Living above a shop has traditionally been a cheap way to buy a property. But a four-bedroom flat above a tailor’s in Mount Street, Mayfair, has sold for £13 million — believed to be a record for such a property.
Competition in the best central London streets is so intense that the price gap of 20 per cent between “normal” homes and those over shops has closed.
The flat above suit company Hayward was sold by Peter Wetherell, director of estate agents Wetherell, to an overseas buyer. It had been on the market for only seven days.
The price per square foot record was also broken in Mayfair last month, when a three-bedroom flat above Audley Pharmacy in South Audley Street sold for £10 million, or £2,919 per square foot, to a European buyer. Mr Wetherell said: “In Mayfair particularly, buyers are blind to the retail element and only see the glamour of the area.”
Agents say that flats above designer shops in areas such as Marylebone High Street and Mount Street, as well as in fashionable market areas such as Columbia Road or Broadway Market, are now equal to, if not more expensive than, regular property.
However, outside prime areas the price gap between flats over shops and regular properties is widening.
