Ex-Battle of Britain pilots are expressing concern and disappointment over leaked news that Bentley Priory - the 18th Century mansion in Stanmore that was home to Fighter Command from 1936 and through the Second World War - is on the list of surplus-to-requirements buildings planned for an imminent sale. The Priory, where Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding directed one of the greatest military miracles in the history of warfare, has become a spiritual home for Battle of Britain survivors, who would like to see it turned into a permanent memorial to those who flew and fought (as opposed to a Euro-hotel with views over London). We're with the pilots on this one, and if you want to email in your support, we'll forward it collectively to the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, and to the MOD.

Military retreat [September 8]
Telegraph mourns sale of Chelsea Barracks [September 7]

I remember thinking, back in April when this thread began on the Channel 4 4homes forum... how's Winter going to find time to answer all these individual questions, what with the strains of TV and estate agency and having to splash fuel into that expensive car?

Having trouble selling your house? Then why not seek advice from Selling Houses' presenter Andrew Winter?

Post Here.

Within four minutes of the post, the first question came in:

oh! me me! I have a question!

How do you keep so calm with these people you help out?!

Can't you just imagine his sinking feeling? Or the pet name he quickly developed for the C4 producer who'd come up with this bright idea? And then within a day, things had deteriorated to this:

Where DO you get those polo necks from?

And then, pretty soon, this:

Sadly... I believe that the recent hot weather caused a reaction in the nylon of Andrew's polo neck and he suffocated. Tragic. Well, it's as reasonable an explanation as any as to why this thread is still sitting here without any response whatsoever from Andrew or indeed anybody else from C4....

But still they post... when are they going to learn? Andrew doesn't come round here no more.

Every other economic figure is ganging up on Gordon Brown in his keenest hour of ambition and putting an entirely fresh spin on his handling of the economy, so why should Nationwide's quarterly house price review be any different? Prices dropped 0.2% in September, leaving prices stagnant of the previous three months. Annual inflation is now at 1.8%, its lowest level since May 1996. Expectations? Nothing much, except more of the same. Some comment, here. Nationwide's actual pdf, here.

Here are some interesting statistics from a survey by Churchill Home Insurance... which suggest different parts of the country have a different fashionable night of the week for a home break-in. If you live in Yorkshire or the East Midlands, for instance, think about renting a DVD and staying in on a Friday night. If you're in the North West, think about getting yourself addicted to Lost, because Wednesday night is the night for an unwanted visit. If you live in the North East... just stay in. We thought we owed it to you to give the London burglary night of the week... Thursday. Got that? Thursday.

Thanks to Rat and Mouse reader Marc for pointing out this example of cynical misrepresentation by a leading Ladbroke Grove estate agent. Okay, this Lonsdale House two-bedroom apartment is on the sixth floor and everything, but "great sea views"? Come on. And the agents know as well as we do that there are almost certainly tired and emotional media clowns knocking around out there befuddled and confused enough to show up on the off-chance of some crashing surf and blue horizons. This post will be forwarded immediately to the ombudsman.

Estate agent crackdown [September 27]

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.

If ever there were three words that sound good together... this is about plans, announced at the Labour Party conference yesterday, to create powers to fine rogue agents up to £25,000 if they break the commandments found in the optional ombudsman scheme. Currently, only four in ten have signed up, but these new plans should offer some form of redress for those who have come a cropper with one of the remaining six. Sounds fair. But the more serious misdemeanours - for instance the passing on of a property at a discount to a developer/investor - remain hard to prove.

So... who else had the Observer yesterday... and enjoyed this?:

In short, within three years the world economy will be in a significant downturn, and the correction process for the Anglo-Saxon economies will last as long as a decade.

Pay, and therefore living standards, will have to adjust to the effect of Chinese competition. Stock markets will collapse, house prices in the over-extended markets of the UK and the US will fall by up to 50 per cent, and major investment banks and other financial institutions will go bust.

Jim Mellon's piece reads like a kind of economic Revelations, in which the Asian economic Beast will come and rip the heart from our beloved economy, leaving us all staring at a decade, at least, of subsistence living... nothing to put on our iPods. It's based on five principles of pain - growing Anti-Americanism, fiscal and social deficits, China's growth, consumer-business-government debt, and environmental stress, and it makes for compelling reading. He ends the article by hinting that, even in the direst moments of economic meltdown, there are ways for the canny to profit from the misery. But how? How do we do that? Guess what? You could always write a book. That's the thing about apocalyptic visions... there's always a book.

It's a veritable celebrity orgy of London loving right now, isn't it? Although we suspect fans might be getting a bit ahead of themselves with this one. The man's just won a MOBO, he's bound to be in a good mood.

According to the Today programme sightseers will be pouring in to gawk at liquorice stick lampposts, barcode pavements, cellophane flowers of yellow and green, towering over your head...

Criminal, wouldn't you agree? It's not so tumbleweed strewn over at the fabulous Beeny blog, where I recently learned that Beeny's favourite word is apparently moist.

Celebrity pap time... Mickey Rourke is said to have enjoyed punching London fans and ogling London policewomen so much that he's planning to move over here, permanently, in the next couple of months. The only problem?

"It's a lot of fun and I'm having a great time but, man, you don't get much bang for your buck here, do you?"

Too bloody right you don't, Mickey my son.

Mariah Carey's London hit list revealed [September 20]
Incoming celebrities - Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz to move to London [September 13]

We don't always see eye-to-eye with the pinkos, revolutionaries and doom-merchants over at HousePriceCrash (that was a joke... JOKE! Okay?), and our definition of crash differs from theirs, but we wouldn't want you to miss this highly entertaining animation by one cool contributor to the forum. Thank God for classixuk, eh? What with the recent defection and all...

We've been contacted by an interesting new company launching today - and we thought we'd give them a plug, because we're nice like that. E-valuations.co.uk has the potential to further empower the vendor, picking up where the recent explosion of Land Registry house price databases left off, incorporating the Land Registry information into a much more targeted and "intelligent" 15 page report that ends with a valuation of your house. I know what you're thinking... why pay (from £25) when you can summon an entire posse of obsequious estate agents to turn up at your door and do this for free? Well, you might be one of the growing number of vendors choosing to sell online and avoid agents altogether. Alternatively, you might simply be suspicious of "the valuation game" - in which agents tell you what you most want to hear in return for your business. There is, however, something comforting about a local estate agent who's worked the beat for decades and knows every subtle gradation of property snobbery from one side of the street, one end of it, to the other. Exactly how a national service provider is going to compete, we don't know. Yet, according to this morning's email, the results are turning out more than encouraging:

In a recent corporate accounts pilot program the reports have proved to be so informative and accurate that many professional property investment companies are now using them for their routine valuations.

Sounds interesting. We'd love to hear what you make of it.

The Daily Mirror's 3am Girls (think... this year's Big Brother housemates, but without the depth and profundity) have apparently spoken to "a source close to" Mariah Carey and come up with a potential hit list of London neighbourhoods suitable for a future home. The Mariah Carey space station is said to be beaming detailed layouts of Ladbroke Grove, Old Street, Kensington and Marylebone back to Carey HQ, where Mariah and her luxurious pussy survey projected maps, and cackle... " I love the way they speak - the cockney accent, so I'm gonna learn it."

New figures courtesy of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors tell us that August saw more than a little action from house hunters. Enquiries were up by the biggest leap since early last year, completions rose for a second month (by 7.5% since February), and although house prices continued to fall, it was by the smallest margin in a year. The RICS is putting this down to the recent rate cut. Interestingly, the number of properties hitting the books is beginning to fall. Find the press release on the other side of this link.

That's what we're doing, according to Bradford & Bingley's new-style bowler-hatted blues brothers. Almost three and half million of us are wasting £6 billion every year on overpriced mortgages... that makes an average monthly overpayment of £150.

So a NASA employee named Pete Mouginis-Mar, who used to live on Trinity Road, gets the chance to name a crater and decides he'd thrill his mum and dad by naming it "Tooting". For those interested in this kind of thing, Tooting Crater is 28km across, at latitude 23.1N, 152.4W. And you can find the crater's official listing here. Whether it will do anything for house prices in (our) Tooting is still being debated.

Did anyone else watch Underground Britain last night on BBC2? If you didn't, you missed filmmaker Saul Dibb get close enough to "property millionaire" Spencer Michael to inhale a proper whiff of the bad odour surrounding Michael's business. What left me confused is... if Michael is veg-headed enough to let any old investigative journalist follow him around and interview his clients and workforce (a workforce that appears to "move on" every few weeks), why wasn't he too veg-headed to make a few million in as many years? I guess what I'm asking is... why are there rich stupid people? Perhaps the answer to that came late in the documentary, when former employees began to hint that Michael was encouraging vulnerable and unsophisticated people to borrow thousands of pounds on credit cards to attend his seminars, and then more thousands of pounds on more credit cards to find the deposit to purchase Michael's own properties, which he sells to them at vastly inflated prices. So if your stupidity extends to sleeping at night after a day spent ripping off desperate people, you might as well reap the rewards.

As it turns out Spencer Michael was being investigated by BBC's Watchdog back in March. A month later, Spencer Michael Consultancy of 72 New Bond Street had its wrists slapped by the Advertising Standards Agency for the way it was marketing its "Instant Millionaire Programme". Go here to read all about it. There's more evidence of nastiness, courtesy of Tiscali Money, here. Oh yeah, and here's how Spencer Michael clients treat their tenants. If all that hasn't put you off, go here "to join the property millionaires", and don't forget to tell us how you get on.

The Rat and Mouse might be the kind of capitalist pig your mother warned you about, but we still like a happy ending. Here's one. What we have here, in the Times, is the tale of Annette Shaw... hardly the kind of evil, space-sucking property owner these people get all hating about... just a woman, with a flat, worth about £150,000, and a desire to sell it. And then along comes the the gazunderer, all pumped up with buyer power, and looking for a big discount on the day of exchange. If you want to know how not to cave in like a big old pussy (not the most elegant phrase I've ever written, don't dwell on it) read the article. And share her joy. (Just one thing, though. Get fixed quote conveyancing if you don't want your solicitors to get rich quick phoning each other to chat about the cricket.)

There's been a 300% rise in the number of people shunning agents and turning to the internet to sell their homes, according to BuyItPrivately... an internet site where people turn to shun agents and sell their homes. What isn't clear is whether we're really seeing a mass disenchantment with agents and their fees, or whether it's down to desperation and a difficult market, or whether it's really more like the inevitable rolling out of e-tail (which already accounts for as much as 20% of people's average weekly shop). Perhaps the agents are partly to blame, for embracing the internet in the first place. If we pick and research our new homes online, isn't the logical thing to try to sell our old ones there, too? The Daily Mail makes the point that it's the more upmarket homes that are being offered privately. But then, it's also the more upmarket homes that are likely to contain a computer and broadband connection... Surely?

Online threat to estate agents [August 17]

First Rung reports on the story of a new BBC reality show, following the trials and tribulations of a Coventry couple who intend to pay off their mortgage in two years, by going to cheaper supermarkets, buying their clothes from ebay and taking on extra work. Who wouldn't eat homebrand beans and wear dead man's shoes for a life without a mortgage? Sounds radical. But does it sound possible? Expect to see the programme from January.

What's that? You'd rather not. Well you're not alone according to some alarming research by Lloyds TSB Insurance, which tells us that while a surprising number of us know our neighbours (93%), only 7% "would trust them". Why's that alarming? Well, you and me - we don't just have neighbours. We are neighbours. And I, for one, now that I know the odds are thirteen to one on that my neighbours think I'm untrustworthy, have the urge to rush next door, right now, in my socks, and list the reasons why I regularly flip the bird at the wall that separates us. Which is exactly what Lloyds TSB Insurance don't want us to do. They want us to make the effort, introduce ourselves, find the common ground. Incidentally, they also asked respondents to nominate their ideal neighbours. The results? Twenty-seven per cent nominated the Kumars, which perhaps demonstrates a heart-warming absence of racism. But then 25% named the Beckhams... could you could really trust them. More, here.

And I thought the single upside of London yobbery was that Americans would finally realise we don't all live like Ted and Ralph. Well, most of us don't. So what's all this - discovered today in a North Carolina interior design article - about?

Large and dramatic, the headboard of this bed is covered in sumptuous chocolate brown microfiber that looks and feels like suede for added tactile interest. Layer on a beautiful bedspread and add a collection of throw pillows in tweed and herringbone and you'll feel like you've been transported to a London flat.

Guess who's never been to London...

The property gals at Forbes never pretend their motives are pure. Their real estate coverage is one bleary-eyed orgy of houseturbatory excess. And we like that. Occasionally things get confusing, though. Like, today's piece - Most Expensive Homes In The World - comes under "Home Improvement". What does that mean? If I rev up my router and visit B&Q for a little wobble board I could transform my terraced house into the kind of palace you normally only get to see pixelated? I think not. Anyway, you can't accuse them of taking their property porn casually:

Forbes.com has compiled the first comprehensive list of the priciest residences on the planet - the top five per continent, excluding Antarctica, to be precise. We combed through thousands of property listings, compared hundreds of homes and contacted dozens of brokers and owners in our quest.

Go here for the xxx slideshow.

Sounds like she still owns half of London and a little bit of Paris. In the Times, she's comparing the many definitions of "full property management"... the (expensive) route to no-hassle landlording. In Paris, they do everything. In London, Foxtons do virtually nothing, except charge 26%. It turns out, though, she's talking about labour-intensive short-term lets, so we're not sure she really has much to complain about. In any case, the London tenants in question don't sound like trouble. Apparently, they're from Manhattan, so they must know Kevin Spacey. What?

Rat and Mouse mail - do your bit to help Rosie Millard [April 12]
Rosie fights back [April 11]

At least for the summer of 2006. Timberlake, who wrote this lyric:

There's no getting around it/Or in between/You're out of this world/Except you're not green

... has been offered a role (by Kevin Spacey) in Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues, at the Old Vic. Robert Altman will, apparently, direct. Diaz, who according to instinct can do absolutely no wrong in this world, has film commitments that will also bring her to London. More, here.

Nervous first-time buyers and property auctions don't naturally go together, but over at First Rung they're offering some detailed advice... a kind of How to keep your shit together at auctions and a useful read.

With Open House London next weekend, the Observer casts a useful glance over the eco-friendlier addresses taking part, including John Broome's (author of "The Self-Build Book") Lewisham home, built on Walter Segal post-and-beam principles. In Hackney, you'll be able to look round the RIBA award-winning In-Between House, built by architects Annalie Riches, Silvia Ullmayer and Barti Garibaldo - glass-fronted, timber-framed, and insulated with wool and paper. It's a good read, especially if you're planning your weekend. More, here.

Our friends at Curbed - New York real estate's uber-blog - have discovered this extraordinary diary of a laid-back Southern girl working for a "boutique Manhattan [estate] agency" and - it would appear - having very little joy, listening to Kate Bush, parking her car badly in the big city, falling in love with electricity... And it got us thinking. Any London agent out there fancy blogging for us? Not every day. And in the strictest confidence (completely anonymously) of course. Just the odd - say twice weekly? say weekly? - entry, giving the Rat and Mouse the insider's view. You can be enthusiastic and defensive of the estate agency profession - or full of eye-watering bitterness, desperate to rat out your boss and pour bile on your clients. It's your call.

... according to Nicola Venning, writing in this morning's Times:

Whereas you and I traipse round estate agents' offices, tired and bemused, the very wealthy pay someone else to do it. These days, no self-respecting millionaire steps over a threshold without their own housefinder.

She talks to representatives of Prime Purchase and Property Vision, and discovers that more than half their purchased properties in the country are aquired privately, before they reach the market. A London estate agent specialising in the top of the market reveals that up to a quarter of his enquiries come from property finders. So what would you expect to pay a finder? One-and-a-half to two-and-a-half per cent of purchase price, which I'm guessing might be offset against what the vendor saves if they're not paying agency fees. It's an interesting article. We recommend you read it.

The Independent reports on a potential £77 million bonus due to fall to Savills estate agents. Following an old but indisputable piece of advice attributed to William Burroughs ("avoid fuck-ups"), Savills have profited from attaching themselves to commercial property and the very top end of the residential market, where prices have continued to rise. Last year, 2,000 Savills agents shared a £70 million bonus (I can sense you reaching for your calculators... I've already done it: I
it's an extra £35,000 each). Blimey.

South London estate agency wrists slapped... [September 6]
These are estate agents [August 10]

It turns out that it's not just Chelsea Barracks that's going up for sale, ThisIsMoney is reporting that up to six London military sites, including a very sexy piece of land in Mill Hill, will be up for grabs in the next three weeks. Other sites include Uxbridge and Woolwich. We should expect a "housebuilding bonanza". More, here.

According to a survey conducted by the Yorkshire Bank:

1) Finding a house that meets requirements.
2) Packing up. (And 43% would prefer to enlist the help of family and friends, rather than allow a group of mouth-breathing strangers pack up their personal belongings.)
3) Waiting to hear if an offer is accepted. I'm surprised this isn't top of the list.
4) Waiting for an offer. Again, surprising this isn't higher than finding a suitable house - especially in the current market climate.
5) Saving for a deposit.
6) The period before exchange of contracts.
7) Unpacking in the new home. Presumably this is stressful because we don't know where things go?
8) Waiting for the surveyor's report.
9) Finding a good mortgage deal.
10) Finding a good solicitor.

After the jump, the Rat and Mouse's own top ten causes of house moving stress:

That's not something we've had the opportunity to type in a long time. But Halifax is reporting a 1.6% rise in August, the biggest month-on-month rise in a year. More here.

How sad that there will be nothing left, when the Army trucks and Land Rovers lined up on the parade ground have gone, to remind Chelsea shoppers of the military might on which their liberties have always depended.

That's right. Brave soldiers died, so you can shop... and don't forget it. Incidentally, they're suggesting developers may pay as much as £150 million for the site. With almost 14 and a half acres on offer, let's hope somebody rises to the challenge and creates something that will look special.

According to a survey by the London Assembly Environment Committee, we've gone and paved over two thirds of London's front gardens... an area 22 times the size of Hyde Park. Not only is the result ugly, it's also putting dangerous pressure on the Victorian sewer system. It could all end badly. More, here.

The Office of Fair Trading is reporting on an official estate agency wrist-slapping. The wrists involved belong to Lynx Estate Agents, operating out of West Norwood, Mitcham and Streatham; who have been failing to inform clients that prospective purchasers and vendors have been employees or relatives of The Chief. (Officially, there are two "Warning Orders" - which will come into operation after a period allowed for appeal - one given to the agency, one to The Chief.) Interesting, The Chief in question - Mr Burkitt - may be known to you... don't suppose you used to watch Boss Swap on Channel 4? You may remember the hugely ambitious, up at 6am to exercise, self-made estate agent millionaire who kicked great flabby bundles of ass at a friendly but chaotic second-hand car dealership? That was Mr Burkitt. And here's what he had to say about the car dealership:

"It's badly run - all it did was confirm to me that I run an efficient, professional business. With all due respect, Mike is not a proper businessman - I live the daily reality of being a successful businessman, Mike dreams it."

Invent your own pithy one-liner, and insert it here.

We want to point you in the direction of alternative property blogger Ditch Monkey, whose six weeks living in a ditch in some woods in Oxford (in aid of The Woodland Trust) is turning into 12 months. No tent. No telly. Just a ditch. And a blog. Good luck to you, we say.

In my building in Paddington, west London, I figure it is now about £5,000 a year cheaper to rent a two-bedroom apartment than to buy one (assuming you do so with a 90% interest-only mortgage) despite the fact that asking prices in the building are already down 20 odd per cent from their highs a year ago.

The Times's own Merryn Somerset Webb (Her views are personal and investors should always seek professional advice) suggests the real "dead money" is what's currently being spent on property. Rent! she says:

Rents are low and in many places falling, thanks to the massive oversupply of properties available to rent from the nation's miserable gang of buy-to-let investors.

The rest of today's news:

Rents hit four-year high - RICS [Reuters]
Buy-to-let investors creep back into the market [Guardian]
Rents outpace house prices due to demand [FT]
Rents rise as first-time buyers struggle [Sharecast]
Rents outstripping house price inflation [ThisIsMoney]
Rents on the rise In2Perspective
Rental yields rise on continuing demand from FTBs [IFAonline]

Like they said... Her views are personal and investors should always seek professional advice.

Research out today by the Bank of Scotland suggests first-time buyers looking for a decent upward lift from their new properties in the coming years should, basically, head north. Top hotspots are said to include the Openshaw area of Manchester, Falkirk in Scotland, Ardwich (also in Manchester) and Teeside in Middlesborough. The survey looked for areas about to profit from urban renewal, but still with current low property values. One London area did make it into the top ten... Stratford (surprise, surprise) - although the Rat and Mouse would be interested to hear from developers... have ftbs already missed the boat?

First of all - they're not a couple, okay. But Big Brother's Anthony and Craig will be buying a house together, in West Hampstead, where they will live. More, here.

We've been slapped on the wrist by a Rat and Mouse reader lamenting the tangible effects of gentrification on his beloved Brixton. It's a great letter, and we urge you to read it in full in just a moment. But we also urge you to respond, especially if you're a Brixton resident. Does the letter represent your concerns and aspirations for your neighbourhood? Email us with your take on cafe culture, weed dealers outside your front door, and What happens when jerk-chicken is only available with a side-salad and a glass of white wine and it costs £15. The full text, courtesy of Paul Bakalite, after the jump...

The Nationwide reported today. It's a continuing slowdown - prices falling (nationally) 0.2% in August, the annual inflation figure down to a seriously disappointing 2.3%. So what's going on? No crash, that's for sure. But affordability is still a problem. What we're seeing is the long haul - the time it takes for every other type of inflation to overtake and run away from house price inflation... leaving a big enough space in between to contain the "correction". More, here. For your own copy of the actual, factual pdf of market gloom, go here.

The latest Harden's Restaurant Guide is out today, and after a nine year run the Ivy has been displaced as London's top-rated restaurant. The honour now goes to Wandsworth's Chez Bruce, whose Michelin star also trumps the Ivy.

We wonder how quickly this information will find its way onto house particulars in SW17?