A LEADING national property-finder has tipped the Forest of Dean as one of the leading places to pick up property this year.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Jonathan Haward of the County Homesearch Company says the Forest is ideal for a home because it has motorway access and a railway station and is near an airport.
"I would buy in Majorca or Southern France if I could," he writes.
"If I was limited to Britain I would look for somewhere that is close to a motorway, near a railway station without troubles, and with access to an airport with flights to Europe.
"A small period house in the Forest of Dean would fit the bill. It is an undiscovered part of the M4 corridor, and Go has just started operating £39 flights to Majorca from Bristol Airport."
And he told the Review this week that he based his recommendations on the fact that the Forest had been overlooked and undervalued.
"It is a backwater situation, yet there are motorways going north, south and west, with a nearby airport. home prices are still reasonable and haven't risen as they have in the rest of the country.
"They are good value. I think prices have a long way to go."
His colleague Ian Dolphin, who works from Stroud, was quick to agree. He has been looking back at trends and says Cheltenham, for example, has seen the average house price rise from £70,000 in 1996 to £144,000 now, whereas in the Forest they have gone from £65,000 – near the Cheltenham figure – to only £112,000.
"It is my theory that the money which fuels property in the Cotswolds and Cheltenham is London money which comes out in waves, getting first to Oxford, then Cheltenham and so on.
"Only now has it started spreading to areas like the Forest further to the west, with places such as the Cotswolds 'shopped out'. I expect the Forest to begin to catch up soon."
The fact many Forest properties came with land was a major advantage too.
Foot and mouth had also kept buyers – and agents – out of the region last year. Buyers would be out in strength "when the daffodils start coming out".