Trading up, trading down – in pictures

Trading up: Cornwall. This soaking wet drought needn’t hamper your glee in the sea, for you can gaze at the waves from your windows in this development in Downderry, near Looe. The 28 three- and four-bed semis and 14 detached houses are a brief ascent from Whitsand Bay and, when the rains lash, you can content yourself with tasting the sea at the restaurant in the village, or toasting it at the local inn The Shore. Quaint it ain’t – much of the village is post-war housing – but the situation, overlooking Looe island, is glorious. Underfloor heating warms the houses and many also have balconies. Prices start from £199,950 for three bedrooms and £239,950 for four.
Bradleys, 01503 264888
Photograph: Bradleys

Trading up: Wiltshire. An early 18th-century surgeon, having established himself in a house on one side of the carriage arch, bought the ancient property on the other side, added a matching Georgian facade and joining it to his own so his son and new wife could live in comfortable proximity. His renovations have bequeathed a Grade II-listed five-bed house with elegant period trimmings and a mews garage in the centre of Devizes. A cellar and two attic rooms could extend the living space, but the £350,000 price reflects the fact there is no outside patch on which to perch a deckchair.
Winkworth, 01380 729777
Photograph: Winkworth

Trading down: London. There is nothing small about the price – £384,950 for two bedrooms – but if you are shrinking down from a valuable house and dislike the notion of communal corridors, it’s worth it. For this sliver of London brick is a self-contained house with its own front door and a long, if skinny, back garden. And it’s in increasingly trendy Peckham, whose links to the wider city will be transformed by the arrival of the East London line extension this summer. There’s a bath/shower room as well as the two double bedrooms, and the 20ft living room opens on to the garden.
Wooster & Stock, 020 7708 6700
Photograph: Wooster & Stock

Trading down: Hampshire. The doll’s house proportions are a tease, for inside it expands miraculously into an enormous reception room and two double en suite bedrooms. Built in 2000, it is concealed from the rest of the village of Goodworth Clatford by a shared driveway. Glass doors fold open from the living room on to the hedged patio where a single apple tree blossoms. There is a shop, school and tennis club in the village and the rustic glories of the Test Valley beyond. Yours for £249,950.
Smiths Gore, 01264 774 900
Photograph: Smiths Gore

Bargain of the week: Norfolk. This converted granary, with its views over a mill pond and private fishing rights from the waterside garden, ought to be the preserve of the well-larded – but its position on an S-bend on a B road, the slightly dated interior and the fact that part of its garden is across the shared driveway has reduced the price from £300,000 to a more manageable £250,000. For that you get three bedrooms and two receptions in the village of Low Tharston near Norwich.
Abbotts, 01603 616 898
Photograph: Abbotts