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.