‘Ten Penthouses for the Price of One’? – Let’s Find Out
To many commentators, it seemed an odd statement to make for someone on a reported £60,000-a-week salary.
But when footballer and new Spurs signing Jonathan Woodgate waded into the London property price debate, some of us thought he had a point.
“I think you could buy 10 penthouses up north for the price of something down here.” the defender was quoted as saying in the Telegraph last month. The 28-year-old had just moved from Middlesbrough to Spurs and had found himself house-hunting in London.
“You just want the right place for you and you want to get it at the right price,” he reportedly added. But is he right? His choice of accommodation is interesting - according to the very same newspaper penthouses are on the up after a period in which they were considered a ‘white elephant’ in the property world.
So what’s on offer for the off-plan penthouse investor, is it worth it, and do north and south trends match Woodgate’s comments?
If were assuming we are on a top footballer’s salary, we may as well aim high while browsing the capital in this little experiment.
Top-Level Living
You don’t get much higher than Pan Peninsula, a two-tower luxury apartment development close to Canary Wharf, with off-plan prices starting around the £200,000-plus mark for a one-bed studio apartment.
With the whole project due to be complete by 2009, listings put penthouses in the development at around the £2.5m mark, steep by anyone’s standards, but Pan Peninsula is no ordinary up-market apartment development.
Pan Peninsula’s facilities include a private cinema, health club and spa, a 50th floor cocktail bar, 24-hour concierge service, restaurant and the ‘sky lobby’ lounge area with refreshments.
The penthouses are described on the development’s website as being personalised and custom-designed to each client’s requirements, so suddenly it’s not too hard to see where that £2.5m goes.
Central Penthouses for around £600,000
Off course, Pan Peninsula is at the top of the scale when it comes to off-plan high-rise opportunity, and a little further into the city you can scoop a penthouse for well below a million without too much difficulty.
For example, £620,000 will net you a top penthouse in Salamanca Tower, Albert Embankment, and if you want to aim between the two prices £1,325,000 will get you a superb off-plan spread in the Lanson Building, Chelsea Bridge Wharf, due for completion by the end of this year.
So, giving ourselves the generous £2.5m asking price of a top London penthouse, let’s head up north and see if we can get 10 similar properties for this total price.
Starting in the north-east, where Woodgate has just moved from, users of housepricecrash.co.uk say Newcastle’s local paper reports the prestigious residential and commercial West One Quayside development, due for completion later this year, has already sold two penthouses off-plan to the tune of £400,000 each. No ten for one there then.
Nearly 20 for that £2.5m
Moving further down the road to Leeds, converted mill houses are big business and in good supply, hence the price of £136,950 for penthouse apartments in Perseverance Mill in Elland, not far from the city. This is naturally not on the same level on the high-living scale to Pan Peninsula, but you get a good spread nonetheless with an open plan kitchen, allocated parking, exposed stonework and far-reaching views. £2.5m will get you 19 of these here!
On across the Pennies to Manchester and the Manyoo Development (PDF link) in Salford Quays will be finished in 2011 and features that all-important concierge service plus luxury kitchens and bathrooms, all a three-minute walk from the planned Media City.
Top-floor two-bed penthouses are selling at a rate of knots, but will set you back £263,750 each. Again, this is no Pan Peninsula, but the development will be as more or less as close as Manchester can offer to it once complete, and 10 penthouses in it will cost you £2,637,500 - just over our £2.5m limit.
Off course, this has been a very rough experiment, with the £2.5m penthouses in Pan Peninsula somewhat without comparison elsewhere in the UK. But maybe Jonathan Woodgate was not so far off the mark after all, and the Perseverance Mill example shows just how far that sort of money can potentially go outside of the capital!
