Three hundred squatters have been evicted, today, from a block of ex-council flats in Poplar they've been living in, partying in, having noisy sex - apparently - on the roof of... since last autumn.

A spokeswoman for the squatters who gave her name only as Radiana said: "Why are the council evicting us just before Christmas? We will not be able to find anywhere else to go before the holiday, so families and children now face spending the festive season homeless on the streets."

Tower Hamlets Council claim to have visited them - without partying or having sex on the roof - several times to make sure the squatters knew they were going to have to arrange alternative accommodation.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

According to Rightmove, the number of homes for sale in Tower Hamlets (the borough that includes Canary Wharf) rose 12.4% last month. More significant, though, is the fact that it's the £750,000 to £1m sector that's led the gain, doubling during the same period. The ex-bankers are fleeing Canary Wharf.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Once described as “holding the key to London's future growth” by Ken Livingstone, East London is at risk of falling from grace. The promised Olympic revival is already suffering from funding problems, while the collapse of some of the world's biggest banks has left Canary Wharf and the Docklands, often described as “soulless” by nonresidents, feeling eerier than usual.

Actually... no. If you want to know what a ghost town looks like, you should have visited Docklands back in the early 1990s. I can remember standing somewhere near Canary Wharf and wondering why I was whispering. Those flats will eventually fill up, just slowly, and not at 2007 buy-to-let prices.

Little Detroit, Thamesmead [October 20, 2008]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

As a development, the future of Pan Peninsula is assured. Work is said to be several months ahead of schedule and the towers appear to be almost finished. But as an investment, the immediate future is far less rosy. A local estate agent revealed that a client bought a one-bedroom flat two years ago, off-plan, for £420,000. So far he has paid two deposits totalling 20 per cent of the price, just over £80,000. Now the flat is thought to be worth only £375,000. He is trying to sell for that price. If he can sell, it will limit his loss to £45,000. If he cannot, he faces losing his deposit of more than £80,000.

This is what the expression "crunch time" was invented for. We say... if the buyer has the cash (and that's not inconceivable considering the kind of investor who was eyeing up flip possibilities when the Pan Pensinsula project was launched)... go ahead, finish the deal, live in it or get a tenant, and wait. You've only lost money if you sell at or near the bottom.

"Several months ahead of schedule", though... interesting, isn't it, how falling prices can focus a developer's mind?

Pen Peninsula - details emerging [December 5, 2008]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Every time a council tenant decided to cash in, my estate agent would give me a call to see if I knew of an architect who might be persuaded to buy.

That's Isabel Allen, on the 4homes blog, writing about her previous home in the Brunswick Centre. But Brunswick's success, she argues, isn't about the architecture, it's about the location. And it's the location - again, not the Brutalist architecture - that's at the heart of Robin Hood Gardens' failure.

The estate (a Utopian streets-in-the-sky dream by husband-and-wife architectural team Alison and Peter Smithson, built in Poplar, east London, at the start of the 1970s) is threatened with demolition, and not everybody's delighted. It's not in a great place (knocking it down won't help), and it's structurally and socially flawed... but once it's gone it will be gone forever, and there'll come a time when a new generation will pour over the photographs and shake their heads in disbelief... they just tore it down? Yes, son, they just tore it down, replaced it with cheap-and-easy apartments for the middle classes, their development chums making small fortunes in the process, and sent the original tenants scattering...

Technorati Tags: architecture, London, property, real estate

That's apparently designer Richard Hywel Evans's pet-name for the New Atlas Wharf (Isle of Dogs) penthouse, currently for sale with Knight Frank at a guide price of £1.95m. Details? Polished stainless steel reception room. Top floor hot-tub with views across London. Putting green. Gas fire pit.

Technorati Tags: design, interiors, London, property, real estate

There's evidence to suggest that at least some of that City bonus money is heading not only towards Kensington & Chelsea but Docklands too. According to agents Felicity J Lord, values went up 0.7% last month - not much in percentage terms, but £18.599 on average. More here.

A brand new Rightmove paints the property market with an optimistic hue this morning, and a rise of 0.5% in house prices last month nationally. Miles Shipton talks of a market "on the turn". The numbers, however, are marginal, and PropertyFinder has been quick to stub out Shipton's cigar, with a statement pointing to a 50% year-on-year increase in the number of properties for sale and a rebuke for vendors holding out for unrealistic prices. Where the figures are clear, though, is the Olympic regeneration region and Tower Hamlets in general. In the Telegraph:

Tower Hamlets, east London, has Britain's most crowded dwellings and 70 per cent of its housing stock is tower blocks. But regeneration associated with the Olympics has put a total of £21,000 on the average asking price in the borough in two months, making it the country's hottest property spot.

... And by an inner city mile, we'd say. More on the Rightmove figures, here. And, for Rightmove's own on the turn pdf, click here.