Property
Have big cities had their day?
About 15 years ago I noticed a few surviving chattel houses in Barbados and wondered what they were. As it…
Is the government about to bankrupt thousands of homeowners?
The new scandal about to hit the government
Is it too late to jump on the gold bandwagon?
The price of gold has been rising since the earliest virus reports from China in December. Adherents regard it as…
The fight to save G. K. Chesterton’s home from demolition
It’s a quiet Wednesday afternoon in Britain’s most expensive market town, and there’s a sense of foreboding in the air.…
Something is badly wrong with the housing market – so why aren’t we talking about it?
In 1991, 67 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds owned their own home. In 2016, that figure had fallen to…
The divine comedy of Friedrich Nietzsche
I’ve come back to the empty house for the second time in the six weeks since my mother died. The…
Why no one ever moves back to London
In last week’s Spectator, Martin Vander Weyer replied to a couple with a baby who had sought his advice on…
Don’t hate housebuilders who profited from Help to Buy. It wasn’t their fault
Was Help to Buy a timely market intervention with a valid social purpose or a political gimmick that unintentionally showered…
Markets are clever precisely because people are silly
A month ago I wanted to travel to Bath for a 60th birthday party. From Kent, this either involves a…
How can I prevent my husband from burning all my post?
If you don’t yet watch Gogglebox on Channel 4, start doing so now. Far from making you despise our couch-potato…
Buy-to-let investing just became a very, very bad idea
If you pick up a buy-to-let property now, you’ll be fighting the full might of the Chancellor and the Bank of England
George Osborne has made his own 'dangerous cocktail' of economic risk
When David Cameron said this week that he is worried his children would not be able to afford to buy…
The plot to save Goldsmith’s Close Allotments
Since turning 50 I have become a gardening enthusiast. It started with tomatoes, then spread to raspberries and last year…
Redecorate the restaurant, but you can’t redecorate the clientele
Forty-five Jermyn St lives in the left-hand buttock of Fortnum & Mason (F&M), a shop whose acronym is slightly too…
How New York vulgarians live
I have finally moved into my new flat, a jewel of a place in a pre-first world war Park Avenue…
Bring back the bungalow!
We’re not building the right houses for our ageing population
The fight to save the Gladstone Arms is a battle for the soul of London
The fight to save the Gladstone Arms is the fight to save London
House-hunting in Cobham has driven me to the verge of insanity
This much I know, I never want to live in an ‘executive home’, and neither do I want to live…
My eco-home nightmare
Buying an eco-home? Expect stifling springs and summers
Posh, educated and energetic: meet the servants of the super-rich
There is a huge industry catering to London’s foreign plutocracy