Comments on: We'll throw in the doghouse for only £100,000 extra... deal?

We'll throw in the doghouse for only £100,000 extra... deal?

miss lynnster — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:39:19 -0800

Wow. And I thought California property was expensive. Lordy.

By: Iron Rat

Iron Rat — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:46:11 -0800

I had better get in before the bubble bursts. Is pricing like this sustainable?

By: IshmaelGraves

IshmaelGraves — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:07:30 -0800

"If you thought of this as the cabin on a boat, you'd say, 'It's pretty spacious.'" Real estate agents have a capacity for cognitive dissonance which never ceases to amaze me.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:14:10 -0800

For someone living out in the country, who wants a place to stay in the city during the work week, this could work (but not at that price).

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:20:53 -0800

I expect Knightsbridge was exorbitant before there was a 'California'

By: zoogleplex

zoogleplex — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:20:54 -0800

Some social climber will buy it, most likely. Funny that to make it actually habitable tacks on another 59,000 pounds!

By: The Deej

The Deej — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:25:32 -0800

I... er... ok, so... um... I am rarely speechless. This is just insanity. 950 sf 2 bedroom apartment... $630/mo, water included. I guess I am not paying too much. Thanks for the link; it was the most mind-blowing thing I have read today.

By: jamesonandwater

jamesonandwater — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:32:18 -0800

Another one in my beloved home :)

By: taosbat

taosbat — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:33:01 -0800

Man in the Box

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:45:29 -0800

Ummm... I'm looking for an apartment in SF, Deej, & I've seen nothing even CLOSE to that. So I'd say you should thank your lucky stars & keep living there until the death rattles start. Either that or sublet it to me.

By: pleeker

pleeker — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:51:03 -0800

Soon to be featured on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition".

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:53:28 -0800

lynnster: He meant "square foot" not San Francisco.

By: pleeker

pleeker — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:59:21 -0800

Time to invest in Moldova?

By: A dead Quaker

A dead Quaker — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:59:48 -0800

I love how they describe the shower as "coffin-sized".

By: matteo

matteo — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:01:38 -0800

in the mid to late 1990s I was a very frequent guest at a friend's place a few steps from High Street Kensington, and at another friend's place in then-not-yet-cool Notting Hill. well, both friends had good jobs with investment banks, and they could barely afford the rent. Chelsea or Knightsbridge would have been unthinkable, and back then real estate was a thousand times cheaper than it is now. 950 sf 2 bedroom apartment... $630/mo, water included OK, but where?

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:02:41 -0800

Oh right. Durrrrrrr. After looking at apt. listings all day, I've got SF on the brain.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:05:31 -0800

miss lynnster, I agree, heck of a deal, and it's a very nice place. But it's in Billings, Montana, not SF. Location, location, location. Although, for Billings, it's a great location. If you ever find yourself passing through Montana you can sublet for free while you're here. :)

By: The Deej

The Deej — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:06:15 -0800

yes. sf. not SF.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:09:51 -0800

Soon to be featured on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". I think that would be: Soon to be featured on "Extreme Makeover: Pantry Edition".

By: LoriFLA

LoriFLA — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:13:36 -0800

I cannot believe three offers have been made. Mind blowing. What good is living in Knightsbridge if you can't have snobby dinner parties or space to accommodate your stuff from Harrods?

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:17:56 -0800

What good is living in Knightsbridge if you can't have snobby dinner parties or space to accommodate your stuff from Harrods? Perhaps an entrepeneur who realizes he can make a profit by "renting" the mailing address to several people.

By: mendel

mendel — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:23:35 -0800

At the very end of the article it notes that there's some interest and it might go for auction, so the claim at the beginning that it's "going for 335,000" is not true. It's not worth anything until someone pays for it.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:24:44 -0800

In 1970 it was possible to buy a 5 bedroom house in a posh London neighborhood for under $50,000. In 1973 I helped my boyfriend buy a two-up and two-down house in Tooting, South London, for $25,000. worth ten times that 35 years later. But $335,000 for 77 square feet?! Insane. Maybe the internet and videoconferencing will change real estate prices in the future as more people can work from home, wherever that is. In India, between 1975 and 1981, I paid between $4 and $10 a month rent.

By: owhydididoit

owhydididoit — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:28:57 -0800

Maybe it's the shopping. By comparing it to a boat cabin, the realtor implies that this is a luxury purchase. Maybe the buyers want a place to drop when they shop the "tony stores".

By: untitledalex

untitledalex — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:43:27 -0800

it says it has a shower, but what about a toilet? If not, that makes it only a SRO (single room occupancy)...which is ironic to say the least considering it is in one of London's poshest neighborhoods.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:47:42 -0800

Then again, maybe Tara Reid wants a shoe closet...?

By: eritain

eritain — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:00:13 -0800

Well, the price is outrageous, but small spaces genuinely are usable. A shower doesn't need to be more than "coffin-sized" anyway. Best small space I've ever seen was a lawyer in Lviv, Ukraine, who really did work out of a hole in the wall. Open the exterior door and you're standing in front of the secretary's desk, in a cubical room about 2m on a side. Said room is occupied overwhelmingly by said desk. Get the secretary's OK, and get the secretary's chair moved, and you can open the interior door to a room of comparable dimensions, where my friend worked. He was renovating a nearby room, which had been a basement cafe, to take his books and a meeting space for more than one person, but at the time I knew him, it was just him and the secretary in this dinky little space off a courtyard downtown. I wonder if it wasn't a renovated maid's room too.

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:03:23 -0800

I read a lot of interiors magazines (Dwell and the like) and I can totally see someone buying this and then having a feature in Wallpaper* on how they made use of the space. I like reading articles like that, they make me feel smug for living in a large, yet poorly furnished, apartment. I don't have to find a way to fit all of my belongings into a space the size of a refrigerator box! I can spread them out at will! (Though I will admit that those featured tiny apartments are usually a hell of a lot swankier than mine. I mean, hell, I have a ladder in my kitchen. For no reason.)

By: winjer

winjer — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:34:09 -0800

I lived in London for ten years, leaving only last year, and the price they quote for that flat is perfectly reasonable. The big problem with London is the insane transport situation. At commuting times traffic moves at around walking pace, literally. Literally is an overused word, but I really mean it. My bus to work would do around 4mph. The tube is quicker, but so crowded it's virtually unbearable. If you work in the centre of London now, and especially if you work long hours, you are better off with a broom cupboard in Knightsbridge than a 2-bed flat in Peckham. If you could find a 2-bed flat in Peckham for under £200,000, of course.

By: pwedza

pwedza — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:23:20 -0800

"Perfectly reasonable" !!!??!?! Working long hours and paying obscene amounts of money to live in a broom cupboard don't sound at all reasonable to me.

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:47:13 -0800

The big problem with London is the insane transport situation. At commuting times traffic moves at around walking pace, literally. Literally is an overused word, but I really mean it. My bus to work would do around 4mph. The tube is quicker, but so crowded it's virtually unbearable. I'll second that, winjer. I moved from London this summer for precisely this reasons: horrible public transport. Easily the worst of any European capital. Certainly being able to avoid the tube is a reason to pay almost any price for a bedsit in Knightsbridge.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:48:53 -0800

yes, pwedza, but that broom cupboard is in Knightsbridge. I don't believe that they'll get their asking price-- I mean, they're selling it as a fixer-upper-- but they'll get some money out of it. I've seen apartments in places like the West Village that are miniscule as well, though perhaps not quite on this scale. The couple who founded Apartment Therapy live in a 265 square foot apartment, for example.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:55:14 -0800

Pish posh! This is quite modest. And it shall keep the riff raff away.

By: Listener

Listener — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:07:31 -0800

Too . . . Many . . . People.

By: Grangousier

Grangousier — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:42:36 -0800

Is this the same broom cupboard in Knightsbridge that was being sold at a ridiculous rate during the housing boom of the 80s? Every twenty years this broom cupboard changes hands at an insane price. Perhaps it's a barometer of over-inflated property prices.

By: johnny novak

johnny novak — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:44:17 -0800

I guess it will be the pied a terre of someone who has a large house in the country. The purchaser will probably use it for about three nights a week as a place to crash after dancing the night away at Annabels. Cheaper than a hotel and a more private place in which to 'entertain' the mistress, it is probably less than five minutes walk to all the major hedge fund offices.

By: goo

goo — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:44:22 -0800

The big problem with London is the insane transport situation. Yes! When it snows, such as it has today, I can't go to work! Insane, yet strangely great. Certainly being able to avoid the tube is a reason to pay almost any price for a bedsit in Knightsbridge. And with fares increasing every year the financial offset is considerable - the flat may well be worth that price if your lifestyle is such that living there allows you to avoid using mass transport most of the time. We're looking for a place to rent at the moment, and prices have gone down since we were last looking two years ago. We want to buy, but renting makes a lot more financial sense right now.

By: vbfg

vbfg — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:45:14 -0800

Just looking at Rightmove, the cheapest property currently available in Chelsea cost three times more than my house did when I bought that (albeit in Bradford six years ago). The cheapest property is a garage. Come live in Bradford. Better curry, and you're not surrounded by twats. At least, not the same class of twat.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 03:01:41 -0800

Hey, one day we'll all be living in shitty little places like these, when we're all crammed into urban centres because there's no jobs anywhere else.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:33:23 -0800

the flat may well be worth that price if your lifestyle is such that living there allows you to avoid using mass transport most of the time ...and you have a bottom that's been sewn up. I mean seriously, you can't even use a chamber pot like they did when England was Jolly, because you're on the basement floor. Throw it out the window and you've ruined your view. Or do they expect you to use the shower as a urinal and a toilet?

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 05:44:09 -0800

WTF is a "tony store"?

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:02:46 -0800

Cheaper than a hotel and a more private place in which to 'entertain' the mistress, it is probably less than five minutes walk to all the major hedge fund offices. Pretty easy going mistress if this is going to impress her. Hooker, maybe. But cheaper than a hotel? Which hotel? And over what period of time?

By: veggieboy

veggieboy — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:06:48 -0800

tony

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:02:43 -0800

I think that in the calculation of "cheaper than a hotel", they assume that you'll be ordering champagne through room service every day, and living in it for the rest of your natural life, which you artificially prolong with cryogenics.

By: cardamine

cardamine — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:24:32 -0800

That's London for you... the rent on my miniscule 3-bed (no living room) flat near King's Cross...1300/mo. I'm a student. I cry every rent day. Add to that a single bus journey is now £2 (£1 with oystercard) and a cinema ticket sets you back £8 in Camden...is it worth it? Think of the millions of people who want to live here, driving up prices further. The soul weeps. Then moves up north.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:34:42 -0800

Why d'ya think I left Boston? I love it dearly but when you're paying $600+ for a bedroom in a 9-bedroom house, it makes the $670 mortgage on a 2-bedroom bungalow with garage and lovely yard you left behind in Cleveland very, very depressing. And then you hit yourself in the head for having sold it before you left. Sigh.

By: Coventry

Coventry — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:46:06 -0800

Wow, I was paying $350/month for a bedroom in Boston in 2004. Things are still really hot there, I guess.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:58:18 -0800

And this wasn't even Boston proper, it was Porter Square in Somerville. AND it was my cousin's ex's house, so I got a deal. They bought that place in 1997 or so for about $167K. She put another $50K into renovations. It's now worth $750K+ -- WTF?!

By: owhydididoit

owhydididoit — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:13:09 -0800

They have a $200K mortgage, and you're paying $600/month for one of nine bedrooms? How is that such a deal?

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:20:59 -0800

Because a similarly-sized living space with utitilies included, kitchen access, a parking space (ungodly difficult to come by in that neighborhood) and a proper bathroom (albeit shared by 3 people) would have cost a good $200+ more anywhere else nearby at the time. I came to my senses and moved out of state. Though if I could afford it, I'd be there or in Maine in a heartbeat.

By: Busy Old Fool

Busy Old Fool — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:21:32 -0800

What appears to be a toilet appears briefly in this video.

By: jacquilynne

jacquilynne — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:44:11 -0800

As others have said, it would make sense as a pied a terre for someone with an actual house elsewhere and a tendency to work late. It might similarly make sense as a small corporate apartment for a company with a few senior people who are inclined to work late.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:46:54 -0800

Meanwhile, I'm just trying to find a lovely home office in SF that will cost me less than $2000 a month. It pains me... from 1995-2005 I had a rent controlled apartment in Beverly Hills for $900. Sigh.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:01:24 -0800

it would make sense as a pied a terre Other news articles also suggested it might be used my a near by family to house a maid/nanny. (Yes, I am another Londoner who will probably spend the next ten years or so paying extortionate rates for a single room in a shared house in which every room has been turned into a bedroom.)

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:11:48 -0800

When I last lived in London, circa early 90's, I had a huge flat in the West8, just off Ken High street. I could see Kensington Palace from the top of the building, and I was walking distance to a tube, a pub and the newspaper who was employing me. At the time, my rent was about $1000 pounds, and I thought it was extraordinarily high...but I wasn't paying it, so I didn't really care. It's my understanding that the same apartment is now renting for 5k+ . Crazy.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:37:01 -0800

Five thousand POUNDS? Ok, I take back everything I said about Boston. Boston, honey, you're a bargain.

By: skammer

skammer — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:58:34 -0800

Tony Store

By: drezdn

drezdn — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:15:37 -0800

I pay $450 for a 1 and 1/2 bedroom flat with a backyard that borders on a river. Then again, I don't live in London.

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:22:15 -0800

Originally conceived as a maid's room, the apartment at 18 Cadogan Place hasn't been used in years and is littered with trash bags and crumbling paint. What the hell? You'd think that the place would sell quicker and get better offers if they paid some schlep a hundred quid to fix up the place a bit. Or screw that, just take the damn trash out.

By: johnny novak

johnny novak — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:51:31 -0800

as a pied at terre it makes perfect sense. Try and get a hotel in Mayfair for less than £300 a night, assuming three nights a week, let's say it adds up to a £1000. Times 45 working weeks in the year. It's a no brainer. And you have the equity. There are thousands of similar studio flats in Kensington and Chelsea, this just happens to be a little smaller, and indeed, cheaper, than most.

By: Dome-O-Rama

Dome-O-Rama — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:45:45 -0800

How many square foot would a water hearter and furnace take up? Acually I am betting one of the flat owners on the other sides of the apartment are bidding for it, if you live there, and likely have for sometime and don't wish to move, yet you want more room where do you get it? A $335K closet comes up for sale next door just when you need place for that shoe collection. Buying a closet and busting down a wall is more doable then moving and trying to find another disgustingly expensive place to live. You woudn't need to add the heating stuff then either.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:05:18 -0800

You wouldn't even need a full water heater, just one of those tankless units that are so common in Germany/Central Europe. If there's a shower, there are water lines, so no problem there. Heat? Come on, how cold can London possibly get? A space that small, if you're just sleeping, would be totally fine with an electric blanket on the bed and good window treatments. Of course, it doesn't have electricity, so forget the tankless or the blanket... but with electricity, hey -- why not?