Good morning,
Bank of England(£) governors aren’t usually prone to hyperbole, so when Andrew Bailey says price rises will be “apocalyptic”(£) and a “very real income shock”, it is probably worth listening. He has also questioned what good an interest rate rise(£) will do, as “there will be 10% inflation and there is nothing we can do about 80% of it”. But, he added, don’t go and ask for a pay rise(£) – that will only make things worse. Bailey didn’t, and he only gets £575,000 a year.
The £4.25bn takeover of Chelsea FC(£) – and its £1bn redevelopment(£) – is under threat, after the government accused Roman Abramovich of holding up the deal.
The Brits are far more reluctant to return to the office than their continental cousins, according to some numbers crunched by Google. Commutes have fallen by 22%(£) since the pandemic in the UK, but France and Spain are only down by 9%. Italy gets the gold star, though, falling by just 6%.
Despite a fall in the number of office workers lunching at their desks, steak-bake seller Greggs(£) is still hungry for more stores(£).
A developer is being sought to transform a rabble of outdated buildings and empty sites around the Royal London Hospital into the 800,000 sq ft Whitechapel Life Sciences Cluster. NHS Property Services has appointed Savills to lead the hunt.
Meanwhile, The Times(£) has a chat with Angus Bates, the developer who saw opportunity in an Oxford rugby pitch and has now sold it for £120m to Life Science REIT.
Protests against the HS2 high-speed rail line(£) are expected to cost the government £200m. It is now asking a court to make it a criminal offence to enter its land or property, while legislation is being tabled to hand protestors 13-month jail terms.
On the other side of planet Earth, house prices in New Zealand are expected to fall by 20% next year. But as they rose by 30% in the last 12 months, that won’t be such a big correction.
And finally, a plastic surgeon to the stars is planning to sue an auctioneer after his Bel Air mansion failed to attract bids anywhere near the $88m listing. Dr Alex Khadavi owes millions of dollars after buying the plot for $16m in 2013 and spending more than $30m on construction, but he is very proud of his creation. The 21,000 sq ft home features seven bedrooms, a cinema, a champagne tasting room and an NFT art gallery. But he couldn’t stop there. The floors are stained with 24-carat gold dust, and it has a DJ booth that rises up out of the floor using a hydraulic mechanism. And a tequila bar. And a car museum. Khadavi filed for bankruptcy protection shortly after listing it for sale last year, saying that he had no idea the building would cost so much. But at a recent auction the house only managed to tempt a top bid of $45.8m, roughly half its listed price and $4.2m below even the reserve price. Khadavi described the auction results as “Horrible, horrible, horrible!” to CNBC. “Nobody told me this thing was going to go below this level.” He maintains the house is, in fact, worth $100m. Or more. Naturally the only sensible response is not to question the sense of building an NFT gallery or coating the floors with actual gold, but to sue the auctioneer. But it seems he has form going after property professionals. In 2016, real estate agent Matt Altman – from Million Dollar Listing – filed a restraining order against Khadavi after the surgeon allegedly told him he “hates all Jews” and threatened to kill him. So, anyone want to buy his house?
