Des res to dead res
Two years ago all 84 of these flats were sold...now 82 have been repossessed
BUYERS clamoured to buy a brand new dream home at luxury Hill House on the banks of the Thames.
The 76 bright and modern two-bed, two-bathroom flats overlooking Canary Wharf were snapped up despite hefty price tags of £250,000.
So were the eight penthouses which went for £400,000.
Incredibly, just two years on, the prestige development lies virtually ABANDONED.
Neglected, overgrown and swarming with vermin, Hill House today stands monument to the savage effect of the credit crunch.
A staggering EIGHTY-TWO of its EIGHTY-FOUR homes have been repossessed.
Soaring mortgage rates and huge hikes in the cost of living have seen almost all the buyers pushed past their limits and hit by heart-breaking repossession orders.
Today the two-bed flats are valued as low as £115,000 and the penthouses barely more at just £135,000.
Taxi driver David Adaiat is one of the two original buyers hanging in there despite his home having lost more than HALF its value.
Frenzy
He bought his third-floor river-view apartment for £269,995 at the height of the buying frenzy in June 2006 as a family home for his wife Esther, 38, and their teenage daughter Dami.
Shattered David said: "I've just had the place valued after my mortgage deal came to an end.
"They told me it's now worth just £130,000. I nearly fell through the floor. It's unbelievable. That's so much lower than we paid.
"This whole place has become like a ghost town."
And without residents to pay service changes the once sought-after bright, modern block in Thamesmead-part of the Pinnacles development by house building firm Persimmon-has become a hell-hole.
Empty apartments are infested with rats and cockroaches.
Windows have been broken and mailboxes smashed open by squatters and junkies, while stairwells have been disfigured by graffiti.
Today, THIRTY of the polished wooden apartment doors look like prison cells-covered with unpainted steel barriers to stop repossessed homes being invaded by yet more squatters.
Still more are plastered with eviction notices while others simply stand empty, awaiting auction.
Outside, untended gardens and paths have become overrun with weeds and shrubs.
David said: "We know there have been squatters. The other day I came home and found a man on the stairs who had clearly been smoking drugs.
"It's terrible. I tell my daughter she can't come into the building alone when she gets back from school. But we have to do what we can to stop it getting too bad.
Graffiti
"I paint over graffiti when I see it. We don't want it to get worse."
But the situation is just as bad for TENANTS who who are now living in some of the repossessed flats.
Mum-of-two Angela Eluma moved into an apartment on the third floor with her husband Nathan and feels their £750-a-month rent to a private landlord is now too high.
Angela, 34, said: "Other people were paying £850 or £900 a month. But the prices have gone down so much we are probably paying too much even at £750.
"The place has just got worse since we came.
"Some of the letterboxes are overflowing with no one there to collect the post, while others have been wrenched open. Ours looks like someone's tried to get into it.
"I used to know the woman renting upstairs, but her landlord couldn't pay the mortgage and she was just evicted. She was told she had four weeks to get out."
IT worker hubby Nathan, 35, added: "The building is so infested now with cockroaches and rodents it wants pulling down.
"We don't know what kind of people are in the building now. I tell Angela that she needs to look before opening the door to anyone."
The local Gallions Housing Association has bought 22 of the repossessed flats, allowing council tenants a taste of what was once riverside luxury.
One 19-year-old who asked not to be named, moved in to Hill House two weeks ago and pays just £358 a month.
The student said: "It's great for me because it's a really nice flat.
"I think I'm getting a bargain. I can't believe just two years ago people were paying £250,000 and more to buy a place here.
"I think the housing association have bought quite a few now."
Better
A spokesman for the Gallions Housing Association admitted: "There have been a number of issues at the site with anti-social behaviour. Things have changed for the better recently and we continue to work with the good people to ensure problems don't go unchecked."
The News of the World understands most of the repossessions were this year.
One local estate agent confirmed some of the flats are changing hands for as little as £115,000.
A spokesman said: "We've dealt with twenty-eight repossessions in there.
"Your heart goes out to people who bought in good faith and now their home is worth very little.
"No one predicted what's happened and it's been so quick.
"I think a lot of buyers overstretched themselves.
"We had people coming in last year, still with mortgages five or six times their salary.
"And there were a lot of buy-to-let investors, because these have two beds and two baths.
"We just live in hope that it will come back.
"We're asking here whether it can get much lower. We were saying the same thing three months ago."
A survey by mortgage giant Halifax shows property prices have fallen nationally by 13 per cent in the last two years.
But the huge falls at Hill House, of around 55 per cent, shows the grim reality in one-time development hotspots.
Similar falls are being reported in Liverpool, Leeds and Ipswich.
Now buried in negative equity, David and Esther Adaiat have had to put their future on hold.
David said: "I don't know how long we will be here for.
"With the mortgage rates going up, I'm killing myself working to pay it off. And it's not worth that any more. It's very hard."
Esther, a social studies student, added: "We just have to fight with it. It's like an investment and it's for the long-term. Maybe it will recover in five years or ten.
"It does remind me of a nuclear holocaust round here. We've lost so much because of this.
"We had plans for a bigger family, but things are now much tighter. We just hope in the end we will be ok."
Michelle Bass, Sex Diary Room - 4
Glastonbury Festival in pictures
EU demand ban on smoking outside pubs.
Schoolgirl's affair with grandad ends
Navy, RAF and Army war over budget cuts
Poor families overcharged by energy firms
This article has 30 comments
I feel truly sorry for the families caught up in this situation and others like it, particularly the children of owners lured unwittingly by banks and mass media into an horrific poverty trap.
One glimmer of hope is that these unfortunate children will grow up with a more sensible attitude to money, particularly surrounding debt, and perhaps will in the longer term be more cautious and through that build a more sustainable foundation for their own children.
By slim. Posted October 20 2008 at 11:25 PM.
It's ironic that the house price bust has prevented the Thames Gateway development being built, a development that was being built on flood threatened land - hopefully this will stop the crazy buying frenzy in housing => at least 30% to go downwards until house prices are at sensible levels in my view. You only have to compare an interest-only mortgage rate with the house's rental yield to work out that the whole thing is bonkers.
By john. Posted October 20 2008 at 3:59 PM.
I used to live in a house in West Thamesmead but was lucky enough to get out last year. Stupidly, I bought the "dream", but after a few years of living the worsening "reality" I got out. The non-existant local transport infrastructure mean the place is doomed for years. If anybody is tempted by the low prices now, remember that it is cheap for a reason! Take your money elsewhere (almost anywhere!) and have a better quality of life.
By David. Posted October 20 2008 at 2:53 PM.
I just want to say that I moved down from Scotland without ever having been to London and had to move quickly due to my husband's work so I didn't know anything about Thamesmead or what the area is like, good or bad. That's partly why we rented instead of buying. Even though these flats are a bit of a nightmare and so expensive, (I paid less than half of that per month back home for a beautiful place), I have never actually found Thamesmead itself to be a bad. I have never had any problems other than those in this specific part.
By Angela Eluma. Posted October 20 2008 at 2:50 PM.
As an advocate of affordable home ownership through homefocus I would like to stand up for the housing associations and those alike working to help first-time buyers on the housing market with such schemes. Don't forget that when the buyer loses money on the market so do the HA's - lets not down grade the good work they do by allowing problems created by the majority to overtake the original cause. Maybe if more developers took an approach similar to HA's in trying to build communities and not just taking the money and running we would see more projects like this working.
By Rachel P.. Posted October 20 2008 at 11:36 AM.
The situation in West Thamesmead i believe is 100% thanks to greedy developers and the incentives put in place to attract the public to these Luxuary Riverside Apartments. 5-10% deposits paid and no mortgage paymenst for 'X' number of months. Would that not attract anyone.? The problem is it did! Particularly people that bought under false pretences, on residential mortgages and then let them out. The increase in mortgage rates and the sheer fact of paying mortgage payments upto 6 months later came as a bit of a shock to some who then fell into arrears and faced eviction.
Thamesmead is a 'Thames' side town with an ever growing population. A town centre as good as or better than some neighbouring towns, schools that score high in Ofsted reports and unlike most London locations has riverside & canal walkways, lesuire centre, golf & football clubs, boating lakes and much more. Thamesmead is not a bad place to live and work. I do agree that house prices reached unbeliveable figures but is this not the case for most of the UK!. The facts are Thamesmeads crime rate is not as high as some Towns in London and we certainly do not have monthly, weekly and daily reports of Knife Crimes, Muggings, and Murders.
As a local Estate Agent I and my collegues continue to sell way above the recently reported averages for local agents.
By Andy. Posted October 20 2008 at 10:04 AM.
What normal person would voluntarily want to live in Thamesmead???? No way would a few 'luxury' flats make that whole dump look any better.
Theres hundreds of nice areas in London where you can buy flats for that price & not have to worry about the amount of drugs & muggers there are there.
By Paul. Posted October 20 2008 at 9:46 AM.
HUGH HULL IS THE MAN
By JOE. Posted October 20 2008 at 9:23 AM.
There are thousands of people all over this country who didn't fall for the housing con, those who sold to rent, those who refused to take on silly levels of debt, those who just stayed put in the home they lived in.
The fact the majority bought into the housing con sadly just shows that most people in this country can't think for themselves and just follow the pack.
Sadly for us all the government don't want a population who are smart enough to think for themselves, they just want sheeple.
By Hugh Hall. Posted October 19 2008 at 10:13 PM.
jess. Posted October 19 2008 at 1:06 PM.
QUOTE"no lazy benefits-scum who bum off taxpayers!)
Lets hope neither YOU or any of your family get inflicted with CANCER and become one of those benefit scum ? and who have to rely on a pittance after paying taxes and National insurance for many many years.?
You like the many others with the same mindset are the cause of the massive disparity between rich and poor in the UK.
By heavy. Posted October 19 2008 at 8:54 PM.
Look as an agent still trying to sell some of these luxury executive apartments; it's bad news to talk these much sought after homes down. You say crime ridden I say vibrant community. You say drug dealers I say young urban entrepreneurs.
Come on people look on the bright side.
By Andrew. Posted October 19 2008 at 5:05 PM.
what did you expect the price to keep on going UP?
By lee cook. Posted October 19 2008 at 4:56 PM.
I and my wife are 1 of the so called stupid buyers in Thamesmead we bought into a shared ownership scheme through Gallions Housing association. They sold 1 thing and delivered another. We looked into the area and new about it's history and we were shown what the plans were going forward. It all looked so good you could not help but want to buy into it. But fraud, crime, anti social behaviour was brought in buy the buy to let market. West African Crime rings bought the properties at inflated prices through the developers, sold them quickly for a profit and made millions. Then moved in their stooges who never paid the mortgages and most of the tenants never paid the rent. The police have just finished the case and we are left here in HELL. Thanks Developers and thanks local government who did nothing.
The only good thing is a lot (not all) the scum that moved in have been and are still moving out. The potential is still here to make West Thamesmead a great place to live.
By Barry G.. Posted October 19 2008 at 4:39 PM.
Dont, worry be happy. As far as you have love & health.
By shakeel . Posted October 19 2008 at 4:31 PM.
Why are these flats allowed to sit empty and fall into disrepair? Why aren't they sold at a cut price to struggling first time buyers and key workers? The property developers and owners are so blinded by greed that they would rather see them like this than let people have them for less that the overpriced pie in the sky figures that they want to sell them for! Even now their greed won't allow them to make an honest decision - it's a disgrace!
By Lee. Posted October 19 2008 at 4:24 PM.
Its just the start of a vicious downturn that will grip this country for the next three years. 15 years of irresponsible credit binge will take a long time to dissipate. And guess who sat at the helm as the credit bubble grew to grangantuan proportions - the bungler gordon brownn. He is the cause of the misery about to befall millions of Britons.
By Vince McNoddy. Posted October 19 2008 at 3:04 PM.
Prices will keep dropping until they return to 2000 prices. Its not the owners, but the people who trade in hosues who set the market value. The banks have lost tens of trillions of pounds worldwide, and they will need to recoup their losses. Houses. Dont believe the EA. This is not meant to be an insult. But every single sentence they tell you. Dont be afraid to question it. They do lie for a living.
I feel sorry for anyone who goes into negative equity, but the people who have been priced out for a decade have also lost tens of thousands of pounds, because they have had to pay extortionate rent. And frinally. Brown is to blame. Period.
By Daniel. Posted October 19 2008 at 2:26 PM.
Johnny - get your Einstein quote the right way around. Durrrrrr!!!
By Graham. Posted October 19 2008 at 1:40 PM.
But the block is in Thamesmead! I feel sorry for the buyers, but I don't know what on earth they were thinking buying flats for that price in Thamesmead - it's a dump! I lived in Woolwich a few years ago and there they converted a horrible 1960's council office block into *cough* luxury *cough* apartments at an over inflated price. People queued up to buy them like fools. Were they blind?
By jess. Posted October 19 2008 at 1:06 PM.
All such empty properties throughout the land should be tidies up, cleaned and fumigated - thus providing new jobs - and then they should be sold at discount prices to first time buyers, key-workers and other needy hard-working BRITISH taxpayers (no lazy benefits-scum who bum off taxpayers!)
Unfortunately, that is too much common sense for Loser and nulabour - so it won't happen.
By ROGER. Posted October 19 2008 at 12:20 PM.
Don't blame the crunch, nor the sheeple who were encouraged from every corner (TV, lenders, brokers, peer pressure, government...) that the property party would never end.
Blame Gordon "I won't let house prices get out of control" Brown
We we're fooled by nu-labour's fake wealth creation scheme, a few got rich but now many will suffer.
With political motivated desire for a rapid recovery the same mistakes will be made again.
By L McKay. Posted October 19 2008 at 12:25 PM.
We should feel sympathy for those who bought flats like this to live in, as they were taken in by the "mantra" that "houses only ever go up". The reality is that housing in the past 5 to 6 years was a "bubble", not much different from the dot.com nonsense in the late 90s up to 2001. When the music stops, people who bought in late get hammered.
Those we need feel no sympathy for are BTL investors who have taken a pasting. They pumped up the bubble from the bottom. Now they have gone, one important factor in housing falls is that much of the pressure at the bottom has gone.
The important thing for all homeowners and those looking to buy is - don't kid yourself this is a "blip". Whatever Gordon Brown tries to do, house prices will fall steadily for another 2 to 3 years or so and then remain stagnant for up to 5 more. That is what history tells us and this time the bubble blew up further, so the burst is more powerful. If you need to sell - get out now and price your house at the lowest in the local market. Those holding out will just "chase the market down" and come off well worst.
By heatonfan. Posted October 19 2008 at 12:16 PM.
Ha Ha
By Des. Posted October 19 2008 at 12:10 PM.
What sort of person would buy a flat in Thamesmead for six times their annual salary?
By MikeyP. Posted October 19 2008 at 11:45 AM.
Remember, it's Gordon Brown that did this. So much for no more boom and bust.
Thanks Gordo.
By Matt. Posted October 19 2008 at 11:42 AM.
I don't really have any sympathy for the people who have lost money. Their common sense went out the window as they were consumed by the greed of the Buy to Let boom. These properties have much further to fall. Prices in London in general will drop another 35% and so these flats will probably end up being worth under £50k and perhaps £80k for the penthouses.
By Mike Livingstone. Posted October 19 2008 at 11:36 AM.
Who cares, it's nothing to do with politicians, just the stupidity and greed of people. Who in their right mind would willingly live in Thamesmead. it is a toilet.
I suggest these people stop whining and get on with it.
By Kerry Trubee. Posted October 19 2008 at 11:12 AM.
A really sad,sad story and no amount of talk by politicians can change it.I made an enquiry for a new build flat 4 months ago but decided against it.Ive been offered the same place 35k cheaper.Its sad for the people who hace already moved in.
By Johnny. Posted October 19 2008 at 10:18 AM.
Building luxury flats on Thamesmead! i would rather live in downtown baghdad than on Thamesmead.
Qoute "two things are infinite the universe and man's stupidity, and the latter is debateable"
Albert Einstein.
By David. Posted October 19 2008 at 9:37 AM.
My heart goes out to everyone in this situation, we spent £16,ooo doing our home up, paid £185,000 for our home, now worth less. Our mortgage isn't over stretched, we hoped to make a profit and go up the property ladder, but now selling, and going for smaller home that needs complete gutting, we will have a lower mortgage that we can afford, and do the work over time. Im just glad we still have a roof over our heads, that we will be able afford.
By lisa s. Posted October 19 2008 at 7:27 AM.