Haart's London Property Index is showing a 22% rise since January, the average price of a London property rocketing from £152,207 to £194, 052. Hotspots? Blackheath Village, Southgate and Willesden Green. More here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

The Primelocation blog wonders why Jade Jagger's £1.5m Queens Park flat still - after a year - hasn't shifted. Could it be the strippers' pole (see where I place that apostrophe... the Rat and Mouse provides itself on an extravagant imagination) in the bathroom? Those things are expensive to install, you know? Particulars, here.

Celebrities who don't sell [April 16, 2009]

Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate

How will the reserved British public take to Silkstream, Colindale's apartment development aimed at sociable first-time buyers? The flats are reasonably priced... £175,000 for a one-bedroom start home (plus a deferred equity/interest-free loan scheme to get residents in quicker), but it's the development's layout that's most interesting... an outdoor gym, and amenity areas on every floor, including table football, a sewing room, ironing areas (below), message areas with chalkboards aimed at getting the community to, well, commune. We like it. But will it feel a bit too college campus for homebuyers?

Technorati Tags: design, development, London, property, real estate

Fresh from a price reduction, this skinny Elgin Avenue glass house replaces a former wine vault, and it's just 3m wide at the front. It was designed by Nicholas Boyarsky and Nicola Murphy and was the subject of a Building Design feature in 2007. Guide price, £1.15m. Particulars here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

It's hard to imagine the neighbourhood with the market, but - according to this - that's how it might be if the current Government and Central Rating Office policy to remove concessionary rates for small businesses continues. Some traders have seen rates increase by 100%. Don't expect small, independent shops to survive. Sign the petition. And according to this, there'll be a demonstration on Saturday.

Technorati Tags: London

Where? Never heard of it.

Well you'd better get used to it, because...

A new weekend market which is planned to open on the junction will be called Maida Hill Market, and a new community magazine is to be launched, entitled Maida Hill Life.

And, according to a local:

"The Harrow Road post office is officially called the Maida Hill post office, and on the front of buses, it says they are going to Maida Hill."

But you can't just decide you're going to call a place something, and then stick it on buses. Can you? Apparently the area has been called Maida Hill before, back in the early 19th Century, when the British and French were fighting. It was named after a skirmish.

Technorati Tags: London

Mouseprice's ten fastest falling residential streets in the UK include a couple of London roads. Erebus Drive, in SE26, close to the river in Greenwich, is heavy on new-build apartments, but Russell Road in Barnet (NW9) looks like a fairly average residential road. You can see the full top ten on Mouseprice's actual report by clicking here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

And visited by Glenda Jackson. Actually, this is an interesting project, by Genesis Housing Group, and sees the regeneration of some Grade II-listed Victorian tenement blocks in Hampstead Village... flats which have apparently been home to Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten and Boy George.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

[photo by Matt Brown]

It's this weekend, in London... two days in which you're free to wander around some of the capital's architectural wonders. In the Guardian, Jonathan Glancey provides a useful preview. Our highlight? Erno Goldfinger's Trellick Tower, a modern masterpiece, and an important lesson in protecting architectural assets even especially while they're temporarily out of fashion.

[Open House London]

Technorati Tags: architecture, London, property, real estate

Apparently, there's this thing, where somebody sells a house to somebody else who buys it. Used to happen a lot. Here's one for sale. It's a three-bedroom end-of-row on Portobello Road, and it comes complete with a gallery space on the ground and lower ground floors. The space could be rented out, kept, or even converted. But the house is more interesting than that. Designed by Meadowcroft Griffin in 2004, it won a Conservation Commendation at the 2006 RIBAs, and it's bold inside and out, with the "good light" distributed throughout, rather than reserved for the gallery spaces. It's with The Modern House Estate Agents, with a guide price of £2.25m.

Technorati Tags: architecture, London, property, real estate