10:19am Tuesday 11th March 2008
By Daily Echo reporter
A PENSIONER who paid £8,000 for her home has seen it shoot up in value to a staggering five million pounds.
And a local estate agent says that a new property on the site would sell for between eight and nine million pounds.
Lalage Bailey, 81, and late husband Frank bought the Sandbanks property in 1949.
Since then the peninsula in Poole harbour has become one of the world's hottest property spots.
Grandmother Mrs Bailey said: "I am not going to sell my house to anyone, no matter how much they offer me for it.
"When I die, it will be left to my four children and it is up to them what they do but I would rather it stayed in the family.
"I have had many estate agents round offering me more money than sense but I just don't want to move. It's a wonderful house and I am very lucky to have it."
The three-storey property, with stunning views of Brownsea Island, was built in 1918 and once belonged to Mrs Bailey's father-in-law, camping tycoon Oswald Bailey.
When she married his son Frank in 1949, Oswald sold it to them for £8,000.
The house was set out as three flats.
Mrs Bailey said: "We paid £8,000 for it, which was a lot of money in those days.
"Because we were just married we lived in the ground-floor flat and rented out the two flats above, which helped with the mortgage repayments."
After the birth of their first two children, the couple took up the flat above and by the time they had four they converted the building back to one large residence They fitted a new kitchen and bathroom suite in the 1950s which still remain today.
The family used to have their own private beach until they had to build a sea wall in the 1960s due to rising water levels.
Although Sandbanks became built up in the 1960s, it has only been over the last 10 years that it has turned into a millionaires' playground.
In 2001 a survey showed it was the fourth most expensive place in the world to buy real estate, behind Hong Kong, Tokyo and London's Belgravia.
Older homes have given way to new harbourside mansions which cost anything up to £10 million.
The widow said: "Sandbanks has obviously changed a lot and there are lots of modern houses around here now.
"But that doesn't worry me at all. I have a nice long drive and don't see much of them.
"I am aware there has been a lot of publicity about the area and that people are happy to pay millions to live here.
"I don't blame them. On a nice day the views are just wonderful.
"No amount of money will change my mind about selling - I am staying here."
Mr Bailey, a former managing director of Oswald Bailey, died three years ago. The couple's second daughter Alison, 55, has now returned home to care for her mother.
Tom Doyle, of Sandbanks estate agent Lloyds, reckoned Mrs Bailey should cash in now.
He said: "There are three words that sum up the property market in Sand-banks and they aren't location, location, location' - they are win, win, win' "It's win for the vendor, win for the developer and win for the estate agent.
"Mrs Bailey's home is in a fantastic place. It looks straight out to Brownsea Island and it is away from the road so you don't get the holiday traffic there.
"It would be worth about five million pounds today - that is the value of the land. A new property on the same site would go for between eight and nine million pounds.
"It may pay for Mrs Bailey to sell now as the family may have an issue with inheritance tax in years to come."
Sandbanks, which was featured on a recent ITV documentary presented by Piers Morgan, is home to Premiership soccer boss Harry Redknapp and computer magnate Sir Peter Ogden.
The headline on this story was by Paul Bunker who won the headline challenge on his 2CR FM show on Tuesday morning.
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