Market bites back — even celebrities
London has for many years had a ripple effect on house prices throughout the rest of the country; that ripple usually takes around six months to reach the provinces.
So home owners took little comfort in the statistics that showed the average prices of a London house fell £13,000 to £261,000 in the year to July 2005. Hammersmith and Fulham suffered the biggest decreases as homes lost about 8% of their value. And the surprising downturn hurt everybody — including the rich and famous.
In 2001 TV presenter Natasha Kaplinsky bought a house in Hammersmith for £690,000. After she broke up with her boyfriend they were forced to put the property on the market for £775,900. They subsequently revealed that an offer of £680,000 — a substantial reduction on the asking price, and a full £10,000 less than the purchase price — fell through.
It reflected the market at the time and proved that property is not always 'as safe as houses'. If the deal had gone through it would not only have cost them the £10,000, but also the 1.5% agent's fees and stamp duty of £27,600 — losses closer to £50,000.
Kaplinsky was what is known in the trade as a 'forced seller' — someone at the mercy of the buyers' market with lots of houses for sale but not many ready buyers.
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