What could be better than owning a pretty cottage in an idyllic village? Well, maybe owning the entire village itself.
The only problem is that entire villages tend to come with vast price tags. In 2009, for example, the Hampshire village of Linkenholt was put up for sale at £25 million — a price which included 22 houses, a cricket pitch and pavilion, a three-storey manor house, a village shop, a commercial shoot and farming land. The building excluded was the local church, St Peters.
Then, in 2016, a Yorkshire village named West Heslerton, not far from Malton, came to the market. The guide price of £20 million included a lot more bang for your buck: a 21-bedroom mansion, plus 43 houses and cottages and over 2,000 acres of land.
For those who dream of such things on a smaller scale, but whose budgets don’t stretch to eight figures, an extraordinary opportunity has come up in the form of Aberllefenni, a village of 16 houses in the heart of Wales that’s located at the southern edge of the Snowdonia National Park.
It’s up for sale via estate agent Dafydd Hardy, who had a buyer lined up in November only for the deal to fall through. Now, it’s back on the market with an asking price of just £1.15 million. That's the sort of money you'd need for a modest maisonette in Hampstead, or a detached home in Sevenoaks.
There’s no vast estate included with Aberllefenni, nor is there a grand mansion at the heart. But the properties — once workers’ cottages for a local quarry — have a bit of charm. As does the surrounding area: the scenery is breathtaking, there is a heritage steam railway nearby (The Corris Railway, which once terminated at the village) while Machynlleth is nearby.
There is a terrace of nine two-bedroom cottages in the centre of the village, two pairs of cottages on the fringes, a 1920s semi-detached pair outside the village, plus a charming two-bedroom cottage in Upper Corris, the next village along.
The properties are currently rented out, bringing in about £70,000 a year — a sum which will no doubt make the £1.15m asking price look attractive to investors, though there is some modernisation work to be done.
Aberllefenni has been looking for a buyer for almost five years, and as well as the aborted sale late last year there was a potential deal which fell through in 2019.
Given the remoteness of the properties and the turmoil of the last few years that is perhaps understandably, of course, while selling properties with sitting tenants is never straightforward.
The agent, Mr Hardy, told ITV News that ‘it’s the complex nature of the package that's on offer that causes all the hold-ups’ but promises that an ‘excellent investment opportunity’ awaits for whoever chooses to take it on.
Aberllefenni is for sale via Daafydd Hardy at £1.15 million — see more details and pictures.
Credit: Strutt and Parker
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