Trading up, trading down

Trading up: Worcestershire. £425,000 for eight bedrooms must seem a fantasy fulfilled. Hold your ponies, though – you’ll need £100,000 to replace the central heating, renew a few fittings and tackle the damp and wood rot. But you'll end with a glorious riverside home worth more than £600,000 in the market town of Pershore. The inside is large and beamed with cavernous fireplaces in the three receptions. A long garden ends in a landing stage on the Avon.
Allan Morris, 01386 554 747 Photograph: Allan Morris/Allan Morris

Trading up: Kent. In the 18th century this was a barn serving the old manor house, which survives next door, in the village of Newenden. Now it’s a quaintly beamed receptacle for expanding households. The copious dressing room off the master suite could become a fourth bedroom and there are two receptions. It’s tucked down a leafy no-through lane with a spreading garden behind. Cost: £439,000.
Jackson-Stops & Staff, 01580 720000 Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff/Jackson-Stops & Staff

Trading down: Devon. Dartmouth's chic waterside is down the road from this £239,950 Technicolor slice. One of the two bedrooms, both of which have chic en suite bathrooms, could be divided to make a third. The kitchen/breakfast room is a stylish concoction of exposed stone wall, there's a Rayburn in the hearth, and the sitting room swells into a stone walled dining area. Sunbathing potential is confined to a petite yard.
Fulfords, 01803 832223 Photograph: Fulfords/Fulfords

Trading down: Norfolk. This fetching 50s triangle lies 200 yards from the Norfolk Broads. Recent revamps have bequeathed a conservatory with underfloor heating and multi-fuel burning stoves in the sitting room, and a third cottagey bedroom. It sits in a spacious swathe of garden with off-street parking for a small fleet of cars. Beyond is the comely village of Barton Turf centred around a green. Yours for £299,950.
Abbotts, 01603 783 838 Photograph: Abbotts/Abbotts

Dream home: Dorset. On a moist and misty commuter Monday salvation must look like this. The price tag – £775,000 – is the only troublesome barrier to a life beneath thatch in the Tarrant Valley. It’s as pretty inside as out, with large beamed rooms and fireplaces, an archetypal farmhouse kitchen fitted with oak and granite units, and lush views from the five bedrooms. Two rose arbours scent the picket-fenced garden in summer. It’s six miles to Blandford Forum.
Jackson-Stops & Staff, 01747 850858 Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff/Jackson-Stops & Staff