As the stamp duty threshold drop comes into effect next week, all eyes are on properties which cost less than £125,000.
While this seems like an impossible task in London, a two-bedroom ground floor flat in Thamesmead went up for auction with a guide price of £90,000. Perhaps unsurprisingly it sold on March 19 for £117,000 — £27,000 over its guide price.
But if a guide price of £90,000 looks good for a two-bedroom, 678-square-foot flat in London with access to communal gardens, Homes & Property suggests consulting the pictures first.
Although the property’s façade appears unscathed, inside, the images show a vacant home left entirely to ruin.
The flat in Eastgate Close, Thamesmead is the stuff of nightmares. Everything —the walls, floors, ceiling, last remaining pieces of furniture— are rotting and coated with mould. The curtains are ragged, the floor tiles are peeling, the walls are crumbling. No surface lies unscathed.
The living room contains the only pieces of furniture pictured in the property: a once-white armchair, now grey with grime, a dresser and a ladder. A Portsmouth FC poster and a dog calendar cling stubbornly to one of the blackened walls.
In the kitchen, thick, brown gunk coats the sink and remaining section of worktop. The ground has been reduced almost to rubble, with the ruins of an oven and microwave against one wall. All the other fittings have been removed.
The bathroom is not featured on the video tour – and, presumably, not recommended for close examination.
“The property requires a full program of refurbishment,” reads the listing.
Another reason for the property’s lower guide price was its short lease, with only 60 years remaining. This means that the buyer will need to pay to extend it and may struggle to get a mortgage.
According to the Land Registry, the property was last sold in January, three months ago, for £100,000. Before that, it appears to have been in the hands of the same owners since 1997, who bought it for £40,000.
In November last year, a one-bedroom flat in Eastgate Close in good condition was sold for £180,000, while another one-bedroom flat with a 110-year lease and private garden went for £222,000 in 2023.
Auction House London were not able to provide details about the buyer of the property or the reason for its condition.
To home buying platform OneDome, the sale —and the fact that the property was sold above its guide price — is evidence of the affordability crisis facing buyers in the capital.
“A property just over £100k in London might seem like a bargain, but this sale highlights the extreme affordability crisis buyers are facing.
“Even in an uninhabitable state, without a working kitchen, the property still sold for well above its guide price,” says Babek Ismayil, the company’s founder and CEO.
“This property was sold at auction, meaning it likely attracted cash buyers. Mortgage lenders typically won’t approve loans for properties without a working kitchen, as they are considered uninhabitable.
“Buyers may need to explore alternative options such as making the property mortgageable before refinancing.
“With average house prices in the capital soaring to almost £600,000 — more than 12 times the average income — affordability has never been worse.
“And from April 1, the stamp duty nil-rate threshold for all buyers will drop to £125,000, meaning even the cheapest London properties will likely incur tax — piling yet another cost onto buyers in an already unaffordable market.”
