When I first arrived in London, seven years ago, I used to enjoy stopping outside estate agents’ offices and browsing the listings in the window. Though they were almost always ludicrously out of reach, there was idle pleasure to be had in seeing what you could get for £5m v £10m, and debating with yourself the merits of a home spa v home cinema.
These days, however, I find it hard to indulge in fantasy real-estate without being reminded of London’s housing crisis, and where it has landed me and many others my age: shut out of home ownership. Now a flashy new reality TV series from Netflix is seeking to take us the other side of the glass with a view into on London’s “super-prime” property market.
