Comment: Expensive homes list seals Harpenden’s high end reputation

Even in big, posh Hertfordshire, there aren’t many towns where 10 homes would change hands for prices upwards of £2million in one year.

But – as we’re all well aware – Harpenden isn’t your average town.

This leafy, every so lovely part of Herts is home to many wealthy residents and for a lot of them a couple of million is a fair price to pay for a high end family home.

And the 10 most expensive properties sold in the town last year were certainly luxurious, as our web story revealed.

With more indoor heated pools, separate self-contained annexes and basement games or cinema rooms than you could shake a Range Rover at, the top end of the market was offering up all the extras you’d expect.

Ultra exclusive Park Avenue North sealed its reputation as one of the town’s most prestigious addresses, with number 32 topping the list with a sale price of £3.7 million, followed in fourth place by number 25 at £2.65million.

Other roads that made the cut included East Common, Oakhurst Avenue, West Common Way and Prospect Lane.

Nick Ingle, from Savills in Harpenden, said that wider concerns about the state of the property market in general have done little to dent interest in top end Harpenden homes.

And while he admitted that 2018 had been “challenging”, he insisted that there had been “considerable interest at the higher end of the market”, with Harpenden continuing to provide “great value for money when compared to London”.

And, in a market buoyed up by London incomers, this may be the key to Harpenden’s enduring popularity.

A couple of million wouldn’t get you very far at all in uber-expensive Chelsea or mega-wealthy Westminster, after all – in fact a two or three-bed flat in St James’s is all you’d get for £3.75million in the latter high end area. Suddenly Harpenden looks almost (but not quite) cheap…