Media pimped homes for sale - monitor thread

dopester

I wonder why the business partnership here put this Minehead holiday home back on the market so quickly.

£1,000 pw to be had in peak-season apparently, and surely, future glory years of HPI from these levels to float them to a paradise of further property wealth.

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From The Sunday Times
July 26, 2009
Beyond the brochure: No 17 Quay Street
There’s far more to the West Country than Butlins – including this deal of a lifetime
Daisy Waugh

Minehead, if it’s famous for anything, is famous for its Butlins, which squats, in all its pointy white hideousness, at the far end of the bay. Aside from that, Minehead is an attractive, old-fashioned seaside town, in a part of Somerset the groovy brigade have long turned up their noses at. More fool them: the Butlins factor doesn’t spread more than a few hundred yards beyond the camp perimeters: walk just a little further, towards the old quay, and you find yourself in a time warp of unpretentious delightfulness.

No 17 Quay Street is a Grade II-listed, five-bedroom house at the opposite end of the bay to Butlins, and it feels a world away. The house was built as two fisherman’s cottages, but it was knocked together several owners back. The owners, builder Paul Bowler, his wife, Jan, and their two business partners, bought the house 18 months ago, refurbished it and let it out to holidaymakers. (In peak season, it can fetch more than £1,000 a week.) They have now put it back onto the market.

I tremble to think how much a property like this would cost in Rock. Because it’s in Minehead, and there is the slight but undeniable danger that one of the obese and unwashed from the holiday camp up the road might occasionally go waddling by the window, this wonderful, romantic house, in perfect nick, is for sale for £375,000. Add to that the phenomenal savings to be made by sending your children to amuse themselves at Butlins every day, and I declare I’ve not spotted such a bargain since I started writing this column.

Rightmove link: Guide Price £375,000
PB Main Info.
25 May 2009: Initial entry found.

Wikipedia: Minehead

Local economy

Since Victorian times, tourism has been a part of Minehead's economy. Minehead is the location of one of the three remaining Butlins camps in the UK. At the height of the season in late July and early August, Minehead's population significantly increases with an influx of tourists. There is a farmers market on the avenue every Friday where farmers sell their produce.

Minehead. BBC article. (A deeper look at economic background for Minehead)

dopester

Not mentioned in the article, but according to houseprices.co.uk (link) the last transaction data for this media-featured house (below) was thus:

Sales Date: 05/01/2007
Price: £700,000

Not a long time to buy a house/antiques shop, before deciding you want to sell up.

Supposedly because you've decided you want to open an even bigger and better antiques shop slightly further away. Of course you do. Booming innit. If they manage to sell for the price they want, I'm sure they'd ensure the next property they buy sees the seller rewarded with lots of beautiful capital gain.

5th Jan 2007 last recorded sales date. Seeking a healthy profit of course on what you paid. Even with the first stage of a HPC from mid 2007 onwards... this house is worth more than before any of that, in the minds of some people.

So step up to ensure they have the extra profit. It's to be expected an owner would like near £100K more than they paid at peak, from a new buyer. It's the magic economy. When you have property it just keeps rewarding you as people forever pay/borrow more for ever higher asking prices.

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From Times Online
July 12, 2009
Beyond the Brochure: Bartholomew House
A golden oldie standing in the shadow of an 11th-century castle awaits discovery in Lewes, East Sussex,
Daisy Waugh

Bartholomew House: sent to me by Christopher Richardson, an eminently sane, indeed likeable, solicitor/antique dealer from Lewes, in East Sussex.

It’s a Grade II-listed 1820s townhouse with a front of original glazed black “mathematical tiles”. It’s on the market for £799,950, and at present, the front room on the ground floor, formerly a dining room, is opened as an antiques shop every Saturday. The house stands a little back from the High Street, just below the 11th-century castle, beside Bartholomew Gate and overlooking the castle’s Gun Garden — so the shop is perfectly placed for passing foot traffic, and is especially busy, I’m told, during the opera season at Glyndebourne, a mere four miles away.

The current owner, as one might expect of an antiques dealer, has filled the place with a lot of small objets. He has also painted all of the walls and ceilings in the same good-taste, brownish pink, which — I think — feels slightly oppressive.

It’s a lovely house, though, peaceful despite being right in the middle of the town, and with stunning views over the castle and high street to the South Downs beyond.

Richardson and his barrister girlfriend, Doris Urquhart, both of whom have adult children, are selling up to move to Suffolk, to open a bigger and better antiques shop.

Rightmove link: Offers in Region of £749,950

PB Main Info:
25 October 2009: Price changed: from 'Offers in Region of £799,950' to 'Offers in Region of £749,950'
01 July 2009: Initial entry found.

Flickr link: (a high res pic there of this house/antiques shop)

This building is faced with black glazed mathematical tiles. These tiles were made to look like brick, but are hung on a horizontal wooden frame, commonly used in Sussex in the late 18th, early 19th Century. A diagram showing the shape of the tiles can be seen here

silvercar

long article in "the Sunday Times" today looking at some of the properties that Daisy Waugh critiqued and what they finally sold for; I'm sure you've mentioned some on here. She noticed that the ones she slagged off sold whereas the ones she praised languished.

fc123

silvercar wrote: »

long article in "the Sunday Times" today looking at some of the properties that Daisy Waugh critiqued and what they finally sold for; I'm sure you've mentioned some on here. She noticed that the ones she slagged off sold whereas the ones she praised languished.

Ooooh,,,just logged in during my wine break before dinner....I haven't opened my ST yet...looking forward to reading this later tonight. Wonder if Mr and Mrs Pepperpot sold? I don't think they are on the thread but I remember reading the article.

Seems to be a subliminal message going on here......slate the house, look like a frog (pref dressed from Poundstretcher) and you could clinch that deal. We ae onto a unique selling technique....it's called anti -selling.

I am feeling a best selling book coming on....followed by an overpriced shed on Chesil Beach.

fc123

silvercar wrote: »

long article in "the Sunday Times" today looking at some of the properties that Daisy Waugh critiqued and what they finally sold for; I'm sure you've mentioned some on here. She noticed that the ones she slagged off sold whereas the ones she praised languished.

My ST had no property section it it today...but found it online.

.....sadly, it turns out there isn’t much demand for £2m shag pads in the frumpy south London suburb of Clapham. The Penthouse, too, failed to sell.
As did Upton Hall, another stunning property with possible geographical drawbacks. In May, I described the £1.3m house, an art-deco manor with an indoor pool and a 22-acre garden, as “remarkably lovely and extremely luxurious”. Yet, nine months later, nobody out there seems to agree; it remains on the market. “Nice house. Amazing price,” I wrote. “Just a shame it’s in bloody Waaayells.”

Oh. Talking of Wales — and angry emails — I got hundreds of them after that particular article. Boyo boy. Angry Jo’s wrath pales in comparison. If I’ve learnt anything in the last year, except for the fact that people don’t seem to buy properties on the strength of my recommendation alone, it’s that the excellent people of Waaayells don’t take kindly to jokes about leeks, European subsidies, singsong voices or choristers.

So, as a gesture of goodwill (step away from your computer, Daffyd, and get back to harvesting those daffodils!), I hereby promise never to make jokes about Wales again. If ever I dare return to that beautiful, ancient, varied, fascinating but slightly tetchy country, I shall wear a wig and I shall come in peace. Nadolig llawen a blwyddyn newydd dda!*

dopester

silvercar wrote: »

long article in "the Sunday Times" today looking at some of the properties that Daisy Waugh critiqued and what they finally sold for; I'm sure you've mentioned some on here. She noticed that the ones she slagged off sold whereas the ones she praised languished.

Thanks for letting me know. Interesting. Although she lists only 5 from her reviews that went on to sell. And one of those was block of new-build apartments.



Oh the article is on the Times website now as well.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article6960885.ece

Yes. I noticed Enoch Powell's place was sold on pretty quickly after her February review. (Asking £3.65m, she says sold for £3.4m in July).

dopester

fc123 wrote: »

My ST had no property section it it today...but found it online.

Thanks fc. You beat me to it. I'm sure you knew I was eager to read it. Thanks.

I took the 7 day free-trial with the Times e-paper to look at today's paper edition... but then you, then I, found the online edition as well.

http://timesonline.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

fc123

I have to be careful with links at the mo as so many have old stock of mine on a promo banner...it looks like I am doing it on purpose...which I am not promise. Bizarre retail model BTW.
was going to post a DW article on rich people but, there was I again. I wouldn't mind but it's all sooo past season. Current stuff is not on it any more.

Daily Mail had half a page on property this week but quite topical...Manchester are and Surrey accompanied by pic of someone blonde and smiley.

fc123

Article by Zoe Dare Hall not online yet...maybe won't be at all.
Precis; there are lots of rich people in Surrey and Cheshire who buy lots of mansions with pools, home cinemas and tunnels etc.


In Surry, there are 154 props on sale for more than £2 million and 145 in Cheshire (tho' smaller radius). Apparently, you Northeners are loaded up ...The Daily Mail says so.

princeofpounds

Not directly relevant to some of the issues being currently discussed in this thread, but thought I'd share with you a recent experience concerning fighting against media pimping of homes for sale.

Metro newspaper regularly prints sycophantic sections extolling the joys of flat ownership (preferably shared ownership!). It illustrates these with lots of smug people very happy about their purchases in various new developments. Entirely coincidentally, the developers of the exact same properties are advertisers in the same paper, usually only a page or two later.

One time, I was so fed up with one set of articles that were really stretching the truth in certain respects, so I decided to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority on the basis that these were not proper journalism but 'advertorials' and so should be marked as such. I read the instructions on the ASA website and submitted my complaint.

I received a letter a few weeks later saying that they were declining my complaint, not due to its merit, but because I hadn't supplied them with a copy of the advert. And yet on the ASA's own website it stated that it was not necessary to supply a copy as long as you could correctly reference it (and I did, with date, page and publication). All the articles were right there on the web and all newspapers keep back copy. And god knows how they expect people to complain about TV or poster adverts if a copy is required!

I can only assume that the ASA were just trying to avoid the work. I should have chased it up, but didn't have the energy... maybe I'll try again at some point.