Is there a catch to buying property on the Isle Of Wight?

[MadBannersAndCopPorn]

It just seems so unbelievably(sp) cheap for somewhere so lovely.

Is it because you would have to travel to mainland to do things like go to a shopping center?
We were looking to get somewhere we could use as a holiday home or rent out for a week or two at a time.
Anybody out there with experience of buying property there or any advice/ tips?

It's because you have to build wicker effigies and dance naked twice a week.

I thought that was only on the Isle of Man Laurie...

maybe lack of work on the island and difficulty to commute

Thank you Branleuse. I thought as much.
Someone was telling me that you could only buy a house there if you were born there or had lived there for x amount of time (may have been confused with other islands)

Ours because it's not do lovely if you have to live there. Seriously not some where I would want to ever bring kids up. Thread recently-holiday one,think it was called things to do on the iow, got very interesting, write a few former islanders talking about 'the darker side of the island and the massive amount of drugs everywhere.'

More drugs there then I ever encountered in 20 years on living in London!

It's not ours

Buying a holiday home is a good plan though- just not to live

I think a holiday home would be great - v popular for holidays. I was going to say the catch to buying a property on the IOW is that you'd have to live there

We just paid 120 for ferry crossing-it was 50 quid last yeast out of season.

Year

So many drugs!

Trust me, its surprising how many of the youth are into drugs/make drugs/deal in drugs.

Living there again would turn me to drugs too

Not sure if I remember correctly, but seem to think subsidence is a problem there...... might be wrong though.

Subsidence can be a problem there, my parents have a buy to let in Newport that they had to underpin, though they knew that was the case when they bought it.

I'm looking at houses in the Southampton area and IOW houses come up if I search within 10 miles, they do seem to be about £20,000 - £30,000 less than a mainland equivalent.

You can spend all the cash you save on drugs

Could you take a speed boat across the water if you lived there?

I know you can row because a friend's dad used to take his boat out from Yarmouth to nearest point on the main land.

So buy a house for 20k below the price and use the change to get a speed boat.

Wow, a lot to think about! I suppose we've only seen the touristy side as we've only ever been tourists ourselves.
It makes sense that the cost of living/ lack of facilities would make it more expensive to live.
I can't believe there are so many drugs! Who'd have thought...
We're not seriously considering it yet, just thinking.

I live on the Isle Of Wight and love it. I was born here moved away to Uni, then came back with DH and dds in tow. We commute - its 8 mins on the hover and 5 years worth of season tickets are what we saved on stamp duty iyswim.

Hi - I wish I'd seen this thread before. Yes it's cheaper but ferries very very expensive and lack of jobs make it hardgoing, plus you're limited to what you can do. Very pretty for a summer holiday but miserable in winter.