Is a five-bedroom house for under £300k still possible in Harrogate?

Three is run-of the-mill; four is spacious; but five? It suggests a big house with a big garden – and an appropriately big price-tag.

Yet five needn’t really be a profligate amount of rooms, need it?

Typically, it’s one for mum and dad, one for each of three children, and one spare for visitors. Or it’s one for the parents, one for each of two children, a spare and a study. Or a games room. Or a granny flat/library/junk room… The possibilities are as varied as the lifestyles of the people who buy them.

One thing’s for sure, though: every extra bedroom adds thousands to a property’s price. So five-bedroom houses consequently cost a lot of money, right?

Well, not necessarily. It’s true that there are plenty of expensive ones about. The average price of a property in the HG postcode area with five bedrooms is £738,314 – that’s 120 per cent above the area’s overall average house price of £334,897.

But there are also quite a number currently on the market for considerably less. We decided to narrow our search down to properties with asking prices under £350,000 – which is a much less stress-inducing 4.5 per cent more than the area’s average house price – but ended up focusing on three five-bedroom houses priced below £300,000, well below the average house price for the HG postcode area.

In Harrogate’s Jennyfields estate, 8 Norwood Grove is a detached house on a corner plot in a cul-de-sac overlooking woodland. It may be ideal for an active family, as it is just a stone’s throw from Oak Beck and stands between Oakdale golf course and David Lloyd Leisure centre.

Its five bedrooms are all on the first floor, along with the bathroom, and on the ground floor are the kitchen, living room, dining room, study and WC. There are gardens to the front and back, as well as a good-sized single garage.

Coincidentally, the property has some marked similarities with 2 Kingstonia Gardens on the south side of Ripon, which also occupies a corner plot on a cul-de-sac a short walk from sports facilities – this time Ripon Leisure Centre on Dallamires Lane.

This house also has a bathroom and five bedrooms on the first floor, two of which share a jack-and-jill bathroom, and the landing also has access to the roof space (via a drop-down ladder), which has a Velux window and offers space for extension, subject to planning permission.

Downstairs, there is a hall, kitchen, lounge, utility room, WC and dining room, which has French doors opening onto the front garden. There’s also a back garden, off-street parking and a single garage.

Finally, between Knaresborough and Boroughbridge, 1 Spellow Crescent is a semi-detached house in the village of Staveley. Significantly extended, it has four bedrooms, a bathroom and plenty of storage space on the first floor and a master bedroom with en-suite dressing room occupying the whole of the second-floor attic room. Downstairs, there’s a spacious open-plan dining kitchen, plus sitting room, utility room, study and shower room. Outside, there are front and back gardens, a shed and off-street parking.