That's according to data from moneysupermarket.com, using insurance data. Not far behind Stokey comes Apperley Bridge in Bradford and West Bromwich.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

This time... a house that was being renovated, until the owner ran out of money, and a bunch of Polish squatters. The Telegraph takes exception with one squatter's comment that they couldn't afford the rent in Highgate, so just "moved in".

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

There's an interesting piece in the Independent today about why it pays dividends to keep a close eye on public transport policy when planning your next London move. It's all about Dalston, Peckham... and there's this interesting snippet:

Some people use analytical research tools such as PTAL (public transport accessibility level), devised by Transport for London, to calculate an address's transport status on a scale of one to six, with A and B subdivisions.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Nothing to do with a riot... Zoopla's newly updated heat maps are available, illustrating average property price hotspots. Informative and addictive.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

The epicentre of the violence in Hackney has been around my house. Police in barricades have battled rioters outside the church 50m down my road in sporadic melees. Every local shop for miles has been shuttered. Cars and recycling bins have been set on fire. Helicopters constantly hover above, filming and surveying the unfolding damage. This is not what estate agents were referring to when they described local streets as “cosmopolitan”.

It's a short but interesting piece by the FT's Tony Tassell, and worries about the element of rioting as "spectator sport" he witnessed in Hackney, the cheering (of the rioters) as they attacked the police. Has Hackney, he asks, really changed?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's a blue plaque property -  former home to Coleridge and JB Priestley - and Kate Moss's plans for a satellite dish, security cameras, basement kitchen and gym/steam room aren't delighting her neighbours.

The details plans are online here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

A terrible tale in the Daily Mail featuring foreign squatters, a family home in Archway, a six-week struggle to get them out (during which the squatters received legal aid) and a trashed property. It's ugly.

One of the rooms was knee-deep in rubbish while a member of the gang had daubed 'God is squatting with us' on a door inside the five-bedroom property.

Does that mean God just got evicted?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

They made it into the papers earlier in the month when Latvian squatter Jason Ruddick painted a picture of Eastern European squatter tours... Latvians heading for the amazing city of London where mansions came rent-free. The right wing press loved it. They're in the papers again today, having been moved forcibly from their Highgate "home" by bailiffs, and pictured here cheekily scanning a London property magazine. Apparently, they're moving onto bigger and better things... nearer to The Bishops Avenue. Anyone know where they are now?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's in a few papers... the story of Jason Ruddick, the Latvian who hitchhiked to London after being told it was a city in which you didn't have to pay rent, and who now lives, rent-free, in a 10-bedroom Victorian house on Highgate's Broadlands Road.

He admitted that in Latvia, squatters were routinely arrested and hauled before the courts, but said Britain was an “easy touch”, adding: "It's really expensive to live in such a big house if you have to pay for it."

This should wipe the smile off his face. Seriously, is this interview for real? He sounds like a Daily Mail plant.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

She's a 44-year-old woman who's rented council house was taken over by contractors and eventually turned into a site office while significant work was carried out on a neighbouring leisure centre. In the meantime (a long meantime, it turns out, of about two years) the woman and her family have been housed in a Grade II listed Victorian lodge by James Pennethorne, in a neighbourhood inhabited by the likes of George Michael and Sting, on the edge of a 29-acre park. The press is enjoying pointing out that this is a £2.5m property which would cost in the region of £2,000 a week to rent. What's an ordinary person like this - who hasn't even made a single hit record - doing in it? The council responds that the property was empty, and it would have cost more to house her in a B&B. Okay, she's been living rent-free, but let's consider the fact she's been put to considerable inconvenience. She'll be back in her council house just as soon as it's been restored to a habitable state.

Mother lives rent free in Britain's costliest council house
Family lives rent-free in £2.5m home
Mum gets £2.5m council house rent-free for 2 years

etc etc

Technorati Tags: property, real estate