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.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Almost a year ago, the Rat and Mouse reported on squatter Harry Hallowes' £2m windfall, after a judge awarded him squatters' rights to a little parcel of land on the edge of Hampstead Heath.

He was back in the news on Saturday, in a piece about the problems he's creating for a local developer, who has plans to build an unpleasant-sounding pile of tack on land shared by Mr Hallowes and grand 19th Century home Athlone House. The plan was to bulldoze both. The Highgate Society is opposing one; Hallowes the other. But the squatter can at least comfort himself with the knowledge that - according to a valuation in the Daily Mail - he's made a 100% profit in just 11 months:

His small plot is now worth a staggering £4million.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

According to figures from Mouseprice, Kensington & Chelsea's glory days are over, and it's Courtenay Avenue, a road running parallel to The Bishop's Avenue, in Highgate that's now paved in the thickest gold and lined with the bushiest money trees. The average property price necessary to achieve this? Just £6.8m. Last year, the winner was Kensington Square, with an average price a whole 23% less than this year's... an example of what's happening in the prime-and-above market. Go here for some interesting analysis from Bloomberg.

Tumbleweed blowing down Millionaires' Row [February 18, 2008]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

In fact, if all goes to plan, it will beat the UK's current most expensive home - Updown Court - by a full £75m, to become the country's finest and most beloved symbol of excess. Currently, though, it's where they make Fame Academy.

According to this in the Telegraph Witanhurst - the mock-Georgian, slightly dilapidated mansion on West Hill, in Highgate, has just been bought - all 5.5 acres and 65 rooms - by developer Marcus Cooper for £32m. The plan is to restore the 1920s building, which you might have seen starring in Nicholas Nickleby and/or Tipping The Velvet (it played a house), to its former glory and then sell it for £150m. Sounds like a lot of money? It is - of course - a lot of money. But Witanhurst is also the second largest private house in London after Buckingham Palace. Whoever buys it will be able to look down their nose at considerably poorer neighbours George Michael and Sting. The Rat and Mouse would like to offer its congratulations to Knight Frank for their involvement in the sale.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Seventy-year-old Harry Hallowes was evicted from his Highgate council flat back in 1987 but, keen to remain in the area, he moved onto the heath, building a little shack and squatting there ever since. Recently he's been in a court battle with developers Dwyer, pitting his own squatter's rights (which kick in after 12 years) against their plans to build houses on the disputed plot of land. He won; which may mean (and this isn't yet confirmed by the Land Registry) that he also wins deeds to the piece land, with an estimated value of £2m. A happy ending? A prime plot of land saved from an evil developer by a nature-respecting freedom-lover without a thought for the lucre? Don't hold your breath:

[Hallowes] added: "I won't be having a bird sanctuary or anything like that. Maybe I'll build myself a house to live in – everybody else around here seems to love building houses!"

[via the Telegraph]

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

So the Highgate Society, in its ongoing campaign to banish the estate agents from the "village", thinks a survey will do the trick, and so polls the residents. We're not so sure it's helped. According to this, only 16% wanted to see fewer estate agents on the High Street. What's more, the overall response to being given a say has been less than charitable... and resulted in the selection of a brand new target for a brand new hate campaign. This time? Charity shops.

Luke O'Toole, a volunteer at the Cancer Research UK shop in Highgate High Street said he was very surprised by the finding. He said: "Business here is going very well, so it seems a bit strange. I certainly don't see why there should be fewer charity shops. Most people seem very happy with what we are doing and we offer a good service."

Parkheath estate agents - Highgate's final straw [January 9]
Evict the estate agents of Highgate [December 16]

In the last days of 2005 the Rat and Mouse pointed readers to some comments by novelist Andrew Martin in the New Statesman, in which he nominated the estate agents of Highgate for eviction (part of an ill-spirited column in which various thinkers were given the opportunity to put the boot in wherever they liked). He's back... this time in the Telegraph... and with an interesting tale of a Highgate Society petition to limit the number of estate agents in the area. There's a suggestion that the final straw came when Parkheath got around a retail lease requirement by opening a shop selling scented candles on the ground floor and doing their business in the basement. According to Martin, not only have most of the agents themselves have signed the petition... as each tires of competing for business with 15 others... but Chris Underhill (of the venerable Prickett, Ellis and Underhill) was one of the petition's co-originators. Surely, logic suggests that when business is too thin on the ground and competition has driven down commissions to a point at which they no longer make renting premises in Highgate economical, the market will do some natural culling. In the meantime, I wonder if vendors are profiting from vastly reduced commissions? If you've a tale to tell, we'd love to hear it.

Shameless surfing for property porn turned up the fact that London's second largest house (after Buckingham Palace) is up for sale through Knight Frank. A snip at £32M, This cosy little pied-a-terre boasts 25 bedrooms and 5.5 acres of garden.