Ranieri struggles to sell
How much does a famous vendor's name add to the value of a property? Chelsea football manager Claudio Ranieri recently put his four-bedroom Fulham home on the market for £1.45 million through haart. But Hamptons International is selling a near-identical house "in absolutely mint condition" for £1.05 million in the same street. Ironically, Ranieri has failed to find a buyer and has taken the property off the market. The plans of Chelsea's new owner, Roman Abramovich, could well lead to a swift return to the market, perhaps at a more realistic price.
Actor Jason Flemyng has decided to trade up from Balham to more upmarket Battersea. The charismatic star of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch has sold his five-bedroom Victorian end-of-terrace house in Chestnut Grove for just under £550,000 through Vanstons. He now has his eye on a property near Battersea Park, where five-bedroom villas can cost up to £3 million.
Lighting tycoon Christopher Wray has bitten the bullet and reduced the price of his eight-bedroom Edwardian house on Putney Heath by nearly £1.5 million. A year ago he put it on the market through Aylesford for £5.75 million but now Knight Frank has slashed the price to £4.3 million. The 10,000sq ft property, set in more than an acre of gardens, includes an indoor pool, a 56sq ft children's playroom, billiard room and a coach house for stabling three horses. "The reduced price reflects the current market," says Knight Frank. "There aren't enough punters around with that sort of money."
An art-loving City mogul with £4.98 million to spend should consider buying No 5 The Vale, Chelsea. The five-bedroom, five-reception room Lutyens-style property formerly belonged to the 19th century American artist James McNeill Whistler and, later, the pioneering publisher Charles Ricketts, who founded The Vale Press there. Agents Bective Davidson describe this recently refurbished six-storey home as radiating "contemporary cool" while being completely comfortable as well. It even has a "media room" wired for state-of-the-art audio and TV systems.
After selling Amhuissuidhe, his remote 50,000-acre Scottish estate on the island of Harris for £4.5 million, cider heir Jonathan Bulmer plans to live in Cornwall. The former Chelsea playboy's Cornish dream owes much to the influence of his current girlfriend, photographer Dao Taylor, who recently gave birth to his son. "Dao knows the Cornish coast well because her father lives there," explains a friend. "She's keen for Jonathan to buy a house." Bulmer already has four children, including daughter Hesper from his former marriage to the Queen's cousin Lady Marcia Leveson-Gower.
