A slum for half a million

It was pretty barmy ten years ago but now it’s downright insane. When I last dabbled in the London property market, prices were rocketing and there were half a dozen buyers for every property. These days it’s a whole lot worse but I’ve got no choice. My wife and I have a toddler nearing his first birthday and it’s becoming impossible to lug everything up the 58 steps to our top-floor flat: baby, toys, pushchair, Cow & Gate formula, books, food, wine, beer. And it’s really not healthy. I could easily have a heart attack watching her doing all that carrying.

Our home, in which I’m writing this piece, went on sale just after Christmas. We chose a swanky top-end estate agent, (‘We charge you the earth — for a very small piece of it’), calculating that they’d attract the kind of City high-flyers who’d be seduced by the look of our warehouse-style flat with its big airy spaces, pock-marked brickwork, chrome sink and all that cobblers.