First off to South Tottenham in north London. I’m showing you this because a) it’s a pretty house and, at £550,000 for three bedrooms is what passes for affordable in London these days but also b) it’s on with Brickworks, a fledgling new estate agency that has a good heart.
First up fees: 1 per cent for everyone. Second: no individual sales commissions so you don’t feel you’re being pushed into something so that flash young git gets to pay for a second summer holiday on the back of your house purchase. There’s no cold calling and they give 2.5 per cent of their profits to a homeless charity. That might be marketing but I like it. Also no cold calling and we can all say hurray to that.
As their site says: “We promise we won’t put you on a mailing list without asking, call you first thing Sunday morning or text you more often than your partner does”.
So this is one of their houses (they’re new there aren’t that many) and I also like the great photography as well as an interview with the owner, details on schools and transport and a little write up of the area by the Brickworks team. All stuff that you need but often have to ask for.
I mean, yes some of the shots are a little arty – oranges on a worktop for example and won’t actually convince you to buy the house, but it adds to the atmosphere and makes it a nice place to linger, which is presumably the point.
Next up, to another of our favourite agents because they too take care with their photography and make browsing a pleasure. The Modern House are selling this modern six bedroom house for £5,500,000.
It’s just won a RIBA award and, as you wander round, you can see why. The ground floor is basically open plan but with a clever room divider, although it’s not divided enough for telly in one half and music in the other but it looks good.
And the design really does blur the divisions between inside and outside as you can see below. Which also makes it really light.
Upstairs there are four bedrooms, with a master suite taking up the second (and the sixth on the lower ground). I’m not normally a fan of the bath in the bedroom look but this is quite a nice way to do it, although I might lose the curtain. I mean either you’re being all open plan and sharing or you’re not and if you’re not then you need a wall not a curtain. And if you are, well you don’t need it.
Finally, we’re off to
