These brands are the first signs your area is being gentrified...
including a very surprising big-name supermarket that could add value to your home By Fred Redwood For The Daily Mail Updated: 21:08 AEST, 27 August 2024 e-mail View comments If you have ever bought a property, you’ll know that finding a place at the right price is just where your problems begin. Lots more questions remain to be answered. What are the neighbours like? Will you find yourself among like-minded people of a similar age with similar interests? Will you be happy there? One surefire way of finding out is to take note of the local shops and chains.
Estate agents are particularly clued-up on what businesses impress potential buyers. ‘Any artisan shop in general, including organic fruit and veg shops and local markets, are deemed desirable,’ says Graeme Young of Hamptons lettings. Brand names can be particularly telling.
The appearance of a Gail’s Bakery, Daunt Books, Pig Hotel or Ivy restaurant, for example, show an area is very much on the up. But the presence of other brands can signify the very opposite. We’ve spoken to property experts and estate agents across the country to bring you a guide to the brands that show an area is up-and-coming, and those that should spark warning signs.
Every estate agent in the country will acknowledge the Waitrose effect although there are few in the north SUPERMARKETS What is it about Waitrose? According to research by consumer expert Which? it comes below M&S and Aldi in terms of the shopping experience and only just above Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Yet every estate agent in the country will acknowledge the Waitrose effect. ‘Buyers see a Waitrose as a sort of comfort blanket,’ says Bedford estate agent, Robert Fitzjohn.
‘Their eyes light up when I tell them there’s a Waitrose in town.’ Read More Britain's 24 best seaside towns and villages: We talk to experts who reveal their favourites There are very few Waitrose stores in the north of England and buyers are impressed by Hexham having one. ‘Booth’s, a small independent store, is heavily influenced by Waitrose,’ says Ryan Eve of Finest Properties.
‘It adds kudos to wealthy towns like Keswick and Penrith.’ Other popular supermarkets that pop up in both up-and-coming and established areas are Whole Foods in London and the tried and trusted M&S. But low-cost chains are catching up.
Britain’s favourite supermarket is now Aldi, and the presence of such a supermarket can provide a boost to house prices. The wealthy now love to be spotted browsing the aisles of Aldi or Lidl, shopping for seafood, pate and award-winning bargain champagne. The appearance of a run-down Iceland supermarket or Spar shop, however, could potentially put off potential buyers.
HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS Property prices rise if The Pig – the exquisitely designed, shabby-chic hotel chain - is nearby Why anyone should want to buy a house where the wealthy happen to take holidays is a mystery. Yet it is an undeniable fact. The Pig – the exquisitely designed, shabby-chic hotel chain – recently opened a new branch near Harlyn Bay, north Cornwall.
The average price of a property in Harlyn has appreciated by 25 per cent in the past year according to Rightmove. Coincidence? In the Cotswolds it is the same story. Soho Farmhouse, the private members club known as ‘Butlins for toffs’, is used by the likes of Prince Harry, the Camerons, Georgia May Jagger and Eddie Redmayne.
‘More often than not buyers will mention proximity to Soho Farmhouse when they buy in Chipping Norton,’ says Simon Merton of Strutt and Parker. Meanwhile, the appearance of an Ivy, a chain of restaurants spun out of London celebrity haunt ‘The Ivy’ in London’s Covent Garden, could also boost prices. The brand now has 48 restaurants across the UK offering expensive interiors and menus with dishes such as £36 lobster linguine and £28 sirloin steaks.
But there are many hotel and restaurant brands that could ultimately hamper a sale. A property close to the bright purple facade of a Premier Inn, for example, can be an instant turn-off. It’s much the same for Holiday Inn, Best Western, Ibis hotels and Toby Carvery or Harvester restaurants.
COFFEE SHOPS A Gail’s, which is celebrated for its sourdough bread and flaky croissants, is proof that a neighbourhood is getting smarter Unlike the ubiquitous Costas which add little in the way of charm to the High Street, upmarket chains such as Gail’s are proof that a neighbourhood is smart and getting smarter. Gail’s, which is celebrated for its sourdough bread and flaky croissants, last week hit the headlines when the hipster residents of Walthamstow saw a new shop’s presence as an unwelcome attempt to ‘gentrify’ the area. The brand, beloved by the middle classes who are happy to queue on Saturday and Sunday mornings, has 131 outlets in the London, Manchester, Oxford and Brighton regions - with plans to open an addition 35 sites by the end of the year.
Other stores that could indicate an area is on the up include Knoops and Ole & Steen. The opening of an independent coffee shop with trendy lighting and exposed wood is also a very healthy sign. The Pig and Pastry in York is a good example of this, according to Jayne Twiddle of The Agency in York.
‘It’s a coffee bar that sometimes morphs into a Mexican restaurant at night. It also puts on gigs’. Little Victories in Wapping Wharf, Bristol is similar.
With wonderful views over Bristol harbour, it is an espresso bar by day, wine and cocktail bar by night. In London, coffee connoisseurs head to Prufrock Coffee on Leather Lane, which has been awarded the Best Independent Coffee Shop at the European Coffee Symposium. BOOKSHOPS Bookshops are almost always indicative of a middle-class area, and the biggest brand is, of course, Waterstones Ever since Jeff Bezos invented Amazon in 1994, experts have been predicting the downfall of bookshops.
How could these retailing anachronisms compete with the prices or the convenience of the postal deliveries? Yet thirty years later, you do not have to travel far before coming across a bookshop. Bookshops are almost always indicative of a middle-class area. The biggest brand is, of course Waterstones, with branches appearing in market town squares and smart city centres across the UK.
Daunt Books and Foyles, which both have a handful of stores across the UK, is also a good sign, while independent bookshops tend to pop up in sought-after rural towns and villages or away from cities. The best independent stores foster a clubby atmosphere that newcomers to a town will find appealing. Emma Milne-White in the Hungerford Bookshop, West Berkshire, for example, organises talks by famous authors such as Sir Antony Beevor, Robert Harris and Sir Max Hastings.
‘It’s a community space as well as a shop,’ she says. Book-ish in Crickhowell has two floors of books and it opens onto a coffee shop at the back where the locals love to meet and chat. In Ripon, North Yorkshire The Little Ripon Bookshop runs book clubs for fifty people, organises story-times for younger readers and has book signings with popular authors such as Alan Johnson, Ian McMillan and Louis de Bernieres.
PUBS AND BARS Chains such as Wetherspoons and All Bar One, with their clientele of young people on the lash, can put buyers off Pubs can help with the sale of a property - but they can also put buyers off. Boards outside advertising ‘Two cocktails for £6’ or ‘all you can eat for £10’ can spell trouble when selling. Chains such as Wetherspoons and All Bar One, with their clientele of young people on the lash, is also off-putting.
Yet a friendly local which offers good pub food can be a joy. ‘We have some excellent pubs nearby and I’ll often suggest to buyers that we go there for a drink,’ says Mr Fitzjohn in Bedford. ‘The locals have far more credibility than I do and introducing buyers to pub regulars is a great help with sales.
’ BEAUTY SHOPS Women are more impressed if there is a good beauty shop nearby especially if it's Space NK Estate agents will tell you that although pubs help sell a house to men, women will be more impressed if there is a good beauty shop nearby. It is well known that it is women who have the most say over a house purchase so the proximity of a Space NK, L’Occitane or Townhouse Nail Bar could make or break a sale. If you have your house on the market, it’s worth mentioning the next time you have a viewing that there is a beauty outlet in town (just don’t mention Boots, which could be a turn-off).
SPORTS CLUBS All sports clubs and green spaces will add to a property’s value but a golf course nearby can put prices through the roof Had you suggested ‘back in the day’ that going to the gym could be enjoyable you’d have been considered mad by most people. Yet a report from Colliers International has found that 72 per cent of people would actually pay more for a house if it was near a gym. Not that people are queueing to get their kit off in municipal facilities – it is the luxury health clubs like Third Space and Ministry of Sound Fitness that are the attraction.
All sports clubs and green spaces will add to a property’s value but a golf course nearby can put prices through the roof. Homes besides Britain’s leading courses are nearly £100,000 more expensive than the national average, according to a Primelocation.com report.
FARM SHOPS Daylesford Farm in the Cotswolds is the most famous of the country’s farm shops thanks to the Beckhams having been spotted there The way we buy our food is forever changing. ‘The likes of Clarkson’s Farm have inspired a movement towards high quality, organically produced food which has travelled as few food miles as possible from farm to fork,’ says Jennie Hancock of buying agency Property Acquisitions. ‘In the countryside a good local farm shop is high up on buyers’ wish lists.
’ Daylesford Farm in the Cotswolds is the most famous of the country’s farm shops thanks to the Beckhams having been spotted there. The brand, which now has several small stores in London’s poshest postcodes, used to deliver food hampers to Number 10 when Boris Johnson was in situ. Equally charming is The Newt, a farm outside Bruton in Somerset, which sells its own home-produced ‘cyder’ among other things.
Then there is the Milk Hut farm in East Dean, just north of Chichester, that’s opened a milk vending machine. There is a constant flow of villagers coming in and out with bottles to fill. Essentially, anything that adds a spark of originality and wit to the weekly shop is an attraction.
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