What’s behind the bungalow boom?

‘Bungalows are almost perfect,’ as the old gag goes. ‘They only have one floor.’ But these once unfashionable properties are rapidly becoming anything but a joke. While the mortgage crisis is cooling most sectors of the housing market, demand for bungalows is growing.

Estate agents report the properties receiving dozens of offers, selling for tens of thousands over the asking price or being snapped up before officially going on the market. The usual breed of downsizers and retirees looking to replace large family homes with something all on one level are facing stiff competition from budget-conscious purchasers seeking to renovate single-storey homes – and often turn them into family homes with stairs. The capacious pitched roofs often give enough space for two extra bedrooms, where planning allows.

A survey by estate agent Strutt & Parker found that 29 per cent of those looking to move in the next five years consider a bungalow to be their ideal next home – up 7 percentage points from last year. All of this means that the days of bagging a cheap bungalow are long gone, says Louise Ridings of Stacks Property Search: ‘High demand and declining supply mean that bungalows can demand a significant price premium.’

Compared with the first five months of 2018 – when estate agent Hamptons says the number of bungalows on its books was at its highest – there are 18 per cent fewer for sale now. And the very fact that some are being converted into four-bedroom homes or knocked down and replaced (so-called ‘bungalow bashing’) is reducing supply further. A home with an upstairs is no longer technically a bungalow.

Bungalows’ potential for an outward extension is also appealing. With a good footprint and plot size they suit contemporary design trends for open-plan, lateral space with scope for indoor/outdoor living areas. Such extensions won’t always compromise the amount of outdoor space, says Kevin Allen of John D Wood & Co.

Another estate agent points to the fact that verandas are increasingly built into the design of bungalows to ‘bring the outside in’ – taking them closer in style to the very first ones constructed during the days of the Raj, when British officials enjoyed G&Ts on their shady verandas in India. Sir Edwin Lutyens designed some elegant examples in Delhi (with servants’ quarters) before bungalows arrived in Britain in the 1860s.

Still airy and spacious, bungalows’ more modest modern-day proportions remain practical and also economic. ‘With everyone now keeping a closer eye on household bills, prospective homebuyers have a newfound appreciation for homes that cost less to heat,’ says Nick Ferrier of Jackson-Stops.

Those being revamped into futuristic homes are often rebranded to move away from the bungalow’s traditionally uncool image, says Edward Heaton of buying agents Heaton & Partners: ‘An estate agent is unlikely to call a cutting-edge contemporary home laid out over one floor a bungalow. Instead they will use terms such as “single storey” or “lateral space”. Luxury ‘single-storey’ homes include this £1.1 million four-bedroom one in Haslemere, Surrey, or this chic new complex under development in Ascot, Berkshire.

Second-home buyers are also hunting down older bungalows in enviable clifftop or beachside locations as fixer-uppers – if allowed. Josephine Ashby of John Bray Estates says: ‘In many cases it’s possible to get permission for replacement properties, but increasingly these need to be in keeping with existing build lines and ridge heights.’ There’s a two-bedroom one for sale in Deal, Kent that needs modernising; or one in the downsizers’ hot spot of Christchurch in Dorset with scope to remodel.

New or renovated bungalows with contemporary designs get snapped up, especially among downsizing buyers in Cornwall, says Ben Standen of Jackson-Stops Truro. ‘Local developers should consider making bungalows a greater part of development plans,’ he adds. ‘There is a real demand for future-proofed properties with modern tech and design: ground source heat pumps, solar panels and EV charging points.’

The traditional business model of seizing as much square footage as possible for cost effectiveness has deterred developers from building bungalows in the past, but new-build bungalows are now often achieving a higher price per sq ft than multi-storey houses – which means this is changing, according to Charlotte Moxon, head of regional new homes at Strutt & Parker. ‘Planning regulations play a role. Opting to build single-storey homes enables developers to work in areas with restrictions on the number of storeys or size of property,’ she says. ‘This is particularly true with agricultural building conversions.’

As the saying goes, build it and they will come. Adele McCoy of the Edenstone Group says that bungalows they build in their new schemes are the house type that sells the fastest. ‘Across the industry they account for around 1 per cent of homes built. In our new communities [Ross-on-Wye and Morriston, near Swansea] they are 20 per cent of homes.’ The company is planning more in the South West, including at Sampford Peverell in Devon.

It seems that in today’s value-seeking market, the bungalow might just be the perfect home after all.