We all love a bargain, but this is crazy.
A couple bought a house from the council in 1977 for £150 (£203) each - cheap even 40 years ago. And they've just put it on the market for £1.9 million ($2.5m).
It's getting harder and harder for millennials to get onto the property market - mostly because we're apparently spending all our money on avocados - but whether it's our obsession with brunch or because the economy is difficult and punishing, we aren't in the same position as baby boomers. They bought their starter properties back in the '70s for a song, and sat on it for decades until they can sell it for an arm and a leg.
Advert
But this couple's experience takes the biscuit. Jane and Gus Alexander got their property in Whitehall as part of the Greater London Council Lottery in 1977. They got it in a lottery, for only a few hundred quid.
Credit: Mercury Press
In the '70s, the councils in London sold their most dilapidated properties for very little in the hope that the people buying would invest a lot of money in doing them up.
Advert
Looks like that plan worked out - the house is incredible.
Credit: Mercury Press
"We were on honeymoon in Ireland when we found out that we had won," explained Jane.
Advert
"We got a letter saying that we had to pay £300, £150 for each house, and the condition was that we had to turn these two houses into one.
"I had married an architect, and everyone who took up the offer was artistic. Some people refused [the prize] because of the cost and scale of the work that needed to be done."
Credit: Mercury Press
Advert
That's a pretty good deal. Two houses for £300 ($406) in London? Um, shut up and take my money.
At any rate, Jane and Gus spent two years converting the house and spent £30,000 ($41,000) on the project. Not quite so cheap, then.
Architect Gus after a hard day's work Alexander Credit: Mercury Press
Advert
After a lot of labour, the couple completely restored the dilapidated building, gutting it, and redoing the plumbing and electrics. It looks nothing like what it did 40 years ago. And it's not just the house which has changed.
"The area now is completely different to when we won the lottery in 1977," said Jane, "It has been through amazing changes.
"We made the mezzanine level with big windows, allowing someone to work at the top and feel like they are in the garden, even in winter."
Credit: Mercury Press
The Zone 2 building has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large open plan mezzanine level kitchen and reception room which leads onto a big garden.
Jane has put luxurious touches on the once neglected building. Big windows, wooden flooring, tonnes of space - it's obvious an architect did the interiors.
It also has planning permission to build another 600sqft, so it could get even bigger.
Right now, the Whitehall property is on the market at £1,899,950 ($2.5m). Yikes.
Featured Image Credit: Mercury PressTopics: Housing