Sandbanks have been dubbed the Monte Carlo of the south west of England, but is everyone who lives there happy with this association. It seems not. Many of the residents there do not appreciate the assumption of many that everyone who lives there are millionaires and they feel that the place has been undermined now by the mass interest of the media. Some have lived there for many years, before the interest of multi-millionaires made the place so popular. They feel that Sandbanks is now thought of as an excessive place to live, made this was by developers too. So what is the truth about Sandbanks? read on below.
It is true that some of the properties so command a £10million price tag, excessive to say the least. However these homes may have direct access to the beach and that is why the asking price is so much. Some developers have been known to pay £5million for a single plot of land with a perfectly good home on it; they then bulldoze the existing house and build a new mansion in its place. It is a fact that only 80% of the buyers in Sandbanks need a mortgage and it has been classed as "the immunity belt" by local estate agents. The reason being is that it is one of only a few places in Britain which has held off the recession and where cash is king. The average price of a family home here is around £2million and although the houses between the £2million and £4million mark did slow, the £4million to £7million homes did not suffer at all.
The history behind this peninsula is that less than 100 years ago Sandbanks was just a sand dune with the first houses being built on shallow foundations. Then once pile driving was discovered, the technique of driving piles into soil or sand which provides support for foundations of houses, the big houses and blocks of flats began to be erected. There are some of the 1930's bungalows still standing on the peninsula but the owners have been pressured to sell by big developers wanting to make a quick buck.