Swakopmund seafront cottage

Swakopmund is one of the strangest and most likeable coastal towns anywhere: a tidy German colonial seaside resort of pastel facades, palm-lined streets and Lutheran spires, wedged between the freezing Atlantic and the giant apricot dunes of the Namib. It has excellent coffee, an old jetty, a Bavarian brewery and, half a kilometre inland, absolutely nothing but desert for hundreds of kilometres. This two-bedroom cottage sits two streets back from the beachfront in the older part of town.

Built in the colonial period and renovated since, the cottage runs to about 95 square metres: two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room with a working fireplace, a separate kitchen and an enclosed sun porch that catches the light on the days the coastal fog burns off. Timber floors, high ceilings, sash windows and a corrugated roof are all original in character. Outside is a walled yard with off-street parking and a braai area. The Swakopmund climate — cool, dry, fog-cooled, rarely above 25 degrees — means no air conditioning and very low running costs, though the fireplace earns its keep in winter.

Namibia permits foreigners to own freehold property outright, and the conveyancing system is inherited from South African law: an offer to purchase, transfer by a conveyancing attorney, and registration at the Deeds Office in Windhoek. Transfer duty applies on a sliding scale and the process usually takes six to ten weeks. Swakopmund has a deep and liquid property market by Namibian standards, driven by inland Namibians and South Africans keeping coastal holiday houses, so both valuations and resale are relatively predictable.

The town punches far above its size for services. There is a private hospital, several supermarkets, good schools, a museum, an aquarium and a genuinely good restaurant scene built on Namibian beef, Walvis Bay oysters and fresh kabeljou. The German heritage shows up in bakeries, konditoreien and the annual carnival. Walvis Bay, half an hour south, has the deep-water port, the airport and the lagoon.

This is not a swimming coast — the Benguela current runs cold enough to take your breath away — but it is a spectacular one. The beach is enormous, empty and excellent for walking, angling and beachcombing. Everything else is adventure: quad biking and sandboarding on the dunes behind town, skydiving over the desert, kayaking with Cape fur seals at Pelican Point, boat trips among dolphins and pelicans on Walvis Bay lagoon, flamingos on the salt pans, and the Skeleton Coast running north into genuine wilderness. Sossusvlei is a long day's drive inland. It is the best-value coastal town in southern Africa, and one of the most unusual places to own a house anywhere.