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

According to a survey by Savills, the following addresses are potential candidates for future primeness. The important driver is an influx of professionals combined with nice existing stock, preferably Victorian or Edwardian homes. The advantages to being "prime"? If you've been reading the Rat and Mouse at all over the last few years you'll know that prime London tends to outgrow the rest of London, indeed the rest of the UK. So here goes:

• Tooting ("the new Notting Hill")
• White City
• East Acton
• Tulse Hill
• Camberwell
• Fortis Green
• Finchley
• Brondesbury
• Willesden Green
• Cricklewood

[via the Times]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

It's a former scout hut near Kilburn High Road, and it (or rather the land it's on) has sold at auction for £400,000. Expect it to spark off a predictable debate on a Radio 2 phone-in, shortly.

[via Hot Property]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

A year-and-a-half ago the Independent took a trip to Kilburn High Road to look at an extraordinary house - a modern, architecturally uncompromising structure overlooking Kilburn Grange Park and on the market for £2 million. Okay, they said, the High Road's a tip, but the house - cedar-clad, flat-roofed, underfloor-heated, glass-walled - is a "gem". Read more (although not the original link, which has died) here. Or just don't bother, and instead head over to today's Independent, where you'll find a strikingly similar piece, which also calls the property a "gem", and points out it's currently on the market, this time with our friends at CityScope, and priced at £2.1 million. This time round, though, the emphasis is on the High Road... is it up-and-coming enough for such a serious investment? And has the house been bought and sold since it was last featured? Or is it just hanging around? Read it here.

Remember this? The latest London compulsory purchase order disgrace appears to be taking place in Barnet's Grahame Park Estate, where the council has apparently admitted that the price being paid out to residents won't be enough to allow them to buy back in again, after their homes have been demolished and replaced. Residents' choices are simple. They can move away (the most likely outcome... despite school or work ties); they can increase their mortgages to cover the price hike; or enter into a shared ownership scheme. Isn't the point of regeneration to improve an area for the people who live there? Full story, here.

The Telegraph looks inside a nice, Terence Conran-designed Maida Vale mews house, currently belonging to Royal Ballet principle ballerina Leanne Benjamin and her husband Tobias Round, manager of the Donmar Warehouse. It's an interesting piece and a lovely house, and it's on the market for £1.35 million. Particulars, here.

Ioan Gruffudd and Matthew Rhys, they're leaving for good. We're sorry, but it's true; and we know because their three-bedroom flat on Kingsgate Road, has just joined the market for £400,000.

First it was Dickens & Jones, now ThisIsMoney reports on the imminent departure of another much-loved London department store. Barkers is going... leaving the residents of Kensington with a journey to Knightsbridge if they find themselves in need of expensive French kitchenware or a Crombie coat. Expect, apparently, a giant American health food shop to take its place. But, in the north west, the news is better. According to this, Brent Cross is to get London's second Apple Store. Why's that good? Okay, I'm biased (the Rat and Mouse is produced on one of a number of Macs in my own little Mac Museum), but the Apple Store on Regent Street is about as entertaining an experience as any computer store could be (and the best place to go for a bit of free WiFi).

Tanya Same - founder of the Ghost label - opens her Ladbroke Grove home to Charlotte Crips in today's Independent. As you'd imagine, it sounds hip - a homely and unstudied ragtag of 20th Century design, found objects and bits of Ghost. Hey, it also has a bar - so what do we know? And just in case anybody hadn't read the Ladbroke Grove bit, and was in any doubt we're talking about west London:

There's a spiral staircase here that leads up to an attic bedroom at the top of the house, where I do yoga every morning with my yoga teacher. I've just learnt to stand on my head.

In case you didn't know it, it's the Peabody Trust's Dalgarno Gardens that's been surrounded much of the day by police apparently shouting "Mohammed" through megaphones. The entire estate has been cordoned off all day - with residents told to stay indoors. Somebody reported a "controlled explosion" - possibly a smoke bomb.