all yours for £55,000
A blissful beach life can still be had if you know where to look. Zoe Dare Hall has done the spadework
Property overseas homepage
Telegraph Homes Abroad service
A villa by the sea, where you step out from your garden straight on to the sand, is how nearly half of us visualise our perfect holiday home, says a new report from thinkproperty.com.
It is not wildly surprising news. Sunrise dips in warm sea, sunset drinks on the terrace, nothing to block the view between you and the waves; it’s hardly a vision that many would have a problem with.
The novel bit is that this kind of idyll needn’t cost as much as you might imagine. Prime coastline around Europe’s most popular holiday resorts may have been snapped up or deemed unbuildable-on, but venture further and you can still find a toe-in-the-sand bolthole for £55,000.
Spain was the preferred location for 25 per cent of the 2,700 dreamers who took part in thinkproperty.com’s Overseas Desirability Report. Only 9 per cent fancied a “tourist area”, and most were modest with their demands, with twice as many people specifying a “small villa” rather than a “large villa” as their preferred holiday home.
So, for those of you who thought that beachfront living always came with a prohibitive number of noughts, here are some places that keep the dream alive.
SPAIN
Five minutes from the fishing village of Villaricos on southern Spain’s Almeria coast is a rare new “feet in the sand” development, with 10 out of 24 villas at Playa Marques leading straight on to a seven-kilometre beach. Frontline villas cost £820,000, the others from £406,000. All have three bedrooms, wooden decks, 360-degree views from the roof and a private swimming pool.
“There’s no road between you and the sea, so it’s a quick dash across the sand for an early morning swim,” says Bridget Rosser from agents The Almanzora Group.
At Playa Macenas, also in Almeria near the whitewashed town of Mojacar, there is a small new road between you and the sea. But nothing can be built in front to mar your beach views. Apartments cost from £188,800, and semi-detached, three-bedroom villas from £306,000, all with unfettered access to a rugged, one-kilometre beach. There is also a hotel, golf course and beach club on this eco-conscious resort, where land has been set aside for rare flora and fauna found on site.
For existing beachfront villas on the Costa del Sol, expect to pay millions. But you can buy new apartments in Los Granados del Mar, a gated resort with landscaped gardens, outdoor pools and a beach bar, near Marbella, from £530,000 for three bedrooms. The interiors are hi-tech but it’s the exterior you’ll be spending most of your time admiring, with uninterrupted views of the Mediterranean. There are five-star, beachfront hotels on the doorstep, and the trendy Puro Beach club, too.
There is an exclusion zone of 50 metres around the coast of Majorca, so for existing frontline properties there, expect to pay upwards of €1 million (£720,000).
Playa Marques: www.almanzora.com; 01242 680116 Playa Mecenas: www.medgroup.es; 00 34 950 47 28 42 Los Granados del Mar: www.duchyestates.co.uk; 0800 849 8089
FRANCE
Until those Premium Bonds come up trumps, beachfront Côte d’Azur may be out of the question. But shuffle west to the beautiful Languedoc region, and right beside the beach is the pretty fishing port of Le Barcares, 20km from Perpignan and an hour from the Spanish border. You can buy a two-bedroom apartment on the beach there for £110,000.
Then there is a six-bedroom house, built in traditional style, in the village of Muzillac in Brittany. The house is just a few feet from the water’s edge – the lawn leads down to small coves – and has wonderful sea and countryside views It is two hours to the ferry at St Malo and an hour to Nantes, with Ryanair flights from the UK.
Both on sale through VEF: www.vefuk.com; 020 7515 8660
MOROCCO
Finding unspoilt stretches of Morocco’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines is still easy as the first developments – part of King Mohammed VI’s lavish plans to turn the country into a major tourist destination by 2010 – are just starting to emerge, and prices are a fraction of those in southern Spain.
South of Tangier, Emaar Properties’ Tinja is a vast, upmarket beachside development, set on two miles of wide, empty Atlantic beaches that run for 30 miles down to the whitewashed town of Asilah. Contemporary and traditional Moorish apartments from £192,000, and three-bedroom beach villas from £310,000, are on sale now.
Mirleft is a one-street, beachside town in southern Morocco, 140km from Agadir and 40km from the spiritual city of Tiznit, perfect for those who want a remote and bohemian escape. Two-bedroom villas at Gardens of Fedala, a frontline development which starts on the beach and crawls up the hillside, with no chance of anything being built in front, cost from £144,000 through Ready2Invest. There are pools, a health centre spa, hamman and restaurant on site. The fully-furnished villas come with 7 per cent net guaranteed rent for nine years, with owners able to stay at any Gardens of Fedala resorts for a fortnight each year.
Tinja: www.hamptons-int.com; 020 7758 8447 Gardens of Fedala: www.ready2invest.co.uk; 01273 627 900
BRAZIL
To make the most of year-round beach use, you’ll need to leave Europe. Head to Jacuma in the Natal province of north-eastern Brazil and you can buy three-bedroom villas on Jacuma Beach from £113,000. If falling out of your bed on to the sand becomes tedious, there are five golf courses next door.
“This region of Brazil has the best climate, with an average of 27C all year, and it’s the shortest flying time from the UK,” says Adam Cornwell, managing director of GEM Estates. “It’s also a real growth area, with South America’s biggest airport opening in 2009 and a new bridge that will cut out the current detour around the delta and open up the entire Brazilian coastline.” South of Natal in Tabatinga, GEM is selling the curious concept of beachside lofts at Le Park. The modern, open-plan apartments with ultra-high ceilings cost from £96,000. Palm-fringed lagoons are outside your door.
In Pipa, a resort 80km south of Natal popular with wealthy Brazilians but little known to foreign holidaymakers at present, dolphins and surfers vie for the warm waters and the beach has been voted one of the 10 most beautiful in Brazil.
You can dip a toe in too, with beachfront apartments from £55,000 and villas from £120,000 at the gated resort, Pipa Paradise. The Pipa scene is a trendy one, with 30 international restaurants, a famously hot nightlife and boutique hotels.
Jacuma Beach: www.gem-estates.com; 0800 036 0068 Pipa Paradise: www.experience-brazil.co.uk; 0203 102 5030
CAPE VERDE
For guaranteed winter sun in a tropical setting, half an hour’s flight beyond the Canaries, the Cape Verde islands off West Africa are starting to attract holiday home buyers wanting a cheap beachfront villa with good growth potential. On the largest island of Santiago – where direct flights from the UK launched in October – the low-density Sambala resort has colonial-style townhouses overlooking the beach, starting at £130,000 for two bedrooms and set in 20 square km of privately-owned mountain valleys and coastline. “The unspoilt Atlantic coastline will remain preserved on Santiago Island because of planning restrictions preventing building within 200m of the beach,” says the resort’s Dominic McGlynn. “We own eight kilometres of coastline and we shall ensure that the beach remains undeveloped.”
Set on 70 acres of beachfront on Sal island, 15 minutes’ walk from the town of Santa Maria, Paradise Beach is a high-quality resort with large three-bedroom villas from £152,000 and two-bed apartments from £95,000, due for completion in 2009. If you can’t quite make the few steps to the sea, 12 swimming pools may help you cool off.
Sambala Resort: www.sambaladevelopments.com; 01608 813 160 Paradise Beach: www.jet2letproperty.com; 0800 068 33 70
THAILAND
You can easily part with a fortune for a frontline villa in a chic Thai beach paradise – Soneva Kiri, Six Senses Resorts and Spas’ sumptuous offering on Ko Kood island is the latest, with 4,300 sq ft beachfront villas from £1.47 million. But you can also find some relative bargains. At The Village on Coconut Island, two-bed villas, set around waterways overlooking the Indian Ocean, with rooftops designed like Thai longtail boats and private swimming pools, cost from £250,000.
Soneva Kiri: www.aylesford.com; 020 7351 2383 www.thevillage-coconutisland.com; 00 66 878 888 082
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Dominican Republic offers typical Caribbean pleasures at knockdown prices – largely because having troubled Haiti inhabiting the other half of the island hasn’t helped its international image. The south coast is in danger of becoming like Torremolinos, but Two Rivers in the less developed north is one of the country’s higher quality resorts. Beachfront cabanas from £75,000 sit on white sands and the attractive town of Puerto Plata, with its glitzy new marina and seafront, is three miles away.
Through Barrasford and Bird: www.bandbw.co.uk; 0845 600 1871.