You get the bling address, va-va-voom interiors and service staff for a fifth of the price. The only thing you don't get is a friendly atmosphere, the lack of which is suffocating

What? The Bishops Avenue? Stuffy?

This interesting piece is about the appearance of - cough - apartments, among the £40m mansions. Apparently, it's a credit crunch thing... £2.85m to £10m is much more affordable in the current climate. See here and here. Look, you can even rent.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

The recession here is a mere mouse-squeak in the roar of fame and infamy that rolls round these megalithic houses.

Blimey. The Telegraph's Caroline McGhie is in Hampstead, visiting a few properties that start at £25m on Courtenay Avenue and The Biships Avenue. Nor - apparently - is it just journalists visiting... the developers say they're getting viewings, and lots of them.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Following this, the Telegraph goes in search of London's most expensive council house, and finds a £2m Highgate lodge... temporary home to a woman and her 22-year-old son, who can now count George Michael, Sting and Tessa Jowell as their neighbours. There's a picture of it over at the Telegraph, and it's certainly very beautiful. I'm not sure I enjoy this kind of snidery and snobbery, though:

A local authority source said: "This must be the most expensive council house in Britain. The place is dripping with history and there are a lot of wealthy people who would give their eye-teeth to live there. To hand it over to a council tenant is extraordinary. It's like they made her lady of the manor overnight."

I mean... you could say the same about Tessa Jowell.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

The news, almost exactly a year ago to the day, was of Marcus Cooper's £32m purchase of Witanhurst, Highgate's 65-room West Hill mock-Georgian mansion, and plans to do it up and sell it on for an estimated £150m. By September, the talk was of a flip, for £75m. You see, those were the days... the days of 234% profit in less than two months. How things have changed. In the current market it takes an entire 12 months to make a measly 156% profit on a property. The news, today, is that London's second largest gaff - after Buckingham Palace - has, at last, found a buyer, and has been picked up, for £50m, by Russia's first richest woman, Elena Baturina... who according to the Telegraph is so rich she's actually married to a construction company.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Woodland Terrace is a development of nine houses on Twyford Avenue, with their own tennis court right next door. But who cares about tennis, when you're a GCSE certificate's throw away from the popular Fortismere School? According to the Telegraph, the Woodland Terrace is proving crunch-resistant... the homes going on sale for between £500,000 and £800,000 above local average. Yet, no matter how many times I read the pertinent paragraph, the Rat and Mouse is struck by the fact that the homes are for sale, rather than sold. Fortismere's headteacher's funny, though:

"Some have suggested that this [premium] may run to hundreds of thousands, depending on the property. It would be interesting to speculate on what we could do at the school if all of these families, and the building developers, returned the favour by donating, say, five per cent of the value the school has added to their houses."

The Rat and Mouse bets you that won't happen.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Almost a year ago, the Rat and Mouse reported on squatter Harry Hallowes' £2m windfall, after a judge awarded him squatters' rights to a little parcel of land on the edge of Hampstead Heath.

He was back in the news on Saturday, in a piece about the problems he's creating for a local developer, who has plans to build an unpleasant-sounding pile of tack on land shared by Mr Hallowes and grand 19th Century home Athlone House. The plan was to bulldoze both. The Highgate Society is opposing one; Hallowes the other. But the squatter can at least comfort himself with the knowledge that - according to a valuation in the Daily Mail - he's made a 100% profit in just 11 months:

His small plot is now worth a staggering £4million.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Way back - and I mean way back - in 2005, the Rat and Mouse reported on steel gazillionaire Lakshmi Mittal's ruckus with The Bishop's Avenue neighbour Princess Samerah concerning plans to build a development of 12 apartments with balconies overlooking his Summer Palace. The ruckus has now ended. Because - according to this - Mittal's decided that if you can't beat 'em, clear out. The house is said to be listed at £40m, with local specialist Glentree Estates, although there's no sign of online particulars right now.

Tumbleweed blowing down Millionaires' Row [February 18, 2008]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

According to figures from Mouseprice, Kensington & Chelsea's glory days are over, and it's Courtenay Avenue, a road running parallel to The Bishop's Avenue, in Highgate that's now paved in the thickest gold and lined with the bushiest money trees. The average property price necessary to achieve this? Just £6.8m. Last year, the winner was Kensington Square, with an average price a whole 23% less than this year's... an example of what's happening in the prime-and-above market. Go here for some interesting analysis from Bloomberg.

Tumbleweed blowing down Millionaires' Row [February 18, 2008]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

An interesting interview with Trevor Abrahmsohn, the man who brokered the Toprak Mansion deal and is now selling Lakshmi Mittal's gaff next door, in the Telegraph. He has The Bishop's Avenue sewn up, and he doesn't seem in the least concerned that it's a ghost town. The piece is a good read, and includes a potted history of London's most expensive avenue.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

And for £50m, a new London record, after nearby Palladio's sale for £35m just a fortnight ago. The buyer? A Kazakhstani billionaire by the name of Horelma Peramam. More here.

Feeling horny? Forbes UK property porn special [January 26, 2007]
Bishop's Avenue's £50m house [May 5, 2006]