Investors targeting holiday lets – and insisting on cottages rather than other property types – now have a league table of where to find the right homes.

The cottage is one of the most quintessentially British property types but new research has confirmed a shortage of supply. They currently account for just 4% of listing for sale in England.

There are currently an estimated 367,425 residential properties on the market. Of these, just 14,830 are cottages.

Cornwall is England’s cottage hotspot, with 12.6% of the county’s property listings; Herefordshire is close behind with 12.2% followed by Rutland on 11.8%.

Cottages account for more than 10% of current listings in Somerset and Gloucestershire, followed by Devon (9%), the Isle of Wight (8.9%), Wiltshire (8.4%), Dorset (8.1%), and Cumbria (8%).

But many counties have very low supply, nowhere more than Greater London where cottages account for just 0.7% of listings.

This is followed by Merseyside (0.8%), West Midlands County (0.9%), and the City of Bristol (1.2%), while stock levels in Tyne & Wear (1.7%), Greater Manchester (1.7%), and Durham (1.8%) all come in at below 2%. 

The research was conducted by Regency Living.