A Hampstead home that has been in the same family since it was built in the late 19th century is to be sold at auction with a guide price three times below the value of its neighbours.
Sited on Well Road, which connects directly to the west side of Hampstead Heath, the Victorian townhouse will go under the hammer on April 27 with a potential price tag of £850,000 to £1,000,000.
But any buyer may need to spend the same again to get the property up to spec.
Currently divided into two flats, each with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a bathroom, the four-storey house is “in need of complete refurbishment”, says SDL Property Auctions.
Though there is little to suggest it from the street, images shared ahead of the auction lay bare the dilapidated state of the interior.
Optimistic bidders will clock the sash windows and solid wood flooring, but will also have to contend with peeling plaster, threadbare carpets and mystery stains.
Some rooms are in significantly better nick than others, with a grease-spattered kitchen on the ground floor in most desperate need of a cash injection.
There is also the question of a current tenant in this lower flat – though the elderly gentleman, who rents it out for £700 per calendar month, is not believed to be living at the house.
Still, the stock brick façade is well maintained and the appealing walled garden could be transformed in a weekend.
In the right hands, it could represent brilliant value; the neighbouring property was sold to its current owners for £2.6 million in 2014 and a similar terrace on the street changed hands for £2.95 million in 2019.
Indeed, “once renovated, the property could fetch somewhere around £3 million,” says Andrew Parker, Auctioneer and Managing Director at SDL Property Auctions, who anticipates it will be returned to a single residence.
“I’m expecting some competitive bidding. We have already received significant interest in this property with dozens of enquiries and viewings booked within days of us being instructed to sell, which is no surprise.”
The new owner will be the first outside the family, as the sellers are direct descendants of William Selley who built the house in the late 19th century.
Selley moved from Devon in to London in the 1860s and is also the builder behind nearby homes in Christchurch Hill, Well Walk and Willow Road, best known for the modernist former home of architect ErnÅ Goldfinger.
2 Well Road has passed through the generations for around 150 years, but two cousins who have recently inherited the house have decided it’s finally time to sell up.
It will be sold as seen, with a five per cent deposit and 3.6 per cent buyer’s fee to pay.
If Taylor Swift is prepared for a bidding war, perhaps she could be its first ever buyer. The Karma hitmaker is said to be interested in buying ‘a period house with a garden’ in this leafy north London neighbourhood, though is also rumoured to be keen on St John’s Wood.
The precendent is there – former Well Road residents include fellow singers Sam Smith and Boy George, who put his sprawling Gothic mansion on the market last autumn after almost 40 years.
