Tat London Journal

London's property market is, at present, a study in contradictions. Across much of the city, sellers are holding their nerve, waiting, watching, reluctant to commit, and the result is a thinning of supply that makes the search for something genuinely considered, something specific, considerably harder than it ought to be. If you know what you want, the market is not always obliging.

I realise I give this explanation each month, but it feels important to clarify what exactly we are doing here, lest you mistake this for sensible property journalism. We are combing the internet for houses that make us want to abandon our lives with minimal admin. Houses that suggest, however falsely, that one could simply arrive with a Labrador, two decent lamps and a crate of wine, and begin a better existence by Thursday.

Estate agents’ emails are the building blocks of the lists you receive once a month. One thing that throws a property directly into the bin, however, is the word “refurbished”. Enter a thoughtless side return, a marble-encrusted kitchen, hideous spotlights dotted about with the ease of a hole punch. In one slender room I can spot twelve.

I sadly cannot claim one drop of Irish blood in my veins. It is of great sadness to me that my lineage basically sits between the north of England and Worcestershire; there is some Scots which of course I am very proud of, but I would love to ring the bell about Irish lineage and not least for the passport. You too might be like me, a person who pines for the shores of Ireland, we spent much of our time there when we were younger and the Irish kindly put up with us. I have of

There is much hand-wringing about the market, and all concerns are understandable in the current climate. But if we put our blinkers on and remind ourselves that England is a glorious place to live, it's no wonder there remains real strength in both buying and selling. Yes, people aren't going berserk offering thousands over the asking, but sensibly priced homes are moving and there is confident steady momentum.

Usually it's Properties with Potential that has my heart, such a meaty subject to get one's teeth into. That said, this month I feel quite warm and bubbly about everything we've found, and I'll confess the two , Dream Houses and Properties with Potential, sections have rather mashed into one in my affections. Undone houses are my favourite things in the world, so to me they are pretty much all dream houses anyway.

Last month we launched this feature, Houses for a Commune. When I put it out on Instagram, the response was riotous, so many of you feeling exactly the same way, wanting to start your own village. Many said it was their retirement plan, though I'm not sure we should wait that long. I'll come to that.

I am going to have to redirect your attention to the title, it does not say 'Dream Interiors' it says Dream Houses. This means we for the most part are very much ignoring the interiors given to these abodes. We are concentrating on the beauty of the structure and knowing that handed over to us fair maidens, and dashing gents we would be golly turn them into something magnificent. We would not be tied down but velour chesterfield sofas, or knock off Hansen chairs, instead we w

This is a real mix of properties, thirty-four to be precise, and as a rule we do tend to miss out the new builds - they are rarely what we are after. We are mostly on the lookout for charm; if a house has a crooked smile we will probably give it a second look.

What we've curated here is a genuinely expansive roster of properties, and while a number of them could reasonably sit within the 'Potential' category, many would be equally at home on the Dream Properties list. We have always had a particular appreciation for the unpolished.

Hold onto your hats my friends because they are going to be blown away by the rough diamonds you see below. They will give you an absolute shiver of delight, even if you aren't buying, boy we are selling. Well we aren't, but the estate agents certainly want your custom. Perhaps one of these days Tat will turn its hand to selling properties with potential. We will be called Turrets and Thatch or Tired And Thrilling. Anyway, back to the properties in hand. I honestly feel this

I'd like you to keep two things in mind when perusing the below. Rod For One's Own Back & Subjective. We will conquer the first issue. While £2 million is a life changing, win the lottery, kiss your job goodbye kind of money, in London it goes a lot quicker than it should. Although we have seen the madness of house prices come down a little, in all reality we are still living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. So not only are you faced with looking at one overp

There is something in the air that has turned the once rancid smell of communal living into soft, rose-filled delights. I am not sure if I am cut out for it, earnest, grouchy, unable to make many a good dish, but still, the urge to unite with other families and individuals has never felt stronger. Perhaps it is the never-ending encroachment of reality on my life. I'd like to be buying antiques, selling them, making a tidy profit, and then buying more antiques and keeping them

As a young tv reporter I stumbled upon a cluster of abandoned houses sitting in the shadow of Hawksmoor’s brooding Christ Church Spitalfields. The Church was then a looming black presence standing guard over an abandoned vegetable market and the neglected early Georgian houses which clustered around it. It was hard to believe they’d once been the swanky homes of prosperous Huguenot - French Protestant - silk weavers. The Nineteenth Century had been tough on these fine homes w

Lately I have been fetishising the idea of living by the sea. I don’t care if it gets howling in the winter, or crowded in the summer, it just strikes me as quite a good way of life. I am not seafaring folk, so I can give no real insight into this ‘good way’ of life, but one must muse on the idea, if only for a little, as it feels like a rather good way to spend the next five minutes or so.

This, as I think I have mentioned, is my favourite feature to research. Inevitably I sometimes prefer these houses to those featured on Dream Properties, but don’t tell them. These places feel less contrived, not filled with pristine kitchens or upholstered within an inch of their lives. Here there is a moment to consider the new life one could bestow on these fine structures. As ever, there are one or two below that barely need more than the electrics checked and a lick of p

Every month we find new homes that set our heart a flutter. This month is like any other. We have kept the £2 million marker in place as we feel it makes everything feel a little more reasonable. Which is a mad thing to say about £2 million but here we are.

We have cast our net across the country and gathered a selection of houses that give genuine pleasure. All are currently on the market and waiting, rather patiently, to be admired, whether a converted church, a polished London apartment or, more often than not, a cottage. We make no apology for this preference; it is simply where our eye tends to rest.

Bones, bones and more bones. That is very much where I am coming from with the list below. We have largely disregarded the interior choices and, in many cases, with good reason. But every now and then I find myself thinking my god, I would keep that. A proper old chintz sofa, for example, is not so easy to come by these days, and if you already have one, softened and worn in all the right places, I would hang on to it for dear life.

These dear friends are not your typical one up one down on Station Road, the second most common street name in the UK, just behind High Street. Instead, they are gargantuan properties, most of them firmly in the millions. Many will also require someone with deep pockets to make them whole again and, in some cases, simply to furnish the vastness of the rooms