I’ve just read an interesting blog post by David Lawrenson over at Letting Focus about a potentially expensive pitfall for tenants in the whole lease option idea.

A lease option basically works like this:

• Tenant rents property in usual way

• Landlord offers option to buy within a defined period (a year or two, for example) at a price agreed today

• Tenant pays lump sum up front (£2-3k, for example) plus a premium on the rent for the privilege

• If tenant buys, he gets some of this back plus the benefit of last year’s house prices;  if he doesn’t buy, he loses the money invested

Now, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with the idea – house-builders have used this ‘rent to buy’ concept as a way to sell when times are tough and it’s been great for struggling first-time buyers.

But what if the landlord is a small-scale buy-to-let investor?  And what happens if said investor, for example, defaults on his mortgage payments or goes bust?

This is especially worth asking since some investment ‘gurus’ are pitching the lease option idea to struggling landlords - see this lease options article, for example.

From the tenant’s point of view, as David points out, the process may be fraught with risk.

Is he right? If any of you out there know more about this, we’d like to hear your views.

Here’s a very clever bit of extension invention in London N1 (Canonbury) – a basement conversion that makes smart use of an existing light well to create a glowing glass lantern that hovers over the new dining room.

House in Canonbury, £1,999,950, Foxtons (Tel: 020 7704 5000)

The extension has a full-height sliding glass door opening onto a fanned staircase that leads up to the garden.

We like!

And so did the judges of the AJ Small Projects Awards competition back in 2006 – they handed out first prize to architect Paul Archer for his efforts here.

House in Canonbury, £1,999,950, Foxtons (Tel: 020 7704 500)

House in Canonbury, £1,999,950, Foxtons (Tel: 020 7704 500)

House in Canonbury, £1,999,950, Foxtons (Tel: 020 7704 500)

House in Canonbury, £1,999,950, Foxtons (Tel: 020 7704 500)

Interesting piece in The Times yesterday about a property that, at 7′7″ wide, may well be the narrowest house in London.

It’s in London SW11 and is owned by singer-songwriter Polly Paulusma – she’s supported Bob Dylan and Coldplay – and comes with an elongated reception room that measures  7′7″ x 42′2″ (Foxtons, Tel: 020 7801 1111).

£450,000, Foxtons, 020 7801 1111

£450,000, Foxtons, 020 7801 1111

Almost as narrow – 2.4m (or 7′10″) – is the Gap House, which recently won the prestigious RIBA Manser Medal, an annual prize awarded for the best one-off house or major extension designed by an architect in the UK.

It was designed by Pitman Tozer Architects to slot between two white stucco villas on Monmouth Road in Bayswater.

However, unlike Polly Paulusma’s house, this one widens out behind the villas into more regular dimensions. Still pretty skinny, though!

This flat in Green Street, Mayfair was the Beatles’ first home in London (1963) – and it is, apparently, the only place where they ever lived  together as a band.

The Beatles, 1963

The story goes that manager Brian Epstein found the top-floor flat so they could escape from their screaming fans -   they’d just had a big hit with  She Loves You, Beatlemania was rife, and their eardrums were at serious risk.

There were only three bedrooms back then (two now) so not sure how that worked out (couldn’t Epstein count?!), but I’m guessing Ringo slept in the bath.

There are some nice pics here of the band in the flat celebrating John Lennon’s birthday in October 1963.

On the market for £1,375,000 via James Taylor Property (Tel: 0843 2822 514).

The Property: Grade II listed barn for conversion

The Place: Bardney, Lincolnshire

The Price: £190,000 (Guide)

The Pain: It’s listed, and in pretty bad shape, so don’t expect this to be easy.

The Gain: It has planning permission for two three-bed houses – but it may also be possible to convert it into one large home (subject to permission).

The agent reckons the two homes option will result in properties worth around £250,000 each, so if you keep costs under control there’s a good return here for a developer.

If you’re a lifestyle buyer, the single option is probably more attractive – that vast internal space and vaulted ceiling could look really spectacular.

It will, the agent thinks, be worth around £450,000-£500,000 as a single home.

Bardney is a popular village which lies to the east of Lincoln (approx 12 miles).  It has a post office, butcher, school, doctor’s surgery, pharmacy, medieval centre and a railway cycle path which is approx 9.5 miles to Lincoln.

The Agent: Savills (Tel: 0843 2821 659)

We like a bit of staircase porn here at Winging It, even if the staircase in question is attached to a property that’s, well, just a few zillion quid beyond our budget.

And when it comes to statement staircases, there aren’t many who can match Eva Jiricna’s sinuous steel and glass creations.

Click pic for full details

Jiricna, an architect who’s made interior spaces her speciality, somehow manages to combine aesthetics with engineering, industrial heft with imaginative fancy.

Her staircases have a formal sculptural quality but they also sweep and flow. They’re delicate, but also solidly functional.

It’s a fine balancing act, and one she’s made her signature theme. She’s even written a book on the subject:  Staircases.

Wonder if there’s a chapter in there about getting up a glass staircase in a pair of slippy socks after a couple of shots of vodka?

Check out the whole property (£8,750,000, Knight Frank, Tel: 0843 2818 129)

And while we’re on the subject of stairs, here are two fantastic designs, and one that will quite possibly give you nightmares.

Via Dornob

Via Stair Porn

Via Stair Porn

Quite special this one. Not only is it a) super and b) shiny, it’s c) officially the best house in the world and d) it exists in more dimensions than it ought to!

Confused? Then I’ll cover these points one by one.

a) and b) - well just look at it.

(Photographs by John Gollings - Gollings Photography)

I rest my case.

c) It was recently awarded first prize in the ‘individual house’ category at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona. Amongst the judges are some of the most influential archictects around, so they should know a thing or two about what makes an amazing house.

and d) The science bit: it was designed around the principal of the Klein bottle, which according to Wikipedia is “a certain non-orientable surface, i.e., a surface (a two-dimensional manifold) with no distinct “inner” and “outer” sides”.

Which I take to mean an object which is both inside out and outside in at the same time and makes your head hurt the more you look at it.

(image source)

But back to the house. Obviously it was not a slavish attempt to recreate the shape above, that’d be silly. Just telling the kids to go outside would condemn them to an endless loop and social services would soon be paying you a visit.

However the Australian architects McBride Charles Ryan were keen to stay, in their words, “topologically pure” to the form which meant that:

“The development was intense, the serious pursuit of joyful nonsense. The result we think is a unique shape and internal space, an unexpected entry sequence and series of new relationships between the traditional components of the home.”

They go on to admit, “The building required extensive use of 3d software for both its development and eventual execution”.

To which my reply is, “No sh*t Sherlock”.

More pictures and the full ‘how what and why’, over at World Buildings Directory.

It’s Bonfire Night – hooray!!!  A fine reason for a few midweek tipples in a pub with a view of some fireworks action.

And, in order to remember, remember the fifth of November, we’re locating this week’s Five to View in Westminster, home to the very building that Guy Fawkes was planning to blow up all those centuries ago.

It won’t surprise you that it’s not the most affordable of London locations*, given its proximity to the heart of the city, but it contains some incredibly swanky properties that are well worth a look, even for the humble electorate.

(*Unless, of course, you’re an MP, in which case it’s probably heavily discounted, courtesy of the tax payer.)

Here is our pick of prestigious SW1 sparklers, in ascending order of price:

(Click on pics for more images and property details)

1. 3 bedroom flat, Tufton Street
£945,000

2. 3 bedroom apartment, Marsham Street
£1,750,000

3. 4 bedroom townhouse, Old Queen Street
£2,950,000

4. 10 bedroom penthouse, Queen Annes Gate
£10,500,000

5. 6 bedroom house, Old Queen Street
£15,000,000

Russell Brand, comedian, serial shagger and professional Andrew Sachs botherer is selling his London pad.

And what would his place look like?

Well, there’s lots of black obviously … black and silver wallpaper, black chairs, a black sofa, a black bed, and a luxurious en-suite bathroom with yes, you’ve guessed it, black floors and walls.

There’s also, in case you’ve missed the point here, a stag’s skull on the wall … err, hang on, didn’t we have one of those somewhere else recently? In a black apartment?

Russell, may we introduce you to Cindy Gallop, international advertising consultant, lover of all things black and good time gal about town.

With halloween still in the air, we may well have a match made in Hell here. Listen carefully: I think I can hear Satan himself cackling.

The house in Hampstead is on the market with a guide price of £2,500,000, via Hamptons (Tel: 0843 2842 562).

Via: Brickwork: The London Property Blog

You wouldn’t expect the architect who designed Wembley stadium and Hong Kong airport – the chief executive at Foster + Partners, no less – to be happy with a simple side extension.

And you’d be right.

But the extra living space that Mouzhan Majidi has added to his otherwise unremarkable new-build home in Surbiton is home extension on architectural steroids.

It’s a soaring triple height steel and glass extravaganza that’s doubled the size of the original house and transformed it into a dazzling grand design with vast open plan living spaces, a floating staircase and the best fixtures, fittings and furniture that money (an awful lot of money) can buy.

It’s yours to buy for £1.75m from Dexters (Tel: 0843 2819 308).

Or if you prefer, you can rent it from Foxtons (Tel: 020 8879 2121) for £1847 per week.