Media pimped homes for sale - monitor thread

dopester

fc123 wrote: »

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

Agreed fc. Occasionally her intros get a bit too intellectually deep for me, but mostly she's in very good flowing form. She stands out from many other property reporters. Her reports usually have a lot more colour and edge to them.

I think I recall a bit of your description of your general area fc. (Many tuned to flats but a few still houses?) "It will sell...it's just how much." - agreed - although it's my mind that even a home coming available in a very desirable doesn't always support previous market values. Yet some are still selling at boom-style prices.

I'm sure you're very good at it fc, but just incase it proves not possible to charm the info out of any new buyers of the house nearby, you know to check houseprices.co.uk or other record sites ect. Although sometimes transactions don't get recorded at all for one reason or another. You don't have to update here with the exact price it sells for... maybe just give us an indicator with your level of surprise at the eventual transaction price.

An older person I know was in the local rag last year, with photo, about leaving funds to charity at death via a will. Known to me as a real spotlight-chaser though... I really had my doubts as to their honest intent for giving the interview/getting into paper. People will work all sorts of angles in my experience in order to try and get their desired outcomes and not everything is as it might first appear imo.

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Daily Mail: 'I'm giving my £16m mansion to charity': Businessman pledges to give away millions from sale of luxury hotel

By James Tozer
Last updated at 9:58 PM on 14th May 2009


Brian Burnie: 'We come into this world with nothing and we should leave with nothing,' says the businessman

After building up a successful recruitment business, Mr Burnie, 64, set about turning his ten-acre Northumberland estate into a £16million luxury hotel complex. He built a 25-bedroom hotel and spa alongside Doxford Hall near Alnwick, which dates back to 1818 and has been the family home since 1993.

But he insists he never forgot his roots - he was born in a Newcastle bedsit and grew up with an outside toilet.

Details of his plan will depend on how much the complex fetches, but 'the lion's share' will go towards good causes.

'I want it to be my legacy,' said Mr Burnie. 'My accountant thinks I'm mad. He said, "Brian, you've probably got the biggest heart in the world". Unfortunately it's in an old man's body.'

Also BBC news article.

Is this it? I'm not 100% certain but think so. Or at least one part of the total complex / buildings / business.

Rightmove link. POA
PB Main Info: 27 November 2009: Initial entry found. (No price changes since)

Something Truly Magnificent - Currently a six bedroom grade II listed mansion house designed by John Dobson dating back to 1818. Brought back to life by the current owners the property is homely and welcoming. This hall represents a further opportunity for the purchaser to increase the size of the hotel that it adjoins. Within the 10 acre estate is a Head Gardeners House and a Lodge, both 3 bedrooms and both lettable as part of the hotel business.

Update 17th June 2010: One source is reporting it sold (article 17th May 2010), even though listing is still active on Rightmove. £16 million as per the headline? According to this source, who may have seen it listed away from Rightmove and in some commercial listing, "Mr Burnie had put the venture up for sale for £9 million in September 2009." Anyway, sold price? Currently unknown, but a multi-million pound deal. Questions remain over the millions of pounds charity giveaway from sale of the property/business.

dopester

Did they get a buyer? Or has it come back off the market, awaiting a future 2nd "relaunch"?

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From The Sunday Times
December 28, 2008
House price predictions for 2009
House prices will continue their slide throughout 2009, but there will be winners as well as losers

David and Claire O’Donnell didn’t realise how hard it would be to sell when they decided to put their five-bedroom house in Hampshire on the market for £1.7m in August. The couple, who have two children, Phoebe, 16 and Miles, 11, wanted to sell up and move towards Maidenhead, in Berkshire, where David, 52, a director of a sales and marketing company, works.

Although they dropped the price to £1.55m in September, the property failed to sell. The O’Donnells have now taken Orchard House off the market and are planning to relaunch it in the spring.

Rightmove (Old link) - (no longer listed): Guide Price £1,450,000
Other: Not found listed elsewhere.

Monitoring the link below to see if price transaction details become available. Note, the records there already show the house's previous transaction date/price: Orchard House 11/10/2006 £750,000

http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=GU35+0PB

Update 11th April 2010: Found again ('relaunched') on Rightmove (link): Guide Price £1,400,000
Main PB Info: 22 March 2010: Initial entry found (no price changes logged since)

SOLD: 27/08/2010 @ Sale Price of £1,400,000 (see houseprices.co.uk link above)

dopester

From The Sunday Times
November 1, 2009
Beyond the brochure: The Okewood Hill Estate, Surrey
This plush Surrey estate’s genteel appearance belies a colourful celebrity past
Roland White

According to legend, a milkman turned up early one morning at Oliver Reed’s house to find the actor had been up all night and was not entirely sober. Legend is rather vague about the subsequent events, but the actor is supposed to have kidnapped the milkman and taken him to London for a two-day drinking binge of epic proportions. The milkman was duly sacked, but Reed took him on as a gardener and doubled his wages. That house was Pinkhurst Farm, which also briefly belonged to Jim Davidson and is today known by the more upmarket title of The Okewood Hill Estate.

If you’ve made a few bob and are keen to acquire the trappings of wealth, you’ll find a pretty full complement of trappings here. For a start, it’s in the middle of Surrey’s investment banker belt. You enter the grounds through hefty oak gates, operated from the house, and crunch your way down a gravel drive that cost £280,000 to lay.

He bought the house in 2006 from Davidson, after the comedian apparently discovered the difficulties of supporting four ex-wives on a single income. That’s one of the reasons the name has changed: people kept coming to the door and wondering if Jim was in.

When it first went on the market in 2004, the asking price was £4m, but Day got it for “just over £2.5m”. The interior was all sunken spa baths and tiger-print cushions, but they went in a refit that cost “more than £5m”. The place now has the feel of a small but discerning hotel that specialises in what they would probably call top-end business clients.

THE OKEWOOD HILL ESTATE, SURREY, £12M
What is it? A six-bedroom, Grade II-listed, 16th-century house

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Rightmove link 1. Guide Price £12,000,000
Rightmove link 2. Guide Price £12,000,000
PB info: both RM listings = 31 October 2009: Initial entry found. (No price changes made since.)
Dopester says: OKEWOOD HILL ESTATE must have an invisible and silent J, given such a stonking asking price rise 2006-2009.

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Update 15th December 2009: (From yesterday's Daily Mail. 14th Dec 2009)
WILL JIM DAVIDSON SEE THE FUNNY SIDE?

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dopester

Lord Vincent's place: he lives in his lordly manor all alone, although the handsome, 6ft 6in Olympic swimmer Mark Foster stores some of his swimming certificates on the walls. And, of course — as his agent had the foresight to tell me — “Lord Vincent” frequently entertains there.

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From The Sunday Times
September 27, 2009
Beyond the brochure: Crosshall Manor, Cambs
This house, and its owner, have too much pomp and circumstance even for Daisy
Daisy Waugh

Nevertheless, there was a party here just after Denis Thatcher died, in honour of his baroness. And another for George Bush Sr. I ask his Lordship for nuggets of gossip regarding either occasion, and he launched into an incredibly dull story about the former president’s security guard liking his model trains.

Enough of all that. The property, which is on the market for £1.25m, is pretty from the outside. It is also within commuting distance of London (about 50 minutes to King’s Cross), and home and garden are both large. The housing development is off-putting, however, as is the large road just in front of the garden wall.

Crosshall Manor comes with a two-storey coachhouse, currently used as an office. It has seven bedrooms, four bathrooms and a lot of thick curtains and fabric-covered walls, which, given the not terribly high ceilings, might make the less lordly, more free-spirited among us gasp for air.

There is a chest on the second-floor landing, with labels stuck on each drawer. “Vince Summer Shorts”, it says on one of them; “Speedos/Tracksuits” on another. Indeed, “Lord Vincent” has dolled it up to the nines. I would want to take a sledgehammer to the interior, rip out the golden bath taps, tear down the fabric walls and start all over again.

Crosshall Manor, Cambs, £1.25m
What is it? A Grade II*-listed seven-bedroomed manor house

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Rightmove link 1. £1,250,000
Rightmove link 2. £1,250,000
PB Info: (applies to both listings) 03 June 2009: Initial entry found.

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Update 28th April 2010: Relisted. Rightmove link 1 (Fine & Country): £1,500,000 (lol)
Rightmove link 2 (Peter Lane): £1,500,000

dopester

The Doc looks well fed. Bow down to the new gods. Baby-boomers with top-end homes worth cold-war inflation/credit-expansion/HPI fortunes, and who now want to cash out as the deflationary downside attempts to correct the market. The special-interest age-groups still holding power (in political office, BoE ect), who are trying to resist market forces. Prices can't correct to reality. The young must pay.

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Daily Mail: Hollywood goes to Devon: Art Deco mansion recreates the ritzy times of Tinseltown in the racy Thirties
By Rachel Reilly
07th December 2009
Casa Del Rio Court Wood Newton Ferrers Plymouth PL8 1BW


Quick ref info:

> 'It is an unusual place,' says Dr Andrew Pearson, who bought the property for £1.85million in 2004 and has since lovingly restored it. 'The house is exceptional. Despite having five owners since it was built, nothing has been altered in any great way.

> It was the proximity to the water that attracted current owner Dr Pearson, 66.

> Dr Pearson has spent £500,000 on the property and the majority of that went on converting the house into a profitable holiday home that turns over £200,000 a year.

> But now Dr Pearson has decided to put the Art Deco Casa del Rio - with its exterior whitewashed walls, terracotta roof tiles and arched windows - on the market for £3.5million. Sandy Davenport, of selling agents Knight Frank, is confident the house will be quickly snapped up. 'It will sell for at least the asking price. Some will see it as a great investment as a holiday rental property, but others will fall under its spell and want to move in.'

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Rightmove link. Offers in Region of £3,500,000
PB main info: 31 October 2009: Initial entry found. (no price changes logged since)
Other info: Was featured on a BBC tv show. (No longer available on iplayer)
Update 11th April 2010: New Rightmove link: Offers in Region of £3,500,000
Update 30th May 2010: New Rightmove link: Guide Price £2,950,000
Updates 10th June 2010: 2 new Rightmove links
New Rightmove link (Knight Frank): Offers in Region of £2,950,000 (Sold STC)
New Rightmove link (LUSCOMBE MAYE): Guide Price £2,950,000 (Under offer)
Update 19th July 2010: Satellite map link

dopester

Daily Mail: You can't bank on riverside living, says Secret Millionaire as he sells up for family life in north London
By Mark Anstead
07th December 2009



IT entrepreneur Dominic List puts Thameside apartments on the market as he plans family home with his Brazilian girlfriend in Belsize Park.

But now Dominic is planning to put all three of his flats on the market, asking £385,000 for each flat in Rotherhithe and £850,000 for the one in Butler's Wharf.

'Holding on to a former home works well in a rising market because there are generous capital gains tax concessions on property that was your main residence,' he says.

'But with most of my wealth tied up in my company and the market flat, I have decided to sell them all to be able to afford a decent house in Belsize Park.

I am working to an initial budget of £1.5million, which will get me only a small house but I am hoping to get the best possible price for my flats because the market lacks stock and demand is quite high.'

• KEY FACTS: Price: £850,000. Bedrooms: Two. Bathrooms: Two, one en suite. Reception rooms: Living room. Outside: Large balcony, parking space.

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EA/Listing: standby for update.

dopester

From The Sunday Times
October 11, 2009
Beyond the brochure: 1 Rose Square, The Bromptons, SW3
This former hospital is perfectly lovely, but the price should have a health warning
Daisy Waugh

The property is owned by an insurance company and not inhabited at present. In the meantime, it’s been “dressed” with an eccentric hotchpotch of junk-shop-style old lady’s furniture, which could be discouraging for someone about to lay out £4.65m on a flat with three not very big bedrooms. Aside from that, it’s stunning.

The star attraction is the vast (33ft by 26ft), light-filled double-height drawing room; a former ward, I suppose. I imagine this same room was filled with rows of ailing bodies, once upon a time, and echoed to the agonised groans of dying men. Luckily, they’ve long since been shunted out to the cemetery, and today it’s a perfect space for rich people to throw parties. The room opens onto a small private garden and there is a galleried study area floating up above.

And that’s it, pretty much. It has two bathrooms, both ensuite, a shower room, an elegant marble-floored entrance hall, a smallish kitchen and some friendly porters at the front gate, who are willing, under special circumstances, not simply to deliver your Ocado shopping to the front door, but to put it in the fridge. Which is all very nice indeed. For £4.65m. Plus a £21,000 annual management fee.

1 Rose Square, The Bromptons, SW3, £4.65m
What is it? A three-bedroom duplex flat in a converted hospital
Where is it? South Kensington, in west London

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Savills link. Asking price £3,900,000.
(Identification of property fully confirmed; see details in main brochure PDF)

Rightmove link. Guide Price £3,900,000
PB main info: 05 November 2009: Price changed: from 'Guide Price £4,650,000' to 'Guide Price £3,900,000'
08 July 2009: Price changed: from '£4,650,000' to 'Guide Price £4,650,000'
Subtitle changed: from '3 bedroom flat ' to '3 bedroom apartment'
03 October 2008: Initial entry found.

dopester

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From The Sunday Times
October 4, 2009
Beyond the Brochure: Mallards, St Mary’s Bay, Kent
This Kent home has a bewildering layout that leaves Daisy (almost) lost for words


The only nice things about Mallards are the fish pond, the garages and the seaside setting

At the moment, she and her husband live in Malta. The house is mostly used as a weekend place by their three grown-up children. They are selling up, having already successfully sold the business next door, a private home for autistic adults, with a tennis court and a football pitch.

Oh, dear. What can I say? There are some amazing fish in the pond out front. It has lots of garages — and it’s always nice to be beside the sea, even if there’s a cement wall in front. But, in my humble opinion, there’s not a nook or a cranny in the house that isn’t hideous. Added to which, it’s a half-hour drive to the super train station.

Mallards has been on the market since April. I imagine it will linger there for many more months to come.

Mallards, St Mary’s Bay, Kent, £1.4m
What is it? A six-bedroom house set in 1.4 acres
Where is it? On the beach, two miles from New Romney

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Rightmove link. £1,400,000
PB Main Info: 18 November 2009: Initial entry found.
Update 3rd August 2010: New Rightmove link (Century 21): POA
(Note on this listing it came on at £1,250,000 in June 2010, before changing to POA)
Update 5th September 2010: Price changed: from 'POA' to '£1,295,000'

dopester

rewired, it's fine to play silent and mysterious with us all - but I know something of what lurks in your calculating bear mind.

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From The Sunday Times
October 18, 2009
Beyond the Brochure: 28 Nursery Place, Kent
Daisy Waugh
28, Nursery Place, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN13 2RH

This Sevenoaks house is not exactly easy on the eye, inside or out, says Daisy

For those who aren’t depressed by the prospect of a life in Sevenoaks — nor by the thought of looking out onto a cul-de-sac of such unlovely houses, all of them so vaguely identical to your own — it would be hard to conceive of a more perfect property than 28 Nursery Place. Let’s hope for a bidding war. In the meantime, everyone else should probably keep searching.

28 Nursery Place, Kent, £699,995
What is it? A five-bedroom 1970s house
Where is it? In Sevenoaks

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Rightmove link. £699,995
PB main info: 24 September 2009: Price changed: from '£715,000' to '£699,995'
23 June 2009: Initial entry found.

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I read this DW full article on the day it was published and felt a bit saddened, with DW sounding like she was getting fully prepared to buy her new home (not this one) in this market - even if it meant having to put up with some downsides, such as a significantly less than appealing home exterior appearance.

Update 05th October 2010: SOLD. Sales Date: 07/05/2010. Price: £662,000
Houseprices.co.uk linky (number 28)

nearlynew

Oi dopey, I'm enjoying this thread.

Don't go and spoil it by having a go at rewired.



I love you rewired.