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Reading a Letting Agent describing her embarrassment at slamming a door on the fingers of a prospective tenant, and then walking into the flat to see on the walls framed full frontal nude pictures of the current tenants, reminded me of my own flat hunting funny and embarrassing moment. We had arrived at the flat promptly at 10:00 on a Saturday where we were met by the agent. Ringing the bell the agent was a little flummoxed when the tenant opened the door in dressing gown, clearly having just rolled out of bed. She assured us it was fine to view as arranged and asked the agent to conduct the viewing for her, but said it was fine to come in the bedroom where she was going back to bed. The agent took us round the flat, which was actually very nice, but a little spoilt by wedding photos absolutely everywhere – framed on the walls, free standing on the coffee table, mousemats, coasters, mugs, whatever it was there she was with her new bridegroom.
Finally as our last port of call in the viewing we knocked on the bedroom door and walked in. As expected she was back in bed and dozing. The big surprise was – the man in bed with her wasn’t the man in all the wedding photos!
So what has been your funniest viewing?
Tags: Add new tag, Fun, Hunting, Property, Rent
Posted in General, Renting on February 4th, 2010 | No Comments »
Krystyna of Bradley Construction wonders where January has disappeared, and whilst she says that she doesn’t remember in her lifetime having snow so many times in one winter, I myself can remember Winchester St. during the winter of 1963 – much worse! Because of the extreme weather conditions decoration of the front of the buildings decorating has been delayed for the foreseeable future.
At last house 75 will be complete and the stair carpets will be laid at the end of the first week of February. This is a lengthy process as the actual carpet needs to be cut to the accurate length then sent off to be bound before it can be laid. I hope everyone in house 75 is pleased with the finished effect of the hallway. The new intercom system was ordered and should arrive and be fitted at the same time.
The new open plan reception & office is taking shape, and will contain equipment and tanks associated with the solar panel heating system. This equipment will be put in place and cupboards built to enclose it all. We hope to have this open area ready by the middle of the month. Once it is completed we will explore how it may be best used. One possibility might be (subject to fire regulations) a common Internet terminal available for everyone’s use, and possibly a Network printer. The biggest problems with common services like that is that we are not equipped to provide technical support.
Krystyna has been asked to undertake repairs to 75 Flat 1 and the first floor of 79 – the tenants underneath these flats have been suffering from major leaks from showers, which have defied all repair attempts over several years, and so finally we are undertaking two major projects, including structural work to replacing structural timberwork which has rotted as a result of the continual leakages.
Tags: Add new tag, Energy, Internet, Pimlico Flats, Snow, Technical support
Posted in Pimlico Flats on February 1st, 2010 | No Comments »
Student numbers are growing at 15 times the rate of new supply in London
This has prompted fund manager Inspired Assets to sponsor a conference on Student Accommodation in order to help landlords, investors, accountants, lawyers, developers or fund managers:
- Discover the opportunities in student and young professional accommodation
- Find out the accommodation needs of the next generation: types of accommodation, locations, specification…
- Keep up with the significant trends affecting the sector
- Learn how to tailor your approach to satisfy demand
- Get up to speed with creative, modern solutions that combine property, investment, social media and networking
- Make some superb contacts
The event offers guest speaker Robert Weaver, Head of Residential at Invista Real Estate Management, the largest UK listed real estate fund management group. The Group manages both commercial and residential property across the UK, Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific, and has a total of £5.3bn assets under management.
The Event is:
Thursday, February 11, 2010 from 6:30 PM – 10:30 PM (GMT)
The May Fair Hotel
Stratton Street
W1J 8LT London
United Kingdom
If you book it at http://inspired.eventbrite.com/ and use the discount code 4WALLS you can get one ticket half price.
Tags: Add new tag, Investing, Investment, Investment management, Property, Real estate
Posted in Property on January 30th, 2010 | No Comments »
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Tomorrow, Saturday 30th January, Walk London provide a free guided walk passing two bridges, two palaces and two secret services, the walk will reveal many other fascinating facts. Discover Thomas Cubitt’s development of Pimlico; MI6 and Doultons Ceramics on the Albert Embankment; the Tate Gallery and what was Milbank Prison; the Flood of 1928; MI5; three Lambeth Bridges; the Horseferry and Lambeth Palace; St Thomas’s Hospital; the Palace of Westminster, the ‘Great Stink’ and Westminster Bridge – finishing outside Portcullis House with the view to St Paul’s.
Meet at 10:30 a.m. at Pimlico Tube Station. Note that there are 2 entrances either side of Lupus Street and the walk organisers haven’t specified at which one they are meeting. The walk finish is at Westminster Tube, it is 2.5 miles, and will take approx 2 1/2 hours
Tags: Add new tag, Entertainment, Lambeth Palace, London, Pimlico, Secret Intelligence Service, Thomas Cubitt, Westminster, Westminster Bridge
Posted in London on January 29th, 2010 | No Comments »
I don’t know if this is another Blog that I am going to regret writing, I seem to be accident prone these days, maybe I should employ someone else to write my headlines! I have a number of automatic searches done for me automatically by minions such as Google, and today I was rather surprised to see “Pimlico Escorts” pop up. Because of the large number of Judges and MPs who have their London Pied a Terre in Pimlico, it is often said that Pimlico is the best place to keep your mistress, nevertheless our quiet residential area isn’t exactly as renown as our neighbour Soho in that department. Being a curious type I couldn’t resist following the link to see what I have been missing on our doorstep ………
A Pimlico Escort
……. well perhaps predictably the website is actually a London one, which hopes to catch local markets with specialist pages, but I felt that they astutely summarised Pimlico’s features and advantages, albeit from a limited perspective.
If London was a dartboard, and your dart found itself embedded in Pimlico, you’d not be far off bullseye. It is difficult to get much more central than Pimlico, and therefore the place has that aura of excitement exclusive to more central places.
Quite residential, many of the houses feature historic and beautiful architecture, adding to the pleasant atmosphere of the area. Although more residential than other central areas, Pimlico is not without its own entertainment. However, residents of Pimlico might take advantage of the close proximity of other areas of Central London when seeking bars or clubs, and with ample methods of transport, who can blame them?
So thank you Pimlico Escorts for explaining so succinctly why Pimlico is the best place in London to live, whatever you are going to do. Besides I would have to answer to Mrs. Pimlico Flats if I were to recommend anywhere else.
Dare I ask where you recommend?
Tags: Add new tag, Central London, London, Member of Parliament, Pimlico, Residential area
Posted in London on January 25th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Blogging frequently involves getting inspiration and sometimes content from elsewhere, and the conventions of attribution should be followed. I have in my past on one occasion not done this, and I am ashamed of myself and the article is no longer on the website. If you are reading something on this website that you feel is valuable and bears repeating please feel free to do so. Please include an attribution with anything that you copy – and to help you do this I have installed Tynt which will do the attribution for you. Also please feel free to use any of our photos and videos with attribution, the hotlinking block was put on because I got annoyed by some people just using my photographs without saying “Thank You”, and to prevent scamming websites use my content to rob tenants by pretending to be a landlord. Guest Bloggers here retain copyright for their work, and if it isn’t too much trouble please could you acknowledge the Guest as well as this site.
I was prompted to write this blog after reading Leo’s Zenhabits, one of the top 100 blogs on the internet. I’ve copied my summary of his words, and you can link to the full text by clicking Vitruvian Man. I would recommend that you read his blog as I find superb tips for modern living there.
Zen & Vitruvian Man
“I’m granting full permission to use any of my content on Zen Habits or in my ebook, Zen To Done, in any way you like. From now on, there is no need to email me for permission. Use it however you want! Email it, share it, reprint it with or without credit. Change it around, put in a bunch of swear words and attribute them to me. It’s OK. 
While you are under no obligation to do so, I would appreciate it if you give me credit for any work of mine that you use, and ideally, link back to the original. If you feel like spreading a copy of my ebook, I’d appreciate payment. I’d prefer people buy my ebook, but if they want to share with friends, they have every right to do so. I’m not a big fan of copyright laws anyway, especially as they’re being applied these days by corporations, used to crack down on the little guys so they can continue their large profits.
Copyrights are often touted as protecting the artist, but in most cases the artist gets very little while the corporations make most of the money. I’m trying this experiment to see whether releasing copyright really hurts the creator of the content.
I think, in most cases, the protectionism that is touted by “anti-piracy” campaigns and lawsuits and lobbying actually hurts the artist. Limiting distribution to protect profits isn’t a good thing.
The lack of copyright, and blatant copying by other artists and even businesses, never hurt Leonardo da Vinci when it comes to images such as the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, or the Vitruvian Man. It’s never hurt Shakespeare. I doubt that it’s ever really hurt any artist (although I might just be ignorant here).”
Tags: Add new tag, Blog, Internet, Leonardo da Vinci, Pimlico Flats
Posted in General on January 24th, 2010 | No Comments »
Rippon Cheese
Rippon Cheese Stores in Pimlico is a wholesale and retail specialist cheese supplier. There are over 500 cheeses available and it’s a wonderful place to visit for a cheese lover.
The company has been around for over 20 years, and the “Big Cheese” (his words) is Philip Rippon, who is in the store most days. The shop has been refurbished and reopened in October 2009 as, essentially, a walk-in cold room. There are literally hundreds of cheeses on the shelves – at least 250 at all times – ordered alphabetically. Each cheese has a label stating its name, country of origin, whether pasteurised or unpasteurised, sheep/goat/cow, if vegetarian and price per kilo. (Blue cheeses are kept on their own shelving unit or, it was explained to me, the other cheese nearby would start to turn blue!)
Happy Staff
Within minutes of me staring at the shelves looking overwhelmed, a member of staff was over asking if they could help. They are happy to give recommendations and tastings are acceptable. I was surprised how not smelly it was in there, although there is a cheesy whiff it’s not so bad you don’t want to go in. Maybe because I’m a cheese lover, I actually found it quite appealing. I had a great chat with Jon, who joined the team in late 2009 but has a West End retail background. He informed me that the old Chief Executive of Tesco had called Rippon Cheeses the “best cheese shop in London”, and as he had a few shops himself at the time this was high praise indeed.
About 80% of their sales are wholesale and they supply some of the big name restaurants in town, including the Gordon Ramsey restaurants. This is a bonus for us going in to buy from the shop as the cheese is never on the shelves for long. I did ask about how they keep it all fresh and the regulated temperature in the store of around 9 degrees C means that the cheese can stay fresh for ages. You can buy whole truckles (that’s the whole round cheese as it’s made), or any size piece can be cut. The 7 year matured Parmesan is most unusual and incredibly large and heavy but the staff are all kept fit moving and cutting the cheeses.
Maturing Rooms
I had a tour of downstairs too and this is where they have the Maturing Rooms. The temperature is different and this means they can buy cheese ahead of selling and use the space to prepare the cheese.
Rippon have another store a few doors away which is their deli. I headed there afterwards to buy crackers and chutney. (Crackers are available at the cheese store but you need to ask for them as they have to be stored out of the cold room so they don’t get damp.) There are some incredible smells, colours, and tastes and definitely something for everyone. I was intrigued by the French Morbier which has a thin layer of ash in the middle between the morning and afternoon milk but in the end I went for a Montgomery Cheddar that had some blue running through it. As it didn’t look the way a customer may expect Cheddar to be, the store had decided to discount these pieces and I benefited by gaining a large piece for around £3.
Ripon Cheese Stores are hoping to have a retail website by spring 2010 and are looking forward to mail order sales as they’ve been asked to offer this service by many customers (International sales will be available where customs rules allow). Already they offer local delivery and Nick tells me he likes to “buy posh cheeses from there as Xmas presents”.
Cheese Shelves
Address:
26 Upper Tachbrook Street
London
SW1V 1SW
Opening Hours:
Monday to Saturday: 8am – 5.30pm
Tel: 020 7931 0628
Web: www.ripponcheese.com
Laura Porter
Laura Porter from About.com London Travel visited Rippon Cheese Stores for us.
Tags: Add new tag, Cheese, London, Retail, Shopping
Posted in London on January 22nd, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Yesterday the various newspapers published articles about UK Housing over the last 50 years. Although there are minor differences based on each publications political bias and readership, essentially most reports were pretty similar. Personally I like to use the power of the internet to track down the original source of articles, and read that myself. If you would like to do this yourself with this report it can be downloaded from Lloyds Bank and here are my own observations, which I hope you find different to the average journalistic view.
House Prices to Fall
Property is a great investment, but it’s important to buy the right property, it’s not when but where that counts.
Whilst in Real Terms property is appreciating at a very impressive 2.7% p.a. (a widely reported statistic) when in 1979 – 1989 prices shot ahead of this long term average (they rose 61%) it was followed by a decade when prices fell 22%. This pattern has been repeated with prices rising 62% during 1999 – 2009 and so if history repeats itself we might well expect prices during 2009 – 2019 to fall at least 20%.
As always location is more important than timing. As an example – if you got your timing as bad as you could get it and bought in 1989 instead of 1999 then by 2009 your gain would be only 40% instead of 62%. However regional differences in the price changes are much more dramatic – over 100% between London (229%) and Scotland (120%) over the period 1969 – 2009.
Social Trends
People are now living on their own.
Since 1971 Single Parents have risen 400% !!!! Single people are “only” up 75%.
In 1971 these two categories formed 21% of households – less than a third of the 70% for married couples, today they are equal in number to married couples (42%)
Tags: Add new tag, London, Politics, Property, Scotland
Posted in Property on January 21st, 2010 | 1 Comment »
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Parking in Central London (particularly (Pimlico and Westminster) is much in demand and agent Park Let has 10,000 recession-savvy landlords on its books who earn an average monthly rental income of £120 from their unused parking spaces. A homeowner in Pimlico nets £597 per month for their space, after paying park Let’s commission.
Park Let started renting parking spaces in 2004 and has a waiting list of over 7,000 people looking for parking spaces to rent, and just like a flat letting agent it’s free to advertise your space, and they charge 15% commission of the monthly rental fee. They handle all enquires from prospective tenants, arrange viewings and negotiate terms, produce a professionally drafted contract (the most popular version being on a rolling monthly basis where you can choose to let your space 24 hrs a day, either 5 days (Monday to Friday) or 7 days a week). The tenant is issued with a unique, clearly visible parking permit, for recognition and control.
Pimlico Flats only have on street parking, but if you have a parking space it looks as if you can rent it out for more than we rent some of our flats!
Tags: Add new tag, Central London, Landlord, Parking, Property, Renting
Posted in Property on January 20th, 2010 | No Comments »
Pimlico Flats on Facebook
Last year I wrote about the changing face of London Flat Rental Advertising. In a series of 3 articles I traced the history of how to find a London Flat to rent informing both tenants and landlords where they should be looking for flat rental.
In particular I predicted the death of Gumtree, dragged down by the predominance of scamming adverts. Originally Gumtree’s success was founded on a combination of free advertisements, and community, basing itself around cities and providing newcomers with a source of information on everything that they might be looking for. Gumtree still continues, with the new Beta version being commented on, and it’s charges ever increasing to cover the costs of the site revamp. It continues to succeed because it’s only major competitor – Craig’s List, – is just as plagued with scammers, and considerably harder to navigate, but now there is an alternative that might just sink Gumtree for all it’s new investment. Facebook Marketplace.
OK – I’ll be honest, not new – just new to me. Facebook Marketplace was set up in May 2007, and in March 2009 ownership transferred to Oodle, a specialist Internet Classifieds website. It runs integrated with Facebook, and listings on Facebook Marketplace are syndicated onto Oodle’s website as well. The reason that I have chosen to highlight Facebook’s Classifieds as the website that will sink Gumtree is …… trust.
The biggest problem with trading on the internet is that of trust, and maybe Facebook have cracked the problem. A Facebook/Oodle Classified Ad comes vouched for by the Facebook ID that listed it, so the advertiser is no longer as anonymous as a Gumtree Ad. with a Hotmail eMail contact.
That strikes me as a powerful USP when you are looking to rent a London Flat.
Tags: Add new tag, Advertising, Craigslist, Flats, Gumtree, London, Rent, Rental
Posted in Renting on January 20th, 2010 | 4 Comments »
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