How much are houses in soaps worth?

[faceless]

I'm guessing Emmerdale will have the most expensive as it's all farms and mansions...

[SpursFan1902]

Interesting idea...I will be interested to see what a house in Walford runs...

[Skylace]

Being right by the tube it won't be cheap Spurs!

[SpursFan1902]

True...they are pretty prime in that respect...and how much would you pay to have a local like the Queen Vic??

[eefanincan]

Wonder how the Walford prices would compare to a similar home in the east end of the London where I live??? Will be interesting to compare.

[faceless]

In Fourth Place: Brookside Close
"Calm down, calm down - it only a 600% hike, alright"

Average house price in Brookside Close: £174,841 – a rise of 599.36% since Brookside started in 1982.

Uniquely among soap operas, Brookside was actually set and filmed in a real estate, each house said to have been purchased for £25,000 in 1982 by Phil Redmond’s Mersey TV company in West Derby, Liverpool. Redmond sold the estate in 2005, two years after the soap finished. Since then it has re-sold twice but all 13 houses remain abandoned and uninhabitable, despite the fact that each should be worth around £174,841 by now – a 599.36 per cent hike over the show's 28-year run.

Local estate agent, Carl Parle from Sutton Kersh, says, "It’s a sad state of affairs that we can let houses of that type stand empty. It’s a really good location, and they would sell. If Brookside was back on, maybe on cable TV, it would make a difference. Then I could imagine people saying, 'Yeah, I live at Brookside Close.'"

Meanwhile, properties further along Brookside Close (which is actually called Brookside, with the real residents inhabiting numbers 1-41) remain popular. Number 12 Brookside, not one of the houses used by the production company, is currently for sale at £79,950 through Sutton Kersh.

Tune in tomorrow to find out which soap is in third place!

---------------------

[pirtybirdy]

I'd like to live right next door to Tommy Saxondale in Stevenage(sp?).

[eefanincan]

600%! That's quite a hike in prices!

[faceless]

In Third Place: Emmerdale

For a fictional rural idyll, head to the Yorkshire Dales where Emmerdale is filmed - although, because of soap tourists getting in the way of filming, the actual location has changed several times. Filming started off in the village of Arncliffe, then moved to Esholt in 1976 where it stayed for 22 years, before switching to a purpose-built set in Leeds.

But the village of Esholt remains a tourist centre for the show, and the local pub has retained its adopted name of The Woolpack Inn. And, with average house prices in Esholt at under £20,000 when the show began and closer to £300,000 now, homeowners in the village have done well from the Emmerdale association.

In Second Place: The Archers

Being a radio programme, no one has ever actually seen Ambridge, the location of The Archers. But for fans of the world’s longest running soap opera, the Borsetshire village nestling among the Hassett Hills is as real as any other in the Midlands. The BBC remains tight-lipped about the show’s location, but Borsetshire is widely believed to be Worcestershire; the Bull is said to be based on the Old Bull in Inkberrow; and the real life Hanbury church is often used as Ambridge's St Stephens.

So are Archers fans ever tempted to search for a Brookfield or a Grange Farm home in rural Worcestershire? George Picard from Knight Frank in Worcester says not: "The majority of buyers are actually local to the area. And the link with the Archers is not usually advertised; we certainly wouldn’t print it on the particulars – it’s not the main attraction!"

Our research puts Ambridge in second place, with average house prices for property in Worcestershire valued at almost £450,000.

And the winner is…EastEnders

EastEnders is the winner of our competition to see which soap's real-life counterpart had had the most dramatic increase in house prices. Research from FindaProperty.com shows that a homeowner on Albert Square would be sitting pretty on property worth more than half a million pounds (£574,764). And Pat Evans would be the proud owner of the Square's highest valued property - our estimate is that her home at no.31 would be worth £847,821 nowadays.

Though two Albert Squares do actually exist in London, the famous but fictional one was based on Fasset Square in Dalston, East London. Lined by Victorian terraces, a real-life Ridley Road Market across the train line, Queen Elizabeth pub round the corner and even a Mitchell’s Motors nearby, Fasset Square is a perfect spot for any EastEnders fan to live.

The real deal doesn’t come cheap either. Nick Verdi from Keatons in Hackney is selling a 4-bed on Fassett Square for £629,995: "I’ve only seen two or three houses change hands in the six years I’ve been here as they don't tend to come up very often. It’s obviously picturesque, but it’s also close to London Fields and on good bus routes. And being on the square adds a £50k premium. The gentrification process round here has been unbelievable. The Dalston Junction development has made a real difference, as has the money pouring in for the Olympics."

Average property price in Albert Square: £574,764 – a 436 per cent rise since the programme began 25 years ago.

--------------------

[eefanincan]

So Pat's house is worth a fortune --- must be the bar in the front room that brings up the value

[Skylace]

That bar is priceless!!!!

I'm not surprised EE was the winner. Especially with how expensive property in London is. We lived in SE London in the late 90s and we were paying an arm and a leg (and a few extra parts as well). When we say a property for sale in the same place we were living just a few years ago we were floored by the price! It's nuts.

[SpursFan1902]

Very cool article idea. I now have a new place to visit in London. I just want to walk around the square a few times!