$98,700 price on London garage

Press, 23 February 1987, Page 14

$98,700 price on London garage

NZPA staff correspondent London People who recently found it hard to believe a broom cupboard in fashionable Knightsbridge had sold for £36,500 ($102,930) have been given a credibility-stretch-ing follow-up: a £35,000 ($98,700) garage. A London real estate firm said that was the figure it had been instructed to ask for a garage in Ladbroke Grove, west London. “Finding a parking space is such a problem in the area that people are prepared to pay that sort of money for what is a fairly common or garden garage,” an agency director, Clive Trueman, told the London “Evening Standard.” The newspaper said the 1.76 m by 3.35 m converted broom cupboard overlooking Harrods department store was not the only small property on the market at a less than small price.

A fifth-floor apartment in the West End comprising a living and sleeping area 3.35 metres square, a dressing room 2.4 m by 2.1 m, and a small bathroom and kitchen, was being offered at £85,000 ($239,700). Nearby in Kensington the owners of a one-room conversion measuring 6.1 m by 4.6 m want £92,500 ($260,850). On top of that were annual service fees of £7OO ($1974) and an equivalent sum in rates. Even in the less salubrious Kentish Town in north London a flat comprising a 3.4 m by 2.8 m living and sleeping room and a 1.5 sq m kitchen is on the books at £45,950 ($129,579). Meanwhile, Westminster City Council is reported to be investigating whether planning permission was given before the broom cupboard with the best address in London was converted to a flat.