Media pimped homes for sale - monitor thread

I've tried following this one up a couple of times, in previous months - but without any conclusive results.

Reading the full article, if it is all true(!!!*), then for me it seems like a shocking level of property-debt exposure, with loads of debt-embracing bubble-headed mania.

I'm taking a guess they didn't sell. It's possible they did of course, but as of October 2009, one local newspaper reports they still live in Ightham (article link below) - although that in itself doesn't prove anything. Perhaps they sold and then bought a smaller home in the same village.

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Daily Mail: 'I'm making my mind up to sell': How Cheryl Baker is selling off her properties to beat the crunch
By Mark Anstead
Last updated at 3:27 PM on 30th March 2009

Steve and Cheryl can at least console themselves with the thought that property in Ightham might not have fallen in value as fast as surrounding areas, according to Jonathan Hall, sales manager at Kings Estate Agents.

'Ightham is a highly sought- after village and stock levels here are very low,' he says. 'That prevents prices from spiralling downwards, but it also means there haven't been many sales to compare with and this house is hard to value because of an unusually large garden.

'In nearby Borough Green prices have fallen by an average 18 per cent since the peak, but Ightham has better homes and schools.

'Enquiries are higher now than this time last year, but this is mainly because vendors have been realistic, so I would advise a cautious guide price.'

Steve doesn't want to sell the house below a price the couple received when they had a remortgage valuation in mid-2006. He maintains that prices would have risen since that time and then fallen back down towards it.

'The last time we sold we didn't budge on price,' he says. 'We were lucky - the buyers didn't quibble because they liked the property. This house is in one of the largest plots in the area and I think it is impressive from all angles. If someone wants to make an offer we'll consider it, but we won't market it for less.'

KEY FACTS:
Price: £1.75m. Bedrooms: Seven. Reception rooms: Large kitchen/ breakfast room, sitting room, dining room, additional kitchen/diner and sitting room in the annexe. Bathrooms: Two plus downstairs cloakroom. Outside: Vast garden on three levels with tennis court and summerhouse.

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EA/Rightmove listing: n/a (but standby for possible update)
Other info 1: Awaiting possible further update news on this one.

Other info 2: This is Kent
The Original Bucks Fizz come to The Stag in Sevenoaks
October 02, 2009

Cheryl Baker is recovering from running the Great North Run on Tyneside when Go! speaks to her from her Ightham home.

Update 01 March 2010: Found relisted (ident confirmed via match with Daily Mail's house photo re main article).
Rightmove link: £1,550,000
Update 10th September 2010: PB Change: 10 September 2010. Price changed: from '£1,550,000' to '£1,450,000'
TN15 9DT

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Daily Mail: Dawn French and Lenny Henry drop asking price of their home by £650,000 after lavish mansion fails to sell
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:16 PM on 14th June 2009


RG2 9EP

But after failing to attract a buyer last year, the couple have been forced to drop the asking price from £3million to £2.35million in their efforts to sell the lavish red brick farmhouse.

Rightmove link: Offers in Excess of £2,250,000
PB Main Info:
19 September 2009. Price changed: Guide Price £2,350,000 Offers in Excess of £2,250,000 [Found by n/a]
10 June 2009. Price changed: from 'Guide Price £2,500,000' to 'Guide Price £2,350,000' [Found by n/a]
16 April 2009. Initial entry found.

lostinrates wrote: »

your scared I'll come up to try and play kiss chase aren't you?

Hey, I've been REALLY good up for a while about not embarrasing you ...

lir.

This thing has been featured in many a newspaper article. It has been on the market since at least 2006.

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From The Sunday Times
July 15, 2007
The most expensive house in Britain?
It’ll get you heated driveways and ensuite swimming pools, but can £70m buy you taste? To launch our series of video tours of Britain’s most extravagant homes, we visit Updown Court, in Surrey

Drive through Updown’s own ornate wrought-iron gates (electrically operated, of course), onto the heated marble driveway – said to have cost £3m to lay – and the house looms up suddenly in front of you. It looks like something out of Bel Air or Palm Beach – not surprising, since most of the work of John Scholz, the original architect, has been for the super-rich of America.

“There are probably only 20 people in the world who would buy it. The owners are just waiting for one of them to want a house in the UK,” he says. “It appeals to four types of buyer: Russian, Hong Kong Chinese, Indian or Middle Eastern. It is definitely emerging money, ‘look what I achieved’ sort of money.”

Savills is clearly hoping that, as the market continues to rise, the price tag will cease to look quite so excessive. Crispin Holborow, director of Savills’ country department, which is selling the house, is sworn to secrecy on the identity and number of buyers who have viewed Updown Court, but insists that all could afford it. “There is a tight screening process in place before anyone is allowed in,” he says.

The price tag, Holborow suggests mischievously, might even be too modest: “With such growing confidence and the market increasing, perhaps we ought to be asking more.” Any takers?

Rightmove link (Savills - although listed with many others, all at either price / guide price / offers in excess of): £70,000,000

Clearly the person on the title-deeds can afford to have it hanging around on the market for £70m, without reducing the price in the hope of achieving a sale to the type of person who is beyond mere money and sense of value (imo).

The blurb from 3 of the EA listings on RM reads: 'The most important private residence to be built in England since the 19th century.'

The Irish bank suggested to be involved with all the financing must not be pressured or concerned at all either. Presumably the current owner is keeping up with repayments due. (And maybe so, depending on what has come his way via all his Russian Oligarch dealings.)

Wikipedia link: The original Updown Court, built in 1924 and later acquired by Prince Sami Gayed of Egypt in 1977, was severely damaged by a fire in 1987. Developer Leslie Allen-Vercoe purchased the burnt-out shell of the property, for the approximate 2009 equivalent of $38.4 million. He invested a further $60 million, through the backing of an Irish bank.

Googling 'Leslie Allen-Vercoe' and find it's been for sale since at least 2005.

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Bricklayer's son and his £70m des res
David Cohen, Evening Standard
4 March 2005, 1:02pm


Leslie Allen-Vercoe says he works from 7am to midnight doing deals

At this point, I want to ask Les - politely, of course - how he's flown undetected by the Rich List radar for so long. Instead, I say all too bluntly: 'Nobody seems to have heard of you, Les.'

To his credit, he does not flinch. 'It's a funny thing,' he says, 'if you punch my name into a search engine on the internet, you get 350 hits. All but 12 of those refer to publications of my youngest daughter, Emma, who is a professor of microbiology. Of the dozen hits that relate to me, all are about Updown Court. So I'm a well-kept secret. I keep a very low profile. Until I did Updown Court, most of my projects were too small to attract attention. I'm a private guy - and that's the way I like it.'

£2.5m a year interest bill
The reason Les is now emerging into the glare of publicity soon becomes obvious. He has borrowed £40m from an Irish bank to fund the development of Updown Court, which saddles him with an interest debt of £2.5m a year. I ask him: aren't you sweating that a property that only 600 people in the world can afford may take time to sell?

'Not in the least,' he says. 'My estate agents tell me it will be gone in six months. We've already had interest from buyers from Russia and the Middle East. And three Chinese called to inquire just this morning.'

November 2006 Article

According to one senior agent, the problem is that it is "a footballer's house on steroids". Apparently, the look is 20 years out of date, there is too much marble, the rooms are badly proportioned and extremely difficult to furnish, and there is no good reception room.

"It's hideous," says Joanna Wood of Joanna Trading, an interior design company that deals with some of the world's wealthiest property owners. "The Russians and Arabs are too sophisticated to be drawn in by such vulgarity. The sort of person who might once have fallen for it now protects themselves with a raft of professionals who might advise against it."

Update 3rd August 2010: It has a dedicated website towards trying to sell it. http://www.updowncourt.com