London's housing crisis in 13 property listings
09-04-2014
by in news
An ‘uninhabitable’ property was recently put up for sale in Kensington for £600,000.
That one-bedroom basement flat in west London certainly isn’t the only over-priced hovel to go on sale in the capital, and sadly, it probably won’t be the last.
Here are the properties that perfectly illustrate the UK’s completely unequal housing market.
1. £235,000
In what must be one of London’s narrowest properties, this converted driveway in Haringey has a price tag of £235,000. It’s only 83 inches wide!
2. £420 per month
The man who rented this flat in Hendon was fined over £3,000 last month because tenants could only access the property by crawling on their hands and knees.
3. £500,000
A garage in Kensington went on sale for £500,000. A garage.
4. £2.5million
One of these three-bedroom terraced houses in west London went on sale for £2.5m
5. £800,000
This ‘well-presented’ three-bedroom flat on Old Brompton Road went on sale for £800,000. But with a handy pizza joint downstairs, at least you’ll never need to cook!
6. £2million
For two million of your hard-earned pounds you could buy this two-bedroom flat - conveniently located above a bank, right on the main road.
7. £2.7million
This two-bedroom stucco-fronted period terraced house sold for an eye-watering £2,695,000 - that’s £1,347,500 per bedroom. Bargain.
9. £1million
For £1m you could have bought this splendid Mayfair flat, sadly it’s already been sold. All 461sq ft of it.
10. £2.5million
This three-bedroom townhouse is on the market for ‘offers of more than £2.5m’. Just look how quirky and narrow it is. Mostly narrow.
11. £500,000
This garage in Peckham (think Del Boy and Rodney) sold for £500,000 (half a million pounds!) At time of sale there wasn’t even planning permission to convert it into a residential property.
12. £17.5million
This property in Knightsbridge, formerly owned by the son of the founder of Harrod’s, could have been yours for £17.5m - it was also, sadly, sold.
13. £563 per month
But fear not, if you can’t afford the down payment on a hefty mortgage, you could always try renting instead.
This ‘fully-furnished’ studio comes in at £563/month - not so bad for central London - until the moment you realise your bed, shower, oven, toilet and kitchen are all effectively in the same room.
This article seems silly, but it makes a serious point - over 6,500 people were found to be sleeping rough in the capital last year.
Meanwhile, TUC research from last month shows that there is now only one ‘affordable’ area left to live in the whole of England when house prices are compared to average wages. So while London may be the most unaffordable place to live, it is by no means alone.
The toxic combination of rising property prices and falling real wages has meant that local housing affordability remains a huge problem for millions of people across the country.
We need an ambitious programme of home-building to get house prices back under control. At the same time, the growing number of people who have no hope or desire to buy a property any time soon but are still being clobbered by soaring rents need a better deal too.
But housing affordability isn’t just about house prices, decent wages are just as important and there is a lot of ground to make up before we return to the kind of salaries that people were earning before the crash.
- TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady