Snooping around: Rural, urban or renovation

Wreck of the week: Reydon, Suffolk. This three-bed bungalow needs a new kitchen, bathroom, boiler and full redecoration – £30,000 should just about do it. It's a cheap way to enjoy Southwold though – the beaches and resort are just a mile's walk away. The village itself, however, has suffered postwar sprawl. Yours for £185,000.
Durrants, 01502 723292 Photograph: Durrants/Durrants

In the country: Apethorpe, near Oundle, Northants. Two of the three bedrooms are doubles in this beautiful £260,000 cottage. It has a smart kitchen, quarry-tiled floors across the ground floor, and a large, floriferous garden. The heated outbuilding currently serves as a study. Unfortunately it is squashed in the middle of a terrace and the front door opens into the sitting room.
Jackson-Stops & Staff, 01604 632991 Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff/Jackson-Stops & Staff

In town: Plymstock, Plymouth. This three-bedder is in the older kernel of this former village, now a suburb. You can board your sailing boat in less than 10 minutes, or be on Dartmoor within 20 minutes. Inside, the rooms are large and tastefully decorated. It is a shame there's no garage. Yours for £260,000.
Lang & Co, 01752 456000 Photograph: Lang & Co/Lang & Co

Dream home: Argyll. No mortal could possess a view superior to this. From the windows of this £850,000 five-bed farmhouse is a celestial grouping of peaks, woods and water, 16 acres of it owned by you. Your lands tumble down to the sea where you have your own harbour and jetty. Inside it is large and neat but dated. This is serious remoteness 14 miles from the nearest town of Lochgilphead.
Knight Frank, 0131 222 9600 Photograph: Knight Frank/Knight Frank

Over the sea: France. One way to cope with the recession is to hole up until it goes away. The main four-bed house is an 18th-century water mill near the Normandy town of Flers. In the grounds sits a self-contained cottage with living room and two bedrooms. A river – the front garden is actually an island reached by a bridge – and surrounding woodland cushion you from life's harsher side. Enormous, all of it, inside and out. Cost: £373,000.
Winkworth, 020 8576 5582 Photograph: Winkworth/Winkworth