From the Evening Standard:
Property show presenter Kirstie Allsopp has hit out at her neighbours for their “incredibly annoying” basement conversions.
The Location, Location, Location star said as well as causing disruption, the fashion for digging down to extend properties was also causing the housing market to stagnate. The 40-year-old presenter lives on a street in Holland Park where a number of neighbours, including Lord and Lady Sainsbury of Turville, have converted their basements.(1)
Nearly 40 applications for such work in the road have been submitted to the council in the past ten years, with a third submitted in the past two years.
Miss Allsopp said: “Everyone is digging down right now to make extra space where they are. It’s happening in my street and it is incredibly annoying as there is so much noise and disruption.(2) At the top end, where the (stamp duty) rate is now at seven per cent, it leaves people with little option but to dig if they want more space. As well as the noise and disruption, it is making the market stagnant.” (3)
1) Bear this in mind the next time she disses the idea of taxing the rental value of land instead of earned income.
2) OK, her TV shows were mainly about encouraging people to buy houses rather than tart them up, but she'd usually waffle on about "potential to add value" and chat gaily about "having all this knocked through and made into one big, er..." (TM Monty Python).
3) Not sure how she works this out, but let's assume she's correct, she clearly has a vested interest in people wanting to move home, see (2). As it happens, if we shifted to taxing the rental value of land, a lot more people would be wanting to move home for the next few years, so it would be boom time for decent estate agents, but vested interest (3) overrides vested interest (2) it would seem.
Monday, 18 June 2012
Ha ha! Serves her right! You reap what you sow etc.
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3 comments:
Where's Fred West when you need him?
I met her in Covent Garden.
She was with a film crew, cup of coffee in hand.
I asked her where Phil was. She replied,
"We left him in Birmingham. He just wouldn't stop farting in the van."
I wagged my finger at her and said, "You're really baaaad."
Her type of presenter has been advocating doing exactly that for the past two or three years. They say it is the best improvement one can make to a property to enhance its value. Even the BBC has jumped on the bandwagon with an article last year pointing out that loft conversions lose money, but basement ones cannot fail to make a profit on the work done.
There are plenty of her industry's colleagues she should be blaming. :)
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