Trading up, trading down

Trading up: Cornwall. It's one of four houses leafily clustered half a mile from the centre of Truro. The exteriors mimic Victorian venerability (rules and covenants exist to stop you defiling this painstaking image), but inside it is chic, white and modern. The sitting room and kitchen open on to the garden, a utility room absorbs unlovely necessities from the kitchen/breakfast room, a study, and a full-length music room above the four bedrooms. Even your transport is housed grandly in a double garage. Cost: £545,000. Jackson-Stops Staff, 01872 261160 Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff/guardian.co.uk

Trading up: Nottinghamshire . This has spent most of its 400 years as a farmhouse; now its lands have shrunk to a mowably-sized garden. It is capacious and quaint inside, with medieval timbers, three receptions and four double bedrooms, but it could do with a small spending spree to coax it into this century. Beyond is the fetching village of Bathley, four miles from Newark. Yours for £395,000. Chesterton Humberts, 01636 701401 Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Trading down: County Durham. If the shrinkage must be very thorough, this one-bed houselet in the village of Stanhope could suit. For £89,950 you get a decently-proportioned living room with a spiral staircase curling up to the bedroom. A second staircase leads to an attic which is unofficially used as a double bedroom, but doesn't comply with building regulations. A decked yard lies behind and the village shops and services are a stroll from the front door. George F. White, 01388 527966 Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Trading down: London. Usually only a couple of Barbican flats arrive on the market each month and are speedily snaffled. So for 69 to arrive at once is a fantasy fulfilled for lovers of this listed concrete arts centre in the Square Mile. The apartments have been created in the upper stories of a curved 1960s building originally intended for humans, but which ended up as offices. Studios start from £375,000. Chesterton Humberts, 020 7288 0330 Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Over the sea: Switzerland. You don't have to master skis to relish the village of Val-d'Illiez. Yes, it's a 10-minute shuttle ride to the Portes de Soleil, Europe's largest ski territory, but it also rejoices in thermal baths fed by natural hot springs. This new complex of 120 apartments grouped around an aquatic park adds a thermal pool, a thermal stream and a thermal cave, and residents can pursue corporal perfection in the on-site health club and restaurant before sinning in the shopping mall. Each apartment has a balcony or garden and comes fitted with a flat screen TV. Prices start from £150,000 for a studio. Planet House, 01275 390422 Photograph: guardian.co.uk