As Ken Barlow’s Coronation Street home rockets 8,746% in value, see which other soap stars are sitting on goldmines

KEN Barlow’s Coronation Street home has risen in value by nearly 8,746 per cent since he moved in, estate agents have said.

But Ken’s profit is way below what EastEnder Ian Beale could earn.

His place on Albert Square, East London, was worth £85,043 when he first appeared in 1985, but is now up to £494,231 — a rise of 481 per cent.

Soaring property values around the country mean many of the longest-serving characters in Britain’s favourite soaps are sitting on huge profits should they ‘sell up’.

The figures have been estimated by online estate agents eMoov.co.uk.

It worked out the purchase price from when the character first appeared on the screens and how much the same property would be worth today.

Ken Barlow is the longest-serving character in the world’s longest-running soap opera and when he first appeared in Coronation Street in 1960 his Weatherfield terrace would have cost just £1,614. Today it would be worth £142,759, a jump of 8,746 per cent.

Others in the eMoov report are the Liverpool home of Tony Hutchinson from Hollyoaks and a typical estate home in Brookside Close from the now defunct soap, also in Liverpool.

Brookside’s homes have done particularly well, jumping by more than 700 per cent since the show began in 1982 until now – although the series went off air in 2003. At least one property may find buyers put off by the fact there used to be a body under the patio.

Eric Pollard’s farmhouse in Emmerdale has increased from £64,174 to £333,792 in 31 years and Casualty‘s Charlie Fairhead’s Bristol semi has gone up from nearly £60,000 to £310,821 in the same period.

Jimmi Clay in Doctors has only been in his Birmingham terraced house since 2005 but it has still increased by 31 per cent in that time, said eMoov founder Russell Quirk.

He said: “It is always interesting to know what the properties of our favourite stars on television cost in relation to our own lives.

“But what is more eye opening is the increase that these iconic characters have experienced over the years as property values across the UK have increased at such incredible growths.