SOMETIMES statistics tell a very clear story. For the first time, the average price of a terraced house in Central London is a seven-figure number: £1,009,400, according to Hometrack’s survey for March. This speaks volumes about the continuing buoyancy of the metropolitan market — another place where they do things differently, such as paying £2 million for a Mayfair mews house, not to live in it. The point is to exploit the already granted planning consent to knock it down and start all over again.

Nine individuals were recently vying for the opportunity to do just that, as we report in our special study of the bonus belt — that rarefied area of the capital encompassing Belgravia, Chelsea, Kensington, Mayfair and Notting Hill (see page 8). Buyers in these neighbourhoods are either possessed of a City bonus, or a Russian or Middle Eastern fortune.

Looks for these people are usually everything, but the shortage of properties for sale has made them willing to compromise. They will take on a house that is homely, as in ugly, not comfortable, provided that it has space — which is, increasingly, a luxury essential.

But take the Tube from Kensington out to the suburbs — which value-conscious millionaires who live in £1 million-plus terraces do more often than you think — and the picture changes. Prices also rose in these areas during March, but the average prices in southwest London and North London are £266,500 and £268,600 respectively. The average price nationwide is £117,100.

In March, the overall price rise in London was 1.1 per cent, which pushed up the nationwide increase for the month to 0.5 per cent, the fastest rise for nearly two years — although in Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, there was negligible growth of just 0.1 per cent.

The gap between the metropolis and the rest of the country is predicted to remain a gulf for the rest of the year. The latest mortgage approvals indicate a slackening in the demand. Householders, it appears, are beginning to feel cautious. There is even some fear of rising interest rates. This is despite this week’s statements from the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, which sets rates, suggesting that there will be no change for the next few months. But utility bills are already more expensive and council tax is going up by nearly 5 per cent. The average annual bill is now £1,056, but the owner of a Band H home in Chelsea faces a charge of £2,054. For him this is a tiny price to pay for an entry into an elite owners’ club.

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

THE world of estate agency now has its own version of Belle de Jour, the literary-minded London call girl who shares her musings about her line of work in a blog, a web diary. Secret Agent, a disaffected fortysomething London estate agency boss — or, at least, this is how he describes himself — has turned to blogging to voice his opinions about the low standards of his calling. Visit agentsdiary.blogspot.com and you can read his seditious thoughts on: his colleagues (idle and cretinous), cats (creepy) and the grasping relations of a recently deceased homeowner (“anorexic piglets at the trough”).

You could dismiss these diatribes as the expressions of a chronic mid-life crisis. But only those who have hoped to do a job well can become so disaffected. In one entry Secret Agent is grateful for a letter of thanks from a client. Homeowners usually fail to recognise a good agent’s contribution, being taken in by a flashy firm’s “over-inflated valuation” of their property and a “rock-bottom fee”.

Following last week’s exposé in BBC1’s Whistleblower of the dishonest tactics allegedly employed by Foxtons and other firms, Secret Agent gives vent to his disgust. His industry is full of “scuzzy wide boys and girls, with no relevant qualification, driven by a combination of greed, ignorance and unachievable targets”.

Thus he sums up the views of all those agents who want legislation now to drive out the rogues. As we highlighted last week, estate agency is an unregulated business, something about which the Government seems sanguine, although the purchase of a house is the largest financial transaction of most lifetimes. You do not have to side with the Secret Agent’s stance on cats to agree that change is necessary now.

CHILLING NEWS

A 7ft-high fridge that costs about the same as a car is an unlikely object of desire. But when I canvassed the moneyed on their interior essentials for this luxury special issue of Bricks and Mortar, American appliances of gigantic proportions appeared to be a preoccupation. The PRO 48 fridge-freezer manufactured by SubZero will set you back about £12,000 in Britain (see page 18). Depending on your view, this is a chilling piece of news or yet more proof that the rich like gadgets as much as the rest of us, only theirs are more expensive.

anne.ashworth@thetimes.co.uk

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