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.

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