Derelict London shack for sale for more than $4.5 million on same strip where Sid Vicious lived

Imagine a property near the heart of London worth more than $4.5 million and the likes of this rundown shack probably isn’t the first that springs to mind.

For sale with a price guide of £2.5 million, it’s described by the agent as “crying out for a new lease on life”. Judging by its dilapidated interiors, he’s not wrong.

On a centrally located strip with a colourful history in Maida Vale, a suburb in London’s affluent north Paddington, the one-bedroom, one-bathroom house is up for sale for the second time in two years.

The sturdy brick facade has held up best, save for peeling paint on the doors and window shutters with heart-shaped carvings. Inside, a series of planks have been used to patch together the ceiling in the living area, and parts of the wall are discoloured and corroded.

It’s a similar story in the property’s only bedroom, and part of the ceiling is completely missing in the hallway. In some of the listing photos, buckets can be seen lining the floors underneath particularly damaged parts of the roof.

Selling agents Lurot Brand describe the property as a “development opportunity”, and have suggested that DIY lovers may want to convert the home into a three or four-floor dwelling, subject to planning approval. Should the existing structure remain in place, the home will require a full renovation.

The majority of the floorplan is taken up by the living and kitchen area on the first floor, and by a double garage that occupies the entire ground level.

The shack owes part of its prestige price tag to its location. Nestled in a cobblestone backstreet, it’s an easy walk to Hyde Park and The Regent’s Park, with Buckingham Palace about half an hour away by public transport. Warwick Avenue tube station is a few minutes away on foot.

But that’s not the only ace up the house’s dishevelled sleeve. Pindock Mews is a small strip that has played host to a star-studded lineup of personalities throughout the decades, including Boy George and the divisive Sex Pistols punk rocker, Sid Vicious. Vicious notoriously died from a drug overdose shortly after his girlfriend Nancy Spungen bled to death in the Chelsea Hotel in New York in 1978.

This is not the first time in recent years that the residence has been offered up for sale. After being listed in May 2017, again with Lurot Brand, the property was sold subject to contract for £2.5 million and removed from the market.

In the nearby Chippenham Mews, there is an extensively renovated three bedroom, three bathroom house for sale for £1.5 million, just over half the guide being advertised at Pindock Mews.

Recent sales in the Maida Vale area include a refurbished three-bedroom spread in a low-rise mansion block, which had an asking price of £1.05 million, and a luxuriously renovated two bedroom garden apartment in Little Venice, which had a guide of £1.555 million.

In January, London recorded an average house price of £472,230 ($866,480) according to a UK government press release. For detached houses in that region, the average price was £906,825 ($1.664 million).

Despite prices falling 1.6 per cent over the year to January, London is still the most expensive place in the UK to buy a house.

Suddenly prices in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne don’t seem so inflated.