Property
Why no one ever moves back to London
In last week’s Spectator, Martin Vander Weyer replied to a couple with a baby who had sought his advice on…
Don’t hate housebuilders who profited from Help to Buy. It wasn’t their fault
Was Help to Buy a timely market intervention with a valid social purpose or a political gimmick that unintentionally showered…
Who hires the most stretch limos?
Global warnings How much time do we have to save the world from catastrophic climate change? 5 years (according to…
Markets are clever precisely because people are silly
A month ago I wanted to travel to Bath for a 60th birthday party. From Kent, this either involves a…
How can I prevent my husband from burning all my post?
If you don’t yet watch Gogglebox on Channel 4, start doing so now. Far from making you despise our couch-potato…
West Heslerton and other villages with one careful owner
Squire power The village of West Heslerton in Yorkshire was put up for sale at £20 million after its owner,…
The legend of the honest estate agent
Selling with honesty An Essex estate agent sold a flat in Westcliff-on-Sea for £22,500 over the £125,000 asking price after…
Buy-to-let investing just became a very, very bad idea
If you pick up a buy-to-let property now, you’ll be fighting the full might of the Chancellor and the Bank of England
George Osborne has made his own 'dangerous cocktail' of economic risk
When David Cameron said this week that he is worried his children would not be able to afford to buy…
The plot to save Goldsmith’s Close Allotments
Since turning 50 I have become a gardening enthusiast. It started with tomatoes, then spread to raspberries and last year…
Redecorate the restaurant, but you can’t redecorate the clientele
Forty-five Jermyn St lives in the left-hand buttock of Fortnum & Mason (F&M), a shop whose acronym is slightly too…
How New York vulgarians live
I have finally moved into my new flat, a jewel of a place in a pre-first world war Park Avenue…
Bring back the bungalow!
We’re not building the right houses for our ageing population
The fight to save the Gladstone Arms is a battle for the soul of London
The fight to save the Gladstone Arms is the fight to save London
This is what every menu should look like
The appallingly bad photograph below was taken on my mobile phone about 15 years ago. It shows the menu layout…
House-hunting in Cobham has driven me to the verge of insanity
This much I know, I never want to live in an ‘executive home’, and neither do I want to live…
My eco-home nightmare
Buying an eco-home? Expect stifling springs and summers
Which behaved worse: callous Thomas Cook or cynical Barclays?
Which is worse, morally and reputationally — to be Thomas Cook, shamed by its refusal to show proper human concern,…
Posh, educated and energetic: meet the servants of the super-rich
There is a huge industry catering to London’s foreign plutocracy
Why the internet hasn’t killed estate agents (and what might)
I don’t like to make business predictions, but — barring some apocalypse — I suspect there will be plenty of…
I don’t want to be a mansion tax migrant
The super-rich can shrug off Labour’s big tax idea. People like me will be forced out
In praise of messy old kitchens
Against sterile modern kitchens
The perils of planespotting
A dangerous hobby Three men from Greater Manchester were arrested and held in the UAE after being seen writing down…
The myth of the housing crisis
The coalition is letting developers concrete over the countryside, but that won’t help young people buy houses
Want more diversity? Hire groups, not individuals
If I were to give you a budget to choose your perfect house, you would quickly have a clear idea…
