Media pimped homes for sale - monitor thread

dopester

From The Sunday Times. March 8, 2009
Daisy Waugh: Beyond the brochure
Through the mill in Bedfordshire for £4m
This lavishly done-up waterside property is an island of calm in stormy times
MK44 3NU

Most of us won’t get round to it, of course. Pathetically. We’ll stick around, grinding away at our work stations (if they still exist), trying to repay that 60-gazillion-pound deficit. Our houses will be worthless and our schools and hospitals will close, and, er, there will be lots of knife crime. And it will always be raining. And then, of course, we are all going to die.

Slightly depressing, but there you have it: let’s hope we get through with good grace, at least. And try to remember not to be too jealous of the clever fish who do manage to get away.

Clearly John and Sue Brown aren’t short of a bob or two. He’s been busy the past few decades buying and selling factories, among other things, and on the sideboard in the kitchen of the £4m house he just put on the market is a photograph of a large yacht. Brown, 61 and very affable, and his gentle, friendly wife (“still my first”) are planning to see out a part of their retirement aboard it, so he tells me

“And we also thought we might go to Australia,” he says. “We‘ve never been to Australia. And then we already have a lovely place in Mallorca, so it‘ll be nice to spend some time there.”

For the time being (well, until they sell it), they also have this lovely place in Bedfordshire, and it’s apparent, by the way he shows me round every minutest detail, that Brown is extremely fond of it. As well he might be.

Rightmove link. Guide Price £3,995,000
PB Main info:
04 August 2009: Price changed: from '£4,000,000' to 'Guide Price £3,995,000'
10 May 2009: Initial entry found.
Update 28th December 2009: RM link page deactivated. "Carter Jonas, Cambridge have removed this property. It may now be sold, under offer or temporarily withdrawn from the market." Will monitor for transaction price, or perhaps relisting with a new agent.
Update 01st March 2010: Found relisted. Rightmove link: £3,995,000
Update 11th June 2010: SOLD: £3,300,000
Houseprices.co.uk direct link: Sale Date: 25/03/2010. Price: £3,300,000

dopester

(Owner bought 13 years ago, had stables built 5 years ago - used to let out to livery, but then argued with those renting: "he decided to forgo the income and threw out the tenants". Now finds the large farm-style property hard-work. Wants to sell up and go fishing in Scotland.)

From The Sunday Times. February 1, 2009
Horses for courses with a Norfolk barn conversion
The swish stables could be a boon to the right buyer
Beyond the brochure: Daisy Waugh

For that matter, why would anyone choose to live near Swaffham – or, come to that, even visit it? I was compelled to go there by my insatiable appetite for getting behind brochures, but even the estate agent, who kindly picked me up from the nearest station (more than 15 miles away), couldn’t readily come up with an answer to the eternal question: “Why Swaffham?”

Oak Grange is a barn conversion – not pretty, but joyous, in a lottery-winning, pub-decor kind of way. It has a full-size snooker room with bar, a large dining room, innumerable bathrooms, four double bedrooms (one with a waterbed, although I couldn’t see it, because my host had apparently lost the key) and a kitchen Aga with a gold-plated hob.

More important, perhaps, to potential buyers at any rate, the property comes with three newly appointed, modern-looking, three-bedroom holiday cottages, 40 acres of electrically fenced paddock land, a schooling ring, various barns, garages and outhouses, and 10 state-of-the-art stables. Despite all these attractions, it has been for sale since last May and has just had its price cut for the third time. After starting at £1.75m, it is now down to £1.6m.

Lynn Road, Swaffham, Norfolk, £1.6m
What is it? A four-bedroom barn conversion with 10 stables on 40 acres of paddock land

EA link. £1,550,000
Rightmove listing 1. Guide Price £1,550,000
Rightmove listing 2. Guide Price £1,600,000
Main PB info re RM listing 1. (01 March 2008: Initial entry found. A few asking price reduction changes. 'Guide Price £1,700,000', down to 'Guide Price £1,550,000'

dopester

From The Sunday Times.
October 5, 2008
Brighton really does rock
What’s more sickening than the people who sing Brighton’s praises? The fact they’re absolutely right
Daisy Waugh
Flat 3, 7 Lewes Crescent BN2 1FH

In writing this column, I begin to notice a disturbing pattern emerging, namely that there appears to be an almost infinite supply of sub-sections of the British community that cause me to feel irritated: frustrated novelists, undergraduates, the Scottish, people who live in churches, people who live in Bath. Until recently, people who move from London to Brighton also fitted smugly – I mean snugly – into that category.

Partly, but not entirely, it’s because they’re always so evangelical about the wretched place (which I had never visited). It’s also because their evangelism has worked: we all seem to know this isn’t just one more seaside town, once elegant, now a little run-down. Brighton is incredibly groovy.

Here’s the thing: Lewes Crescent isn’t just beautiful, it’s breathtaking – early-19th-century, white stucco, unapologetically grand. Originally built as 78 houses, but long since converted into flats, it curves around a five-acre communal garden and faces directly out to sea – a sea that, even on this greyest of days, reflects the light in a way that makes the spirits soar. It is truly stunning.

Flat 3, number 7 (pictured above) is a three-bedroom, 1,800 sq ft maisonette that needs some cosmetic work – but the views and the space available are spectacular. On the top floor is a dazzling (I’m running out of superlatives here) sitting room, 30ft by 30ft, with two fireplaces, a roof terrace overlooking the town and a balcony overlooking the sea. It ought to be somebody’s dream home.

Yet the price has already been cut by £100,000 to £750,000, and I suspect that, even in a perfect climate, selling it wouldn’t be entirely straightforward. A smugglers’ tunnel runs beneath the road and the bank that separates the communal garden from the beachfront. It would be hard to imagine a safer, more idyllic setup for children. Trouble is, said bank, known locally as Duke’s Mound, is a notoriously popular spot for brief but intimate encounters among Brighton’s vibrant gay community. Which is lovely, of course. Party on, say I, as quickly and groovily as possible.

Rightmove link. (pretty certain about the match). POA. (Price On Application)
PB info: 04 September 2009: Initial entry found.
a) Update on 10th December 2009: RM check on original link: "Property is currently not on the market. It may now be sold, under offer or temporarily withdrawn from the market." (PB Info: 10 December 2009 Status changed: from 'Available' to 'Not Listed). Standby for possible update.

dopester

From The Sunday Times
February 15, 2009
The luxurious Willow Lodge in Kent
This preposterous new-build mansion is a shrine to filthy lucre and frivolous luxury
Daisy Waugh


Willow House in Kent has a host of gadgets that open and shut, heat and chill - all at the touch of a button

Willow Lodge, Locksbottom, Kent, £4.95m
What is it? A new six-bedroom mansion with indoor pool
Where is it? Farnborough Park, Locksbottom, Kent

Which brings me to Willow Lodge, a magnificently, outrageously, fantastically luxurious six-bedroom house in Kent. Silly but delightful, it is spanking new and probably the smartest house in Farnborough Park, itself one of the smartest (and oldest) gated communities in the country.

It stands, in all its mock-Georgian preposterousness, unapologetically between the other vast family houses, in its own generous grounds, behind its own “clear off, paupers” remote-controlled iron gates. And the house is enormous: 10,000 sq ft, including six bedrooms, three reception rooms, a large top-floor cinema and an indoor pool with an integral fountain and an adjoining hot tub.

Willow Lodge is on the market for £4.95m – hardly a snip. Indeed, whoever succeeds in buying it will, I imagine, unless they’ve just won the lottery, be coming from a fairly lofty rung on the property ladder, and may therefore have developed quite a list of silly requirements (never mind rooms for the Wii) that they feel are essential to make life tolerable. Hence, for example, the two dishwashers and two “wine chillers” in the kitchen; and the hob providing infrared heat that “heats objects”, according to the developer who showed me round, “but not the hand”. Hence, too, the special “zip tap” in the cupboard, beside the built-in coffee machine, providing permanently boiling water.

Rightmove link 1: £4,390,000
Rightmove link 2: £4,390,000
(PB Info: Neither RM listing has any logged price changes.
RM Link 1 (oldest): PB discovery: PB: 28 November 2009: Initial entry found

dopester

From The Sunday Times
September 6, 2009
Beyond the Brochure: Graff House, Twickenham
Of all the ways to leave your lover, a house renovation is a good place to start
Daisy Waugh

Clearly, for a peaceful life, the trick is never to buy at all. But if we feel compelled to buy, which for some reason English people seem to, it might be wiser simply to enjoy the fruits of somebody else’s Homebase squabbles, and buy a place where an acceptable breakfast bar is already in place.

Time and money not spent on refurbishment matters can instead be spent on carefree merrymaking, marriage counselling, exciting travel and getting drunk.

I would have thought the worst possible option, as the property developer Paul Crowther ought to have known, given his profession, is to buy not one but two dilapidated houses, to transform them both into dream homes, simultaneously, while camping in the least favoured, with your lover, who is pregnant.

“Yes, it was very stressful,” he acknowledges. “We had 50 builders working six days a week.”

Well, two years later, Crowther’s staggeringly lavish, seven-bedroom, 6,700 sq ft Twickenham dream home — the one his lover preferred — is completed. (As is the other one, equally magnificent, which he has recently sold.) The baby is 18 months old, and it has its own ensuite bathroom. But the lover is gone. “I ended up losing the woman I did it all for,” he says. It’s very sad, of course. And also a waste.

It means, among other things, that the baby can avail itself of the ensuite facilities only intermittently. And the house, much too big for a weekend dad (he has teenage twins from a previous marriage, away at boarding school most of the time), feels very empty. It is on the market for £4.5m.

Quite a price tag. But it would be impossible to exaggerate the lushness of this place: think lots of soft lighting, subdued browns and expensive wood finishes — all of it faintly reminiscent of a pleasant, upmarket funeral director’s reception area.

Graff House, St Georges Rd, Twickenham — £4.5m
What is it? A state-of-the-art, seven-bedroom detached home
Where is it? St Margarets, near Richmond station

---

RM 1: Guide Price £4,500,000 (PB initial entry: 15 December 2008)
09 May 2009: Price changed: from '£4,950,000' to 'Guide Price £4,500,000'

RM 2: £4,500,000 (PB initial entry: 12 September 2008)
04 May 2009: Price changed: from '£4,950,000' to '£4,500,000'
15 December 2008: Price changed: from '£5,750,000' to '£4,950,000'

RM 3: Guide Price £4,500,000. (PB - n/a: above data goes back further)

Update 3rd May 2010: 19, St Georges Road, Twickenham, Greater London, TW1 1QS
SOLD for £4,500,000 (Houseprices.co.uk link confirmation)
Google Street View direct link (Matched with media image).

dopester

From Times Online
July 2, 2009
Beyond the brochure: Hexagon House: The next dimension
A hexagonal eco-home built of oak and straw is the shape of things to come
Daisy Waugh
CB6 2UD

Hexagon House is certainly exceptional. The building’s six external walls are constructed from straw bales plastered in lime, and the delicious smell of straw hits you as soon as you walk through the front door. It’s a four-/five-bedroom “eco” house with laudable energy-saving and water-recyling arrangements in place. It sits — or rather perches — on wooden stilts in six acres of private land, most of which has been left fallow long enough for abundant numbers of wild flowers to take seed.

Neville built the house himself: viewers of the television show Grand Designs might even recognise it. As a result of participating in the programme, he and his home are well known around Ely. In fact, for some time after the show was broadcast a couple of years ago, the once peaceful lane leading up to the house was jammed with rubbernecking locals.

Yet, ah, the transience of fame. The agents were surprised when the house didn’t sell at once. As it is, it’s been on the market since February and the price has just been reduced from £500,000 to £479,950. That’s still relatively high for a house of its size in the area, and, I suppose, what with the stilts and all, and the enormous tree trunk (with drinks cupboard inside) that forms the core of the central staircase, it is an acquired taste. Still, it’s wonderfully airy, and the upper floor, built around a hexagonal, galleried landing, is quite good fun.

Rightmove link. Guide Price £479,950 (Listing signalling it is: Under Offer)
PB main info: 11 September 2009: Initial entry found (no price changes logged since)
Update 3rd May 2010: Adding direct Street View link (wait a moment for it to acquire position)

lemonjelly

Interesting thread dopester. Enjoyed having a read through.

Some of these properties are damn !!!!!! man. How the sellers can look someone straight in the eye & ask the prices quoted is beyond me. For stuff that !!!!!!, it really will have to come down in price.

Keep em coming.

Oh, & get some sleep dude!:cool:

Spartacus_Mills

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I saw this and thought of you;

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article6942327.ece

Sharon Bozkurt "just wants to make back what she put in".

I guess she will be 'educated'.

The woman is an idiot.

"and about a year after I bought it, it was worth £120,000. Now I don’t now what it’s worth, but I have put it on for £59,000."

It is worth what someone will pay for it you stupid tw*t not what some Estate Agent or Developer told you.

She deserves to lose every penny.

dopester

Well put; !!!!!! indeed quite a few of them lemonjelly, together with asking prices which, some might actually achieve, but don't compute in my mind for value.

The snippets of info from some of the link-backed full articles satisfy my long-wave generational HPI mega-peak, to collapsing deflation theory. Except for having to wait to see how far politicians and BoE are willing to go, and how much extra damage they inflict, in trying to fight against such absolute market forces to support house prices - imo. Another Cotswold house here.. with all of the decades of HPI gain, but apparently crash-proof against falls in value.

---

From The Sunday Times
July 20, 2008
My Cotswold cottage fantasy
Our correspondent leaves the big city to investigate a Cotswold cottage straight out of Miss Marple
Daisy Waugh

Glendale House sounds a lot grander than it is. It’s a three-bedroom, 18th-century cottage, semi-detached, in the middle of the sort of village I imagine Agatha Christie had in mind when creating a home for Miss Marple. Times change, however. Miss Marples tend to get shunted into kindly institutions nowadays – and cottages like these go to second-homers. Painswick (aka “the Queen of the Cotswolds”, according to the estate agent’s brochure) has plenty of them – two on this street alone.

“It’s a bit potty,” the agent said to me. “I actually think the village is overpriced.” Potty or not, Painswick is definitely stunning: a jumble of narrow, tightly packed streets built onto one side of a picture-book green and pleasant valley. It has a 15th-century church (specked with civil-war shrapnel, apparently, if you look close enough) and a churchyard famous, among people who study such things, for its 99 immaculately clipped ancient yew trees.

It used to be a common whinge among the people of Painswick that the village was uninhabitable in summer months because of American tourists. The Americans don’t come any more – but they have left an impressive choice of restaurants, pubs and decent places to stay in their wake. Also, if I’m honest, a couple of tearooms. And some slightly depressing giftie shops. Let’s brush over that. Because there’s no such thing as perfection, and in England, wherever it is close, there’ll never be a gift shop far away.

The house costs £395,000, and the second-homer who buys it will probably want to update the avocado bathroom suite next to the master bedroom. Otherwise, not much needs to be done. Most of the rooms – surprisingly light and airy for such a small cottage – look out over beautiful valley views. The kitchen needs sprucing up, but it opens, via some cute stable doors, onto a lovely private courtyard.

EA link. Price £395,000
Primelocation link: Asking price of £395,000
PB info Primelocation: 07 December 2009: Initial entry found.

fc123

Gosh DS, you've been busy.....so many to keep track of.

I love the Daisy Waugh columns on Sunday. She's a great writer.

The house of my dead neighbour is going up for sale after Xmas. I will track it and see how much it goes on for and what it sells for. It will sell...it's just how much. I think she owned it since the 60's.
I will try to find out (subtly and politely) when the new neighhbours move in. I will go round and be a nosy neighbour and welcome them to the area.

Perhaps something like '' Hallo. Welcome to this lovely street, it's so lovely that it just makes one want to spend.......'' then I will pause and see if they fill in the silence with a price.

Just for research purposes of course.

Really, I will be jealous as I would have just loved to have the cash to buy it....but way out of our league.