Peetle

And another thing... When I bought my flat the price was around 3x a reasonable graduate's starting salary. The same flat now is about 12-15x a reasonable graduates starting salary.

It can happen in London and it has in the past. I bought a flat in Shoreditch in 1985, for £35k. In 1989, during the "bubble" I had an offer to sell it for £73k, but they pulled out. I eventually sold it in 1992 for £45k, and there wasn't a lot of demand. Of course Shoreditch in the late '80s was a bit different than it is now. In the early '90s I remember lots of people who'd stretched for a mortgage in the late '80s found themselves in crippling negative equity - I knew one couple who'd divorced and who had to divide their, now unsecured, debt. People are pouring in to London all the time and they have to live somewhere. The big money from Russia and Europe really only affects the top of the market but as long as demand exceeds supply, the London bubble will continue. If (when) the wheels come off the economy and interest rates rise, the tide will turn. The fundamental advice remains the same: get the biggest deposit you can and anticipate a big rise in interest rates - your situation sounds pretty good, but as other posters have pointed out, properties in "bad" areas drop far faster and are much harder to sell than those "good" areas when the market turns.

That's a horrible location - close to the North Circular. Also, I'd describe Bounds Green as "grim" rather than "average", though like everywhere there are less grim parts. But half a million for someone's failed renovation project is laughable. Nethouseprices shows semis being sold there for around £360K around two years ago. Looks like someone's trying to make a hundred grand for trashing a house.

I went to a private, boarding prep school from the age of 9 (far too early to send kids to boarding school) and a well known Public school from 12 to 18. The experience has left me with a general contempt of those with a public school education and I shall not be inflicting it on my children. It's elitist and cliquey in the worst sense and if you don't fit in it can be a living hell - it is 24/7 after all. Prices are fairly shocking these days too - it was about £7k per year when I went, when £40k was a good salary, so it was definitely within reach of many professionals. These days it really is the preserve of the rich. It's all very well saying you can stretch to afford it, but when your child's contemporaries come back after the holidays with stories about Daddy's ski lodge or staying in Mauritius they will feel isolated and be looked down on.

Not a sh*thole, but definitely over priced: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37890251.html A new Estate Agents trick - the picture of the back garden is over exposed, so you can't see the huge concrete Royal Mail sorting office which dominates the view from the back. I'm surprised the front photo isn't more aggresively cropped too - to cut out the neighbours so you can see what the house would have looked like before the awful 60s makeover it appears to have had. Two kitchens looks suspicious too - hostel perhaps ?

Are Foxton's employing midgets now ? The kitchen worktops and sofa are at eye-level in the photos. Unless of course this is some dastardly photographic trick to make the place look bigger. I never understand the point of blatant lies in the estate agent details; after all they'll become glaringly obvious on a viewing or a survey.

True, but if I were a rich Greek with lots of dosh in Euros I think I'd want to park them somewhere outside the Eurozone for a while. Which probably explains these: http://www.bezierlondon.com/availability2bed.php Over a million quid for a new 2 bed flat. It's an ugly building and it's right next to the Old St roundabout, which is hardly W4.

It's an ex-Council flat and right opposite Holloway Prison, which is why it's cheap. Nearby is this: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33911419.html I used to live about 5 minutes walk from there (in a top floor duplex on a quieter back street, sold in early 2007...). In its favour are easy access to Islington and Camden and a zone 2 tube station. Against are Holloway and Camden Road which are both very busy at all hours. Not forgetting the ludicrous design.

Not really a sh*thole, but definitely massively overpriced: http://www.jeremyswan.co.uk/propertyDetails.php?pid=380019 It's opposite a large pub. A nice pub but still a busy one. Also, it fronts almost directly onto the road and has virtually no back garden. More significantly, beyond the back garden used to be a small garden centre but a large development of flats and houses is now being built. Beyond that is a railway line. The council have slapped a "stop" order on this development, presumably due to some planning infringement, though I would hope any building work I get done will progress as quickly as this "stopped" work. Anyway, 3/4 million to live in a cramped house, opposite a pub and surrounded by building work for the forseeable. The same money (or less) will buy you a decent sized 4 bedroom house in a sensible location and with a garden about 200 yards away. And I reckon they're overpriced too.

I happen to work near Old St so I've been aware of the Bezier development for a couple of years. It won the Private Eye "Worst New Building 2010" award last year and now you can buy a 2 bed flat in it for £750k. Or a bigger, but still 2 bed, one for £1.7M. I like the idea of having the dressing area for the master bedroom in the window. If you are a billionaire looking for a London pied a terre, why would you want to be looking at the Old St roundabout ? http://www.bezierlondon.com/availability1.php

Not wishing to encourage or condone illegal behaviour, but... A long time ago I had a very interesting convesation with a chap on a plane to New York about this very subject. His problem was that he got paid in cash a lot and wanted to bring the money back to the UK without all the tedious tax paperwork, etc. His solution was to pay it into his credit card which is, after all, just a different kind of bank account, just one that usually runs overdrawn rather than in credit. Then you can just spend on the card back in blighty. Of course the tax man may have got wise to this technique these days but it might be worth a shot.

Looking at these tiny studios - I thought there was a building reg that required two doors between a toilet and a kitchen, obviously a practical impossibility with these matchboxes. On the subject, how about this: http://www.bezierlondon.com/ I can't find individual prices but they were listed as "from £345k". The smallest studio is 14'5" by 16'9" and is presumably smaller than that being a trendy wedge shape - i.e. a right pain to furnish or carpet.

I didn't think it was that bad... But how hard is it to turn the telly off when they're taking photos ? It's like estate agent's photos with snow in them - you know that means the place has been on the market since early February and it's not hard to wait a couple of days.

How about this: http://www.findaproperty.com/displayprop.a...amp;pid=1697479 It's not a bad house, though the interior decor could be brought out of the 1970s. However, look at the location - right under Heathrow's 3rd runway. Of course you'd probably get to live there for 20 years during the public enquiry, but you'd never sell it. The property search would make interesting reading.

I live about 15 minutes walk from there - I might go and see if I can find it at the weekend. Judging by the map it's something above and at the back of some shops; that bit of Green Lanes is mostly Poundlands and kebab shops, though it's not all bad. Of course those maps are done by post codes so it could be by a canal or a railway line as there are both nearby.

I was intruiged by the "high flue WC" . Is this some kind of incinerating toilet for houses away from main drainage, or just handy when you've had a curry ?