evidence that house prices are moving towards a power-law
distribution, with the expensive stuff becoming insanely expensive:
Sheikh Hamad, the Foreign Minister of Qatar, recently paid
$195 million for a 20,000-square-foot penthouse at One Hyde Park in London.
Put down your calculator. That’s $9,800 per square foot.
Independent has more details on developers Nick and Christian Candy:
Before these penthouses went on the market, it was assumed that the upper
price limit for any London home – however luxurious – was £2,000 per
square foot. The Candy brothers made £4,000 per square foot their starting
price.
It’s also worth noting that even after spending $195 million for his flat,
Sheikh Hamad – and the owners of two other penthouses which are also rumored
to have gone for £100 million apiece – still won’t be able to move
in until 2009 at the earliest.
London, of course, is even more of a global city than New York, and as someone
who hasn’t lived in London for 10 years I view these developments with a mixture
of pride and incomprehension. I remember the area in question as being posh,
to be sure, but in a slightly shabby way: this was back when the hotel next
door, today the Mandarin Oriental, was simply the Hyde Park Hotel. Now, it seems,
there’s nowhere on the planet more upscale.