Snooping around: Rural, urban or renovation

In town: Cheshire. This Edwardian house in Chester is split into two-bed flats and two houselets, with prices beginning at £290,000. Just five minutes from the city centre it sits in leafy grounds. It’s a shame that only the main house dwellers get to sunbathe privately.
Strutt & Parker, 01244 354880
Photograph: Strutt & Parker

In the country: Somerset. The village of Marston Magna near Yeovil was once serviced by this school and its two-bed schoolmaster’s cottage, which sit fetchingly around a central lawn. The detached classrooms have thrilling potential as an office or shop, but the planners will probably dislike any ambitions to turn them into living space. Cost: £250,000.
Chesterton Humberts, 01935 812323
Photograph: Chesterton Humberts

Wreck of the week: Kent. This pair of two-bed cottages with a timber barn sits in the seaside town of Sandwich. They used to be one house, so you might want to reunite them and spruce them up – £50,000 should do it (plus another £120,000 to ready the barn for Grandma). After all that you'd end up with a spacious home a short walk from the pretty town centre. But you'd still have a small garden. Yours for £385,000.
GW Finn & Sons, 01304 612147
Photograph: GW Finn & Sons

Dream home: Devon. The views from this £450,000 two-bed fisherman’s cottage reach out across your sloping lawns and the Yealm estuary. This is a vintage pocket of Noss Mayo – at low tide you can trot across a causeway to the shops in the village of Newton Ferrers. National Trust land surrounds you and the different pleasures of Plymouth and Dartmoor are nearby.
Marchand Petit, 01752 873311
Photograph: Marchand Petit

Over the sea: Barbados. As you bob in the Jacuzzi on your roof terrace you can survey the tropical glory of the West Coast. This one-bed flat in the Sugar Hill development in St James is more than 1,000 sq ft, with a patio and a roof terrace. You also get the freedom of communal gardens, a palm-fringed swimming pool, tennis courts and a fitness centre. Yours for £244,000.
Knight Frank, 020 7629 8171
Photograph: Knight Frank