According to Winkworth, there's no sign of London's top-end boom market ending soon, while wealthy Eurozone and Middle Eastern buyers continue to plough money in. Prices in Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Belgravia rose 17% in 2011, with 41% of those sales involving figures above £2m (up from 33% in 2010). London's safe haven status is behind the demand, and a shortage of available properties is pushing prices ever higher. More here.

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Its price has earned it coverage from Bloomberg and Business Week. It's a 16,000 square foot, at the southern end of Kensington Palace Gardens, and it sounds - from something Aylesford International (handling the sale) say - it's either not quite reached the market yet or it's never going to appear formally, but buying agents "know". The exact guide price also remains undisclosed, other than it will be more than £100m.

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An interesting piece in the Daily Mail (is this what it's come to?) about designer Tom Dixon's work to turn a 5,000 gallon water tower into a 5,000 square foot living space. It's a fascinating project, perhaps blighted a tiny bit, though, by its position. The photo below, from Google's StreetView, shows just how one side "benefits", as they say, from a view of the canal; but the other looks over a Sainsbury car park. Will it matter?

Another noteworthy detail from the Daily Mail piece is that Tom Dixon's a self-taught designer. Very, very impressive. More here.

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Total number of apartments: 85
Total number in full time occupation: 3
Total number classed as second homes: 49 
Total number unsold: 27
Total number sold but empty: 6

The numbers come courtesy of Westminster Labour group's Paul Dimoldenberg, who's concerned that only three of the flats are accruing full council tax charges (there's a 90% discount if it's a second home). Here's what he has to say:

"This building - London's Mary Celeste - contributes nothing to local businesses or London's economy."

More here.

Sold! To the oligarch with the worried look on his face... [April 19, 2011]
Kylie buys in One Hyde Park [April 6, 2011]
Exclusive! Rat and Mouse tipster inside 1 Hyde Park! [April 23, 2010]

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A two-bedroom house in Knightsbridge's Ennismore Gardens Mews with an asking price of £2.75m and a swinging sixties history that includes use as a location in The Avengers. More here.

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The survey was by Lloyds TSB, and its Borough (Kensington & Chelsea) dominates the top ten list. Campden Hill Square has an average property price of £4.9m... former home to Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser (and venue for the famous IRA bomb meant for her previous husband Conservative MP Hugh Fraser in 1975. Second came Merton's Parkside, with an average price of £4.8m, and Drayton Gardens was third with average prices of £4.4m.

The rise and rise of top-end London property... it appears unstoppable. New figures by Primelocation show "prime" London property up 10% in 2011. That's £306 a day.

[photograph by Peter Jordan]

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Business Week claims to have a source with news of a £100m sale of Knightsbridge penthouse, in the Bulgari Hotel and Residences, the mage-upscale block at no. 171. I'm guessing we're talking about this property, recently advertised with Christie's. The sums come out to about £7,000 a square foot. That's not a record, but it's hardly recession chic either.

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Property. According to this, her well-connected father-in-law (Francois Pinault, founder of PPR) has just paid £20m for Uncle Monty's pad, a two-bedroom property with famous triple-heigh ceilings (in case Hayek needs to lie down) in Glebe House, Glebe Place, Chelsea.

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It's a 15-bedoom house that, until 2004, belonged to the Russian Government and was apparently used as a spy base. It still had "radio rooms" when its previous owners took it over and spent £20m making it a home. Roman Abramovich reportedly spent £90m buying the property. More here.

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If you're within twenty miles of Kate Middleton's new Kensington Palace Gardens home, then it's probably just the $1500 of air fresheners she's said to have purchased for the property. I like the way the Americans call it a "cottage".

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