Principality Building Society has carried out a survey among 2500 Britons, to reveal who would be their most and least desirable neighbours.

The results are not surprising but would you really decide not to rent that perfect apartment just because it is next to Ms. Campbell’s? I highly doubt it!

The top 10 best celebrity neighbours were:

1 Peter Kay
2 Angelina Jolie
3 Fern Britton
4 Davina McCall
5 Brad Pitt
6 Jennifer Aniston
7 Gordon Ramsay
8 Kylie Minogue
9 Philip Schofield
10 David Beckham

The top 10 worst most intriguing celebrity neighbours were:

1 Amy Winehouse
2 Pete Doherty
3 Naomi Campbell
4 Heather Mills
5 Kerry Katona
6 Ozzy Osbourne
7 David Gest
8 Paris Hilton
9 Gordon Brown
10 Paul Burrell

Via: inthenews.co.uk
Vogue cover: Zimbio.com

Henry Pryor, the man behind agents’ registry ROEA and the owner of The London Magazine, has set up a “Estate Agency Buying Group” in order to negotiate better terms of property portals’ Primelocation.com and Rightmove.co.uk memebrship fees, which smaller firms find hard to handle in today’s business climate.

At the same time 13 000 agents are anxiously waiting for their own new website PropertyLive.co.uk to open.

Many thanks to Anthony for the link to ParkatmyHouse.com - the site that also specialises in the car parking space rental market.

It has over 17 000 registered users all over UK, and I just got 604 results for London alone!

We like the very detailed space descriptions, which include the availability calendar, and the section that has some useful information about the owner.

Registering and contacting the space owners is for free.

Oh, and iPhone owners should bookmark http://www.parkatmyhouse.com/iphone/

Edit: The site actually has more than 604 results for London - inserting “london” as location shows spaces within 10 miles of the centre. So be more specific for better results!

Everybody is talking about YourParkingSpace, the database for car parking spaces/garages for rent.

You can search for the space:
- by town - London returned 895 results today!
- by postcode - W1H gave 6 results
- by location - Mayfair gave 1 result

You will have to register to get the owner’s contacts but the service is completely FREE!

From Wednesday 1st of October tenants can demand an Energy Performance Certificate EPC from the landlord before signing the rental agreement.

The existing tenants cannot demand this from their landlord - it’s mandatory only for the tenancies that start from 1st of October 2008.

So what does this mean to tenants? The EPC will show how the property rates in the scale of A to G (A most efficient). You can compare the rentals that you are considering, and use the information to help you choose a more energy efficient home to rent. G-rated can indicate to bigger monthly energy bills.

The certificate will also contain recommendations to improve the property but the landlords do not have to carry out these improvements.

EPCs cost from £50 to £150 (depends on the company carrying out the energy assessment). Failure to comply with the legislation could result in a £200 fine.

Read more on the subject:
Landlordzone Forum: Home Condition Reports, HIPs & EPCs
Landlords: Watch Out For This £200 Fine!
New law for landlords

Did you know that the name Mayfair came from an annual May Fair held at boggy field near the Tyburn brook in what is now Shepherd Market?

To celebrate 25 years on the market, Whetherell estate agents put together a really good online brochure on Mayfair, the area that they seem to know just as well as their own 5 fingers. Click HERE to find out more about the area’s history, the future speculations, and Wetherell’s significant deals.

PS! Click HERE to see what their rental office at 104 Mount Street, Maywair W1 has to offer today.

Many London students are rejecting budget halls of residence and are opting for rented accommodation, says BBC.

Watch the video of a couple of students renting a studio flat in the private new Canto Court residence on Old Street. The rent is £355per week (including bills) i.e. £1538 per month. The building has a concierge, there’s internet in the flat, plus a flat TV with the license paid for.

See the Canto Court homepage

(Screen capture: bbc.co.uk)

So, the London Crime Map has been up for a while now.

(c) Manhattan Loft Company

Our very first post in this blog was about the church reconstructions - we were wondering whether it would be a bit odd to live in one of those …

Well, we still haven’t tried but feel a lot more comfortable about the idea. Especially when the space looks like this:

(c) Winkworth

The old Westbourne Grove Church was converted into a 14-apartment residential building Notting Hill Lofts in 2003 by Manhattan Loft Corporation.

Should you be interested in sweeping your friends off their feet or just want to experience something different - Winkworth is renting out a 2-bedroom £2200pw apartment in this building.

Jump to the ad at Winkworth

Flatmateclick.co.uk is the UK’s premiere online roommate and housing selection site.  Whether you’re looking for a flat or a flatshare or whether you have a flat or flatshare available for rent, flatmateclick.co.uk provides the safest, easiest solution for selecting where and with whom to live.  Users simply create their online profile then search for and communicate with potential flatsharers and property owners in order to select their preferred living arrangements.

Users may securely and confidentially search for flatmates and flats by postal code; download lease agreements and other related documents; automatically receive mail messages about new listings and profiles matching user’s criteria, as well as review and post references about potential flatmates, flats, and flat owners.  To make the search even easier, Flatmateclick.co.uk also offers its users the opportunity to communicate on the fly via SMS messaging and to access driving directions and street-view and aerial photographs via interactive mapping.

Flatmateclick.co.uk is operated by Lifetopia - the world’s leading provider of web-based roommate and housing selection; serving residents, students, businesses, property owners, and landlords in the UK, US, France and  Germany.  In addition, Lifetopia provides fully-hosted, web-based, plug-and-play applications serving college and university housing and student roommate needs.  Students register to use the school-sanctioned service through their university’s website and self-select their roommates based on comprehensive information provided by students in their online profiles. Lifetopia’s online housing and roommate service also enables property owners and landlords to advertise rental properties and secure tenants online.  Lifetopia offer its clients and subscribers the best tools and customer service solutions available including live chat, informational forums, dedicated phone and e-mail support, and a robust selection of flats and flatmates.

Jump to Flatmateclick.co.uk

Actress Gemma Arterton (Tess of The D’Ubervilles, the new Bond girl!) has settled in a 2-bedroom rental apartment in Highgate N6, reports Homes & Property.

Note that one of the reasons she moved out of her previous home in West Kensington was because it smelled of damp. The problem is oh so common in London.

Photo: Gemma-Arterton.info

PS We are most grateful for FindaProperty.com blog Winging It linking to our blog!

The ‘prime’ London areas for corporate tenants, which are claimed to be most affected by the changes in the financial sector, are Notting Hill, Docklands and the City.

So we conducted a little search in 5 main property websites in order to determine how many flats are available at this very moment in 3 more popular postcodes of those particular areas.

Flats/apartments for rent in Notting Hill W11, Docklands E14 and the City EC4 today:

FindaProperty.com is the obvious leader with more ads than any other website just before the launch of the agents’ own website PropertyLive.co.uk.

The choice in E14 is remarkable - the area is much bigger than W11 or EC4, with mostly high rises, and quite a few new apartment buildings.

Postcode map from: ash-associates.com

As promised, Chard has put up the September figures of asked and achieved rents for their Notting Hill & Kensington office as well.

See the list HERE.

Thank you, once again! The previous list was useful to at least one person, who was actually wondering whether it would be suitable to negotiate the price in South Kensington at all…

See also: Chard Compares Asked & Achieved Prices

As if you didn’t know that already…

Savills confirms to The Observer:

64% of its corporate tenants in London work in the financial services industry. Large-scale job losses will result in the termination of tenancies on hundreds of top-end apartments and houses - most of them at rents of £1,000 a week or more - in ‘prime’ London areas such as Docklands, the City and Notting Hill.

Notting Hill resident’s view on how the financial meltdown has hit the Americans bankers:

Life gets tough-ish in Notting Hill [Times Online]

We’re not particularly fond of Mrs. Johnson stabbing her neighbours in the back but she did give us some interesting inside information:

- At one point during 2003-7, Americans occupied 65% of the rentals in Notting Hill. British landlords were asked – no, told – to install power showers and security lights and new kitchens. Dry cleaners were told to stop losing clothes or they would be sued.

- Marlene Kemp from Jackson-Stops estate agency in Portland Road says that there’s no activity on rentals between £3,000 and £5,000 a week. 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom flats letting between £500 and £800 are popular with younger people at a lower level, and all prices are – you might say – very negotiable.