Grand Designs in Brixton, Channel 4

[simonSW2]

Good news boppers, reports of a dream home were wrong, all wrong...

A few months on and the minimal house is now on sale with your local community Foxtons:

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/29416642?search_identifier=6d6e263b85c7c251354728961d4067da

Much ado about nowt.

 

[Greebo]

Good news boppers, reports of a dream home were wrong, all wrong...

A few months on and the minimal house is now on sale with your local community Foxtons<snip>

I'd be interested to hear why that happened.

 

[purenarcotic]

I'd be interested to hear why that happened.

Iirc from the show, it nearly financially crippled the guy to build it and he had to take out massive loans. I guess he couldn't pay them.

Ah sorry, I didn't click the link and didn't realise it's a different house (posted that on my phone). No idea about this one.

 

[simonSW2]

I'd be interested to hear why that happened.

We can speculate! :: either, the dream became a nightmare and it's all a bit of a sorry mess, or they realised they could make a bundle of cash and build another, bigger sensory deprivation tank somewhere else.

 

[Manter]

Hmmm, it appears to have moved to Clapham....

 

[editor]

Hmmm, it appears to have moved to Clapham....

Maybe that helps justify the £1.5m price tag.

 

[Manter]

Maybe that helps justify the £1.5m price tag.

Exactly what I was wondering. £1.5m for a 2 bed....!

 

[leanderman]

Exactly what I was wondering. £1.5m for a 2 bed....!

Astonishing.

They bought the site with a house for £500k or so.

Sold off the house for £500k or so but kept the back garden which they developed at a cost of £500k or so.

That's a potential £1million gain.

People who sold to them initially have missed a trick here.

 

[ibilly99]

I'd love to see a Grand Designs where the pressure of the build and financial strain is all too much and the house is repossessed by the bank. This tears the smug couple apart, ruining their superficial relationship and catapulting one of them into alcoholism, and eventually losing their job and falling down the ladder into a damp council flat in a 'gritty' part of city.

OK maybe that's a bit extreme but the people on GD's are like the people in Country Life magazine - on a total fucking different planet to the majority of the populace.

I like architecture (it's what I wrote my dissertation on) but I *really* can't stand some of the materialistic, shallow, ostentatious cnuts that appear on that show.

Pitch it to C4 - that would be must watch schadenfreude TV.

 

[ibilly99]

It's Lambeth Council

liberally stick the word eco and sustainable in every other paragraph.

 

[leanderman]

Pitch it to C4 - that would be must watch schadenfreude TV.

You wait until the Brockwell Park rectory house appears on Grand Designs.

Going to be Smugsville Central

 

[ibilly99]

Good news boppers, reports of a dream home were wrong, all wrong...

A few months on and the minimal house is now on sale with your local community Foxtons:

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/29416642?search_identifier=6d6e263b85c7c251354728961d4067da

Much ado about nowt.

If you use Foxton's then you get all you deserve.

Good news boppers, reports of a dream home were wrong, all wrong...

A few months on and the minimal house is now on sale with your local community Foxtons:

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/29416642?search_identifier=6d6e263b85c7c251354728961d4067da

Much ado about nowt.

Turns out the cynics were right all along - if you use Foxton's then you're cunts IMHO.

 

[Firky]

I was wondering why I was getting likes.

Cnuts would have apple macs init (so have I but YKWIM)

 

[shygirl]

It's souless, as a home, imo.

 

[editor]

It's souless, as a home, imo.

It's a horrible place to live if you're paying out that kind of money.

 

[billythefish]

I'd like someone to buy it and then clad it in crazy paving and put a thatched roof on it.

 

[CH1]

If you use Foxton's then you get all you deserve.

Unusually there's no Foxton's board up at the property - which is MASSIVE.
It's just across the road from King's Acre Church & the Mauleverer Road mural.

 

[Rushy]

Exactly what I was wondering. £1.5m for a 2 bed....!

Of all the places coming on at crazy prices I think his is one of the least outrageous. The design is unique, the standard of build is outstanding, the energy saving credentials and technology are top end. It is not everyone's cup of tea but if you like that kind of design you are going to be pushed to find a better example on the market anywhere vaguely nearby. It has even been listed by RIBA for this year's Stirling Prize.

I reckon you'd be pushed to find a plot and build this for similar money. Not sure how much it cost but the price was kept down by the architect designing for himself and building with his brother (I think).

 

[Manter]

Of all the places coming on at crazy prices I think his is one of the least outrageous. The design is unique, the standard of build is outstanding, the energy saving credentials and technology are top end. It is not everyone's cup of tea but if you like that kind of design you are going to be pushed to find a better example on the market anywhere vaguely nearby. It has even been listed by RIBA for this year's Stirling Prize.

I reckon you'd be pushed to find a plot and build this for similar money. Not sure how much it cost but the price was kept down by the architect designing for himself and building with his brother (I think).

i'd have thought (not being a property expert) it was more difficult to get that price because its so unique. A 5 bed victorian done up well have loads of people after it- for that place you are looking for the one person who falls for it.

 

[Rushy]

i'd have thought (not being a property expert) it was more difficult to get that price because its so unique. A 5 bed victorian done up well have loads of people after it- for that place you are looking for the one person who falls for it.

I don't think it will be just one person. And there is nothing else else like it available. This isn't just a modern house - the attention to every bit of detail makes it an artwork of sorts. It really is in a class of its own.

 

[Firky]

It really is in a class of its own.

It certainly is that but not work £1.5 million in a month of Sundays.

 

[Rushy]

It certainly is that but not work £1.5 million in a month of Sundays.

So commercially (rather than ideologically) speaking, what's it worth?

 

[Firky]

Probably get a few grand for the scrap metal.

 

[cuppa tee]

So commercially (rather than ideologically) speaking, what's it worth?

That may depend on whether any wealthy Art lovers are looking to downsize for some reason, a messy divorce is one that comes to mind.

 

[leanderman]

Of all the places coming on at crazy prices I think his is one of the least outrageous. The design is unique, the standard of build is outstanding, the energy saving credentials and technology are top end. It is not everyone's cup of tea but if you like that kind of design you are going to be pushed to find a better example on the market anywhere vaguely nearby. It has even been listed by RIBA for this year's Stirling Prize.

I reckon you'd be pushed to find a plot and build this for similar money. Not sure how much it cost but the price was kept down by the architect designing for himself and building with his brother (I think).

But, according to my memory of the programme (see post #158), they got the plot for free.

 

[Rushy]

But, according to my memory of the programme (see post #158), they got the plot for free.

? It was their own garden.

I'm saying that if you wanted to replicate it I doubt you would have a healthy amount of change out of £1,500,000 after finding a plot, getting planning, appointing an architect who will work to that level of detail on largely experimental designs and finding a specialist enough builder.

 

[leanderman]

? It was their own garden.

I'm saying that if you wanted to replicate it I doubt you would have a healthy amount of change out of £1,500,000 after finding a plot, getting planning, appointing an architect who will work to that level of detail on largely experimental designs and finding a specialist enough builder.

I am sure you are right.

But, in this case, someone gave them a massive leg-up.

It was never really their garden. It was always, literally, a plot:

That being to buy the house, halve the garden, and sell the house.

The seller must feel sick.

 

[Rushy]

I am sure you are right.

But, in this case, someone gave them a massive leg-up.

It was never really their garden. It was always, literally, a plot:

That being to buy the house, halve the garden, and sell the house.

The seller must feel sick.

Why would they care other than wishing that they'd done it themselves?

 

[leanderman]

Why would they care other than wishing that they'd done it themselves?

Until the end of my days, I'd consider myself an idiot - thus aligning my opinion of myself with everyone else's!

 

[Rushy]

Until the end of my days, I'd consider myself an idiot - thus aligning my opinion of myself with everyone else's!

Fair enough!

In their case it should not have been a surprise though. The "Tree House" next door was given planning permission and built quite a bit before - maybe 10yrs? That was an "end of garden" development in exactly the same way.

There is an application in at the moment for a new house in he garden to the side of the Tree House. That used to be the rear garden of 45 Kings avenue. The rear neighbours who sold them the end of their own garden, seem to say they did so believing it would be used as garden for the Tree House (which it was for a few years). The new application is to build on that plot. It was a bit naive of them as they could have easily conditioned the sale to protect the space (knowing that the buyer had already developed a plot), or not sold it to them at all. They are clearly unhappy though.