A 1950s, pre-fabricated bungalow dubbed a ‘shed’ has just been auctioned off for just under £1 million after a ‘frantic’ bidding war.
Described as by Southwark Council as ‘dilapidated’ and uninhabited since 2002, the bungalow sold on Monday for £950,000 despite its guide price of £590,000.
Sold with no planning permission for demolition it did not seem to deter the bidders with a starting price of £600,000.
Advertised by Savills as being in close proximity to Peckham Rye station and the ‘increasingly popular ‘village’, shopping amenities and cafes along Bellenden Road’, the council owned property sits on a 0.6 acre corner plot.
Located between Peckham and East Dulwich, an area acknowledged as a ‘hotspot’ by Chris Coleman-Smith, auctioneer and director at Savills, the property consists of three rooms as well as a kitchen and an unfitted bathroom.
Southwark Councillor Richard Livingstone stated that the money generated from the property is going to be ‘ploughed back’ into the councils housing investment programme and go towards building the proposed 11,000 new properties set for the borough by the 2040s.
Livingstone told The Evening Standard:
‘We are investing hundreds of millions of pounds to not only improve our current housing stock - by making them warm, dry and safe and providing quality kitchens and bathrooms - but also to build 11,000 new council homes across the borough.
‘Although selling council homes is not something we would normally want to do, sometimes the costs for repairs and refurbishment to bring our older properties to a decent standard is simply too high.
‘In these cases, we have the option to sell them when they become vacant and use the money to fund this housing investment programme.
‘We are extremely pleased that once again we have managed to raise a significant amount of money from the sale of a property that was far past its expected lifespan, to but back into creating better homes for our residents.’