£2.5m for a knockdown which you can’t knockdown

[Propertypornographer]

Feast your eyes on this: £2.5m for a 1920s house in need of modernisation. Not too many period features unlike a grand Victorian home with bay windows and fireplaces and high ceilings. Yes it’s a posh postcode and it backs onto
a park but it’s very near the noisy end of the south circular and a huge estate. The garden looks an odd shape. It’s not in catchment for great state schools and it’s a 15 minute walk - not 5 - to posh shops and far from a train line etc. It says detached but it looks like the garage is right next to the neighbour’s one. It’s in a conservation area so you would struggle to get planning permission to knock it down. You’d have to remodel probably at a cost of at least 500k to make it a four bed house with decent living space.

What am I missing?

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/152274461#/?channel=RES_BUY

I can never get over the prices in London, they always seem absurd to me, so I’ve no idea if this represents good value or not. You could get something massive and beautiful near me for that amount.

I first thought typo! But actually if you look at the sold houses nearby the other run down average houses on that street have fetched about the same money in the last few years. Absolutely mental! People obviously are buying them, crazy.

Why would you knock down?

Absolutely nuts.

London prices are unbelievable.

@TheRavenSaid the house as it is seems to have no massively redeeming features. The plot is quite large. Sometimes it is cheaper to build a high quality architect designed home than to renovate an existing one. Don’t get me wrong, I love old houses and live in one. But this doesn’t have the charm or grandeur of most historic homes, probably as it is too ‘new’. It looks a bit pre-fabish.

Looking at houseprices.io, there are several sales on that road last year for £3m-£3.6m so assume someone will think that it's worth the effort to renovate.

@Propertypornographer the rooms are nice and big, obviously without looking at structural issues, a re model looks like it would suffice

I love the big windows and the garden and if had money, i can see the appeal

Dulwich is a crazy south London anomaly for really high prices. It’s nice, but not that nice.

Why are there no pictures of the bathrooms...how bad can they be?

Oh god. Dulwich house prices. Nope! Now show me something around there my eyes can feast on for making me look at that house, please.

I know what you mean @1990s . It is nice but not that nice. Blackheath represents better value to me and slightly better transport links (I don’t live there). I agree with a pp that it’s nice and light but it’s not 2.5million quids worth nice and light, even for the area! I have seen much better value properties. That road is costly but this is down the wrong end to compare it with the £2-£3m houses.

If I had 2.5 to 3+ million, I would NOT spend it on that. The garden has potential. The plot has potential.

I live in Wandsworth so that looks quite cheap 😆😭

Do you know the area @Omnium ? Where would you spend it?

Why would you knock it down, I love it. Gorgeous house. The din8ng room looks it needs redecorating and I’d want to get rid of the ceiling tiles in the kitchen. Love the main sitting room apart from the actual fire.

Here’s another one. It actually looks ‘cheap’ compared to others on this road. Your neighbour might be a disgraced celeb though: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/150315929#/?channel=RES_BUY

I take it all back. It’s great value for money compared to this: the world’s dullest and most overpriced new build (and there’s some hefty competition): www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149611625#/?channel=RES_BUY

How much wine space does one family need??!!!

The park side of Court lane has been my ‘if I won significant sums in the lottery’ road for a while now so I’d probably buy it!

@Mitsky I have heard that a lot of those houses are burglary targets and it’s mega noisy in summer! The side near the village is nice in a leafy suburban way. It doesn’t scream luxury to me though except for the price. This one is down the rough end so about a 10 - 15 walk to the nice part!

Stripping back to brick, new floors, new roof, new windows, insulation, rewiring, retrofitting underfloor heating heat pumps etc, reconfiguring layout.

You would spend so much time and money stripping it back and retrofitting that it would be much easier to demolish and rebuild.

If it was an arts and crafts house or something then yeah it might be worth saving but it’s a bog standard Edwardian/1930s house of which there are millions.

Looks good to me, love the teak panelled 70's living room, be a tragedy to remove that and the kitchen is fab too.

It’s bang smack in the middle of Dulwich village which is an expensive London postcode, where detached houses go for these sums. Have you looked further out? In Lewisham and Bromley your hypothetical 2.5 million budget would stretch further. And no, I don’t think you’d get planning permission to rebuild entirely. Dulwich is famous for its private schools, if you want state, the edge of SE23/SE21/SE22 have better access to primary states.