Market report · 28 January 2026 · 9 min read
The cost of a view, measured honestly
Across sixty regional sales, water frontage adds less than owners expect and orientation adds far more.
Owners of waterfront houses expect a premium of forty per cent or more. Across the sixty transactions we have data for, frontage alone accounted for a median of fourteen per cent once floor area, condition and authorship were held constant.
Orientation did much better. A house facing within twenty degrees of west — that is, one that gets the evening — carried a median premium of nineteen per cent over an otherwise identical house facing east, whether or not it had water in front of it.
The practical reading is that people pay for light and think they are paying for water. It is worth knowing which one you are buying.
Written by Mara Okonjo · Appraisal
