Yahoo Finance Why now is not the time to move to the country
The pandemic has sent many Londoners scuttling towards the green, open spaces of sub-60-minute commuter havens in the Home Counties. But for those who harbour no such fantasies of rural escape, now may be the time to snap up one of the resolutely urban architectural gems on the market while the mood and money are flowing in the fast lane out of town.
They are the modern wonders tucked down inner London’s un-greenest of backstreets (see Sir David Adjaye’s mystical Lost House in King’s Cross, priced at £6.5m through The Modern House and Sotheby’s International Real Estate; the cavernous industrial conversions (eg. the RIBA award- winning Clerkenwell Cooperage in East London, a former 1900s brewery turned five-bed house with five storeys of concrete, black steel and exposed brickwork, priced £7.25m).
Or there is the Brutalist architectural marmite of the Barbican, where this four-bed flat on the 30th floor of Lauderdale Tower, priced £1.75m, has vast panoramas across London.
What they lack in family-friendly lawns and life-saving lockdown views over fields, such properties make up for in being one-offs with an intrinsic value that goes beyond the simple equation of what the next person will pay for it.
“A beautifully-designed house is like investing in art. It’s a life-enriching asset,” comments James Klonaris from The Modern House estate agency, who considers Adjaye’s Lost House – built in 2004, across an alleyway in a former delivery yard, and with just one external window – “one of the most significant domestic projects in recent times”.
Behind Lost House’s modest, anonymous façade lies 4,000 sq ft of dramatic, inward-looking space, including a 60ft-long living area with black walls and black resin floor, illuminated by one of three large light wells that leads to an internal courtyard. There is also a bright lime green sunken cinema, a water garden, and the master bedroom has a water-level view across the moodily matte black lap pool.
Such a property will only ever attract a select niche of buyers – but such buyers still exist, says Klonaris. “There is almost always a healthy market for great design and many of our buyers see themselves as caretakers of the homes they purchase.”
Jeremy Gee, managing director at Beauchamp Estates, adds that some wealthy buyers actively seek a property that is different to the norm. “Many architect- designed homes are quite extreme in their aesthetics, and you either love it or hate it. For these properties, it is always about finding the right buyer, regardless of the factors affecting the overall market. But there is always a certain cachet for some in having a one-off or limited edition house,” says Gee, who is marketing Wellesley Court, a two-bed duplex penthouse in Maida Vale, priced at £795,000.
Designed by architect Frank Scarlett in 1938, it’s full of idiosyncratic colour and features, from the starkly monochrome living room to the glossy, lipstick red kitchen and the children’s playground on the roof. Among the latest tranche of urban architectural gems taking shape is One Park Drive in Canary Wharf, Herzog & de Meuron’s first residential building, where three fully-furnished show flats designed by Goddard Littlefair and Bowler James Brindley have just gone on sale from £1.23m. Likely buyers are professionals and young families looking for “a statement home”, says Brian De’ath, director of residential sales at Canary Wharf Group. “In a brand new building of significant architectural merit, with interiors by some of the best design firms in the business, there will always be a market for these apartments,” he says.
And when you’re 58 or 59 floors up, as you are in the Executive Collection flats, designed by Foster + Partners and priced from £2.135m in the scalpel-like South Quay Plaza in Canary Wharf, who wants the wind chill factor of an outside terrace anyway?
While overseas investors are still largely absent from the market, there may be an opportunity among domestic buyers – those not seeking greener pastures - to snare a discounted urban gem, too. The faithfully mid-century-style Bella Freud Apartment at Television Centre has been reduced by £475,000 and is now priced at £3.35m through The Modern House.
And a Victorian terraced house in Borough’s Doyce Street - where Charles Dickens lived while his father was in the local clink – has seen a £200,000 price drop, now on sale for £3.75m, also through The Modern House. The property packs a quirky designer punch throughout, making the most of the industrial hallmarks of its former life as a perfume warehouse, from its loading bay windows to the huge ship beams. Outside space is limited in this inner city location, but there are great close-up views over the chimney pots and City towers from its small roof terrace.
“There are compelling opportunities to be had in this pre-vaccine window,” says buying agent Jo Eccles, founder of SP Property. “Properties that would, under normal circumstances, have buyers fighting over them are now available at discounts of up to 10% as they don’t meet the current popular requirements of outdoor space. When the threat of another lockdown is removed by a vaccine, prime properties without outside space will be back in fashion.”
In any case, many international buyers in London own multiple homes and care little for big gardens in the capital; that’s what their English country estate and Provençal villa are for. “They come to London for work, family, to shop, eat and visit galleries. They are driven by the city lifestyle and aren’t looking for the same escapism as a country house or holiday home,” says Tim Macpherson, head of London residential sales at Carter Jonas. “We’re selling Mayfair and West End townhouses with no outside space. The priority is on amazing space for entertaining and live, and the real feel of the city location and lifestyle.”
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