According to Knight Frank the London market for £2M plus property has been experiencing disproportionate demand compared to the rest of the UK.  They cite international buyers as mainly responsible for 68% of sales “north’ (Posh agent speak!) of £5M in the last 18 months to June 2010. This may be buyers from countries whose currencies are pegged to the US dollar or Far East buyers taking advantage of a weak pound. Its not entirely clear where they get their statistics from. I doubt that even Knight Frank are responsible or have intimate knowledge of the nationality of every buyer in their stats. However thay may be safe in extrapolating as they are clearly one of the main London players.

Actually the pressure is felt much further down the price scale than that with sealed bidding wars over much cheaper flats in NW3 but I believe that sector is more organically driven with local London money and buyers with a greater desire to occupy and a lesser need to trade.

1,000 volunteers built the house for a BBC programme fronted by Top Gear TV presenter James May and inspite of the selling features which included a working toilet, running taps and a very uncomfortable bed this attractive multicoloured house has been demolished as Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking, where the house was situated, need the land to harvest grapes.

The buyer would have had to spend at least £50,000 moving the house to another site and no one was wise or foolish enough to see the opportunity. Legoland, the obvious contender, withdrew from ‘an agreement’ to move the house there probably due to the high cost of moving it.

There are few deals I miss but 3.3 million lego bricks for my 5 year old have passed me by!