A Grand Design? Give over! A modest detached house tops the dream home wish list for most of us

So what would be your dream property... a beautiful townhouse, a Victorian pile or perhaps even your own castle? No? Well according to new research it turns out that all we really want is a lovely little detached house.

The survey, on behalf of mortgage and loan broker
OceanFinance.co.uk, revealed that one in five of us (19.3%) aspire to owning a detached house.

And while an Englishman's home is his castle, not many of us actually fancy living in one - with just one in 20 (6.1%) respondents saying they dream of living in their own castle or historic mansion.

It seems that we have far more modest aspirations. After a detached house, 12.9% would love to live in a bungalow; 6.5% in a flat or apartment, compared with 5.6% of people who dream of owning a converted barn or church.

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But while we may not be looking for the grandest houses, location is something that's clearly close to our hearts.

A chocolate-box cottage in the country is the dream home for 17.2% of us and 15% would love a farmhouse with smallholding of land (the Good Life, anyone?).

Our dream home varies around the country, too, and if you live in the East Midlands and Yorkshire, chances are you dream of a cottage in the country (18.1% and 16.9%); in Northern Ireland, the south west of England and in Wales, a farmhouse with smallholding is the most popular choice (22.2%, 19.9% and 21.9%); while those in the north east would simply love a bungalow
(19.1%).

'Rates of home ownership may continue to decline, but the idea of owning our own place remains deeply engrained,' says Ian Williams, a spokesman for Ocean Finance.

Typically we have fairly modest aspirations – preferring a detached house to a Grand Design, for example.

And while most of us live in urban areas, the draw of rural living in the chocolate-box country cottage remains very strong.'

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