Trading up, trading down – in pictures

Trading up: West Sussex. Worry not if four bedrooms seem a little cramped: there is planning for a whopper to be added to the ground floor, near the guest suite. This £545,000 cottage has expanded grandly in the two centuries it has spent perched between Arundel and Chichester in the village of Fontwell. A vaulted lounge supplements the sitting room with a conservatory sprouting off one side, and there are three bathrooms and a party-sized kitchen. A third of an acre of prime Sussex landscape is yours with a gazebo from which to survey it.
Jackson-Stops & Staff, 01903 885886 Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff

Trading up: Suffolk. These comely, white zigzags are a rare salute to modernism along this stretch of flint and stone-built coastline in Aldeburgh. Built in the 1960s by architects Gordon White and Hood, it ingests enormous views across beach and sea through its aluminium windows, and is a brief stroll into the town centre. A pricey overhaul has added oak floors and an edgy bathroom, and relandscaped the garden that unrolls beyond the raised decked terrace. All three bedrooms and the open-plan living room overlook the sea. Yours for £475,000.
The Modern House, 08456 344068 Photograph: Nick Sinclair

Trading down: Devon. Two bedrooms and a kitchen in the corner of the living room may seem a spatial come down, but you’re at the top of the property ladder in terms of views. Just 20 paces from the coffee machine is a glass balcony from which you can survey boats bobbing on the estuary and rising green fields beyond. It is elegantly groomed with solid oak flooring and full-height windows framing the water. You can shop in the town of Kingsbridge without dislodging the car from its allocated parking slot. On the market for £299,950.
Marchand Petit, 01548 857588 Photograph: Marchand Petit

Trading down: Edinburgh. The upside is that you are on the top floor of this Georgian terrace in Edinburgh’s new town, with vertiginous views across the city and over the Firth of Forth to Fife. The price you pay for such lofty status is a three-storey climb with your shopping bags, and sloping ceilings with skylights in both bedrooms. There is a large and gracious living room with a fireplace, a kitchen large enough to dine in, and a bathroom for each bedroom. You’ll need to get a permit from the council if you want a car to reside near you. Offers in excess of £260,000 will be considered.
Strutt & Parker, 0131 226 2500 Photograph: Strutt & Parker

Bargain of the week: Suffolk. Thanks to the stingy garden, and the fact that parking is a free-for-all among permit holders, you get an enormity for your money. The £299,950 price tag gets you five bedrooms in a Victorian terrace next to Christchurch Park, a walk away from the centre of Ipswich. It’s all period elegance inside: stripped wooden floors, elaborate fireplaces in almost all the rooms, full-height bay windows and french doors from the dining room and kitchen/breakfast room.
Fenn Wright, 01473 232 700 Photograph: Fenn Wright