This is Britain's ideal home

This four-bedroom detached house in Timperley, Altrincham, has been identified as the house that Brits would most like to live in. For £565,000, buyers will get a detached home in great condition, with stripped wood floors, open-plan living, plenty of space, and a back garden - all within walking distance of town.

Zoopla.co.uk identified that the house comes within a whisker of the one identified by its research as our ideal home. The research found that we are after 3.5 bedrooms and two bathrooms. One of those bathrooms needs to be en-suite, and there has to be plenty of storage space.

We want a small, lawned (south-facing) garden, plus a conservatory, parking space for two cars, plus a garage, and a mile or less to walk to the nearest town or city centre.

The Timperley property fits the bill in every one of these cases. Only a couple of things let it down. First it's a period property, and the study fund that 44% want a modern-style home. In its defence, the house has modern styling inside - and meets the requirement for open-plan living.

The second issue is that the most popular dream home - if money was no object - is a country estate - picked by 15% of people. A big suburban family home like this one only came joint second (alongside a London townhouse) at 13%.

Dream small

What's particularly striking is that when asked to pick their ultimate dream property, people aren't picking castles or mansions. They are opting for the kinds of properties that their parents might have been able to afford.

Nowadays, a large suburban house will set you back more than half a million pounds - and even the average home has now hit £292,000. With these kinds of prices, it's no wonder that this kind of property has become a pipe dream for millions of Brits.

Among younger people, the trend is even more striking. When pushed to name their ideal property, they were happy to dream of a modern semi-detached property with two and a half bedrooms. For many of them, although this sounds fairly modest, it's still a fantasy. With house prices so high, and wages remaining stubbornly low, the idea of ever being able to afford even a modest home of their own remains a distant dream.

But what do you think? Is this your dream house, and could you ever imagine owning something like this? Let us know in the comments.