During a recent radio show appearance PrimeLocation.com was corrected on a small but significant piece of property history by the London Evening Standard’s no-nonsense planning correspondent, Mira Bar Hillel.

The mistake had been to claim that Margaret Thatcher (pictured above, before she became Prime Minister) and her 1979 Conservative government had sparked the home ownership revolution that rumbles on today.

Mira, shaking her head vigorously from across the studio, pointed out that it was an earlier Tory administration, not Thatcher’s. Instead, in 1957  Harold Macmillan abolished rent controls and it was this, after rents subsequently soared, that persuaded millions of us to embrace ownership.

Even though Mira was right to assert this, for many people Margaret Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ council homes scheme (brought in soon after her 1979 victory) was a seminal moment in Britain’s property market, enabling some two million or more people to buy their local authority homes, often at a very substantial discount.

But as many of us queue to see the film Iron Lady starring Meryl Street (pictured above), how has the property market changed since her triumphant, ‘the lady’s not for turning’ speech?

Like today, the economy was in difficulties and Thatcher had to bring in harsh policies to correct the downturn. Nevertheless, in those days first time buyers required just £25,000 to get on the property ladder (compared to £155,000 or so today); a million pounds bought a huge 2,000 acre country estate; and mortgage rates were running at 17%, something we haven’t had to endure this time round.

According to agent Jackson-Stops & Staff, wealthy commuters could buy a good six bedroom family home in the stockbroker belt of Surrey with an acre of garden for £250,000 – today it would cost over £2 million.

And Dawn Carritt, who heads up JSS’s country house department, also remembers how “loans would not be considered for anything more than two and a half times a person’s salary” and mainly came from building societies and that only a few years before women would have needed to get their father’s or husband’s consent to get a mortgage in their own name.

Tax was also in its own bracket in the 1970s, as many rock stars famously grumbled about at the time – including Mick Jagger. Inheritance Tax (then known as Capital Transfer Tax) was 75% and income tax for high earners 83 per cent, though it was reduced by Thatcher in 1979 to 60 per cent. Basic rate tax was 33 per cent but fell to 30 per cent in the first Thatcher budget.

As Charles Dickens fans around the world prepare for the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth on 7th February this year, a property on the Isle of Wight where he wrote large tracts of his most famous novel, David Copperfield, is up for sale.

Winterbourne Country House in Bonchurch, an upmarket suburb of the island’s major seaside resort, Ventnor, is currently on the market for £1.495 million and was rented by Dickens during the summer of 1849 and treasured by him for its views over the English Channel.

It is while staying here that he wrote six chapters of David Copperfield, although his stay was social as well as to write; he invited many of his literary friends over to stay including William Thackeray (author of Vanity Fair), satirist Thomas Carlyle, poet Alfred Tennyson and Mark Lemon, then editor of Punch magazine.

While staying at Winterbourne Dickens wrote to his wife Catherine – who was in London – to say: “I think it is the prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad”. And in recent times many people have been able to enjoy its pleasures too – the property has been run as a guest house in recent years and holds five-star ratings from both Visit Briain and the AA.

The property is being sold as two lots, the first being the main house with seven bedrooms, large gardens and swimming pool (for £1.495m). A second lot, which is a four bedroom property called Hadfield Cottage, is for sale separately at £325,000. Agent Christopher Scott says this could either be let out or bought as guest or staff accommodation for the main house.

But Winterbourne has also been a TV star on several occasions including, recently, an appearance on Channel 4’s Three In A Bed show, during which it competed with two other Isle of Wight B&Bs.

The properties that make Britain great are to be found all over the UK. Cue wisteria choked-cottages, sharp-shouldered rectories, ship-size Georgian mansions and teetering townhouses, all designed grandly and all probably once featured in Country Life magazine.

These architectural clichés are hard coded into our national psyche and by comparison Americans are mostly bereft of anything old, Australians have to do with identical modern neighbours and the French hate their drafty old chateaux and prefer new build bungalows.

But is that true – what homes do we British really have the property hots for? After trawling through the million or so properties listed on our site for sale and rent and looking at search patterns among our two and a half million users, all can be revealed.

A majority of us, our research shows, seek a detached property with a large garden in the heart of walking country and overlooking beautiful countryside. As Kirstie and Phil would say, such a tick list is not easy to fill.

Properties like the one pictured below are not even one to the dozen. So it’s no surprise that they are hugely in demand and are twice the national average house price (or £523,866 to be exact).

Britain's most desired home? This 18th/19th century stone farmhouse outside Avonbridge in Falkirk has outstanding views over the local countryside and comes with part ownership of a local nature reserve.

But the main truth our research has revealed is just how much we are nation of urban and suburban dwellers which pines for the countryside. It’s why programmes such as Kirstie Allsopp’s Homemade Home, which sells the satin-quilted bucolic dream, or Escape to the Country, are so popular.

Some 90% of us live in cities and more than half (57%) surveyed in the PrimeLocation.com Desirability Index said their dream house would be detached, in the countryside (33%), have good views (64%) and be near nice places to walk (44%).

Manchester is famous for its football teams, music scene and innovative urban redevelopment schemes but it now has something else to be proud of.

Because its top-end property market,  helped by the city’s up-and-coming ‘villages’ such as Worsley and Didsbury and suburban wealth hotspots  including Alderley Edge, Hale, Hale Barnes, Wilmslow and Altrincham, is on a roll.

Prime homes in Manchester are rising in price faster than their counterparts in London, increasing by 11 per cent over the past year compared to 4.75 per cent in the capital, according to the latest Prime Index.

Also, the monthly index, which tracks the top quarter of the property market by value, reveals that the average prime property asking price in Manchester is now £319,111, almost double the asking price for an average home in the city (£161,276).

And at 11% Manchester’s prime market has outpaced the city’s broader property market to a large degree, as prices in Manchester’s overall general market have risen by just 0.9% over the past year to £161,276.

Average asking prices for Manchester’s prime platinum properties (the top 10% of the market) have been rising ever faster by 14.28% over the past year, while London’s prime platinum properties have risen by just 3.22%.

But this good news at the top means the gap between up-market homes in Manchester and their ‘general market’ counterparts has opened up significantly (see table above), highlighting a national as well as a Manchester trend of average house prices slipping way behind Prime ones as the recession bites at the bottom and middle of the property market, but bypasses the top.

The house at 498 Finchley Road in North London may look like just another suburban mini mansion but its striking facade and neo-Georgian stonework (pictured below)  hide a simple but unusual fact.

It is the first time this property has come on to the market for nearly half century and, despite the intervening decades, it’s the same agent selling the house today as did in 1966.

Leaf through the yellowed pages of the original brochure (pictured, bottom) and it feels like a different world rather than a different decade. Nothing is swinging or fab in the formal sales brochure (unlike the current one’s more relaxed approach) although the 1966 property market was fairly ‘radical’ compared to today’s.

That year’s average house price was £3,465 and values were rising by 6% a year. Today it’s £219,533 rising by just 0.9%.

But what’s changed most dramatically is the way homes are sold. We all take it for granted that property is bought on the open market by ‘private treaty’ using estate agents, but back then most were sold at auctions instead, and most ‘estate agents’ were in fact auctioneers.

“In 1966 it might have been advertised in a magazine but more likely it was marketed by hand written letters being sent out to potential buyers prior to an auction at a local pub – Jack Straw’s Castle in Hampstead – which in fact is now a block of flats,” says Phillip Green of local estate agent Goldschmidt & Howland.

But what has changed most is the Finchley Road, which has been transformed from a quiet thoroughfare into a busy main road clogged up these days by traffic from central London travelling to the bottom of the M1.

“In those days you were lucky if a family had one car but now it’s normal for them to have two or three around here,” says Phillip Green.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the property’s interior, which has been preserved in aspic since Goldschmidt & Howland last photographed it – most noticeably the beehive yellow parquet flooring, original cornicing and light fittings.

For more information phone Goldschmidt & Howland on 020 8209 9300.

Property descriptions sometimes stretch reality to the limit to sell a home but the apartments launched recently in central London need only mention the bare facts to get jaws dropping.

Your neighbour is called Elizabeth, but she’s the Queen and likes to fly the flag when she’s in. If you tire of being cooped up at the weekends then there’s some greenery nearby, called Hyde Park. And the nearest tube station for the commute to work? Well that’s Victoria.

And should you get bored and fancy some bright lights then Trafalgar Square and London’s theatre land are a short stroll up The Mall. And finally security? Luckily your neighbour changes the guard every day at 11am.

So are there any downsides to this ultimate address? Price is one of them, although given the location it’s a steal for the international millionaires who might consider buying one of these apartments overlooking Buckingham Palace Road. And gardens are thin on the ground – although there is a central courtyard with some shrubbery and St James’s Park is two minutes away on foot.

These compare well with the £5m being asked for a one-bedroom apartment at One Hyde Park, the Candy Brothers’ apartment complex in Knightsbridge and, although Palace View properties offer a less exciting view of the Queen’s indoor swimming pool and gym over the road, you are in one of the most sought after locations in London.

The building, which used to be 21 offices, was refurbished to designs by upmarket architect Eades Hotwani, who recently designed the boutique Ferrari showroom within the nearby Berkeley Hotel on Wilton Street.

There is also outstanding rental potential here. During the Royal Wedding this year two-bedroom apartments were being offered at between £10,000 and £15,000 for the wedding week although two bedroom apartments around here often go for £4,000 a week or more.

Prices at Palace View start at £595,000 for a studio, £895,000 for a two bedroom apartment and £1.475m for a three bedroom property.

For more information contact selling agent Hamptons International on 0207 758 8434.

During tough economic times you might expect everyone to feel the pain in the housing market as, broadly speaking, economic uncertainty drives down confidence and activity across the board.

But not so, our house price index show. The nation’s fiscal difficulties are rapidly splitting the UK housing market in half as house prices in the ‘general market’ edge downwards but the Prime, top end of the market continues to rise.

Last month Prime properties increased nationally on average by 0.5%, the seventh monthly rally in this market which has pushed the average prime property asking price to £472,340.

Prime property is the top 25% of any property market whether it’s Mayfair or Motherwell and our figures show that in villages, towns and cities across the UK the gap between the Prime and ‘general’ market has been widening since our index was launched four years ago. And it show no signs of stopping.

When the index was launched, the average prime property was on the market for £157,255 more than the average UK home whereas today that figure is now just over £250,000 or 115% more than an ‘average’ home.

It’s not just been Prime properties continuing to rise in value – the general housing market has been dropping away too. During September general house prices dropped by 0.2%, the second monthly drop in a row.

So what’s going on, you may ask. The straightforward explanation is that the recession has yet to significantly impact people who buy homes in the top 25% of the market and, to add fat to the fire, the supply of homes coming on to the market has slowed down, driving greater competition among Prime buyers for the properties that do come up for sale.

There’s a problem in London created almost entirely by its success as a global capital city. Many of its central and northern suburban prime homes stand empty for months on end creating what are, in effect, billion-pound ghost streets lined with the second (or third) homes of the world’s nation-hopping super-wealthy from Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Bahrain, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Many agents say up to 60% and sometimes even 70% of sales in central London have been to foreigners in recent years, astonishing figures created by both the favourable exchange rate, London’s status as the must-buy destination for the world’s wealthy, and the ever-booming Square Mile.

But despite rarely being home to their registered residents, the streets look busy. So what gives?

The answer is that the owners of these luxury properties usually turn to others to run their homes, which means directly employing staff. It’s a sort of modern day upstairs-downstairs but rather than straight-laced ladies and gentlemen from the country these staff are often their Thai or Philippine counterparts.

One extreme example of this is a large house with over ten bedrooms to be found near Kenwood House in north London owned by the ruling family of Bahrain.

It’s kept as one of their London address “should things get sticky back home”, one local told us. So every morning the Thai house sitters dutifully clean and air the house, turn the limo’s engine over and then retire to the kitchen for a green tea, ever hopeful that their employers may one day pay a visit.

But for those who don’t want ‘live ins’, a small industry of linen and house cleaning, chauffeuring, security and ‘gofer’ firms has sprung up to fill the occupational gap. One example is The London Management Company.

For either a fee of £3,300 a year or £45 an hour its staff look after every aspect of a pied-a-terre’s welfare including basic home maintenance and cleaning, taking deliveries, picking up post and emails, servicing the family Bentley, keeping the huge American-style fridge stocked as well as pets fed and walked.

One advantage of this, the firm claims, is that a property looks ‘lived in’, helping to deter burglars and – as unemployment in the capital hits half a million people – being a good way to keep a small army of helpers employed.

PrimeLocation.com has developed a property search app for Android phones and we’re launching it today. The app is for the millions of smartphone users in the UK using Android handsets – such as the HTC Desire or Samsung Galalxy IIS  - and offers a clean and simple way to find your next prime location while on the move.

The app offers both traditional postcode or area name searches as well as a one-touch ‘my location’ search too. To download go to the Android Market on your phone and search for ‘primelocation’ and the app is free to install.

If you don’t have an Android phone but want to search while out and about then one alternative is the PrimeLocation.com iPad app, launched last year to much acclaim and already downloaded 150,000 times.