Ah, the property market. Very difficult for first-time buyers... Slump in house prices… Yadda, yadda and, indeed, yadda. It’s the conversational crutch that so often helps us get from perfunctory smalltalk to a meaningful, if repetitious, conversation. So if you find yourself sipping pinot amongst braying dinner party guests, here are a couple of titbits you may wish to regurgitate.
First, the news that a garage in Notting Hill is on sale for a dukesome £240 000, breaking several records as well as the bounds of credulity. The enormous sum is equivalent to paying a £5 parking fee…every day…for 131 years. It's not even a particularly large or special garage; it's all about location (...location, location). The Standard reports:
The new owners can be content in the knowledge that their cars will nestle close to those belonging to some of the area’s more famous residents including Stella McCartney, Harry Enfield and Mariella Frostrup.
As Enfield himself might say, ‘they are CONSIDERABLY richer than you’. Well, all we can say is extend the congestion charge to Lansdowne Road, right now, and increase it to £6000 a day.
Perhaps an even more startling entry in the estate agent’s window is this unfeasibly slim address. At just 5 feet and 5 inches wide, the only cats you’ll be swinging will be foetal. The property, on Goldhawk Road, Shepherds Bush, is being advertised by Winkworths for a little over half a million pounds. It somehow manages to squeeze in three bedrooms and a roof garden, and has a handy massage parlour next-door for resetting those contorted muscles.
Russell Chilvers, a sales negotiator at Winkworth, said the property was "pretty amazing" and did not feel "overly narrow" when you were inside it.
Which is fine, unless you are this gentleman.
