This former council house in London is on the market for £3,500,000

Can you picture yourself living here?(Credits: Tim Clarke)

This unassuming home may have a deceptively modest exterior, but it’s price tag is pretty eye-watering at a cool £3.5 million.

The reason behind such a huge asking price for the four-bedroom semi-detached in North London, is said to be down to £1,400,000 that current owner, Lukov Nikolov, spent giving the former council house a fancy makeover.

Built in the 1950s as part of a rise in the construction of council homes and publicly-funded housing, the dwelling in Canonbury, Islington, wasn’t leased to regular council tenants, but instead used by police officers who moved to the capital to work for the Met.

And although said to be of a similar style and size to other council homes nearby, it’s market-price is clearly a step above.

Accountant Lukov bought the home in 2015 for £1,200,000, which is when he began the transformation, the Mail Online reports.

Since then, the house has been extended and now spreads over 3650sq ft – three times the size of your average 1951 council house – with new amenities, such as a spacious basement as well as a cinema room.

The home has undergone a fancy transformation(Picture: Nikolay Bogdev)

The kitchen-dining area is super luxurious (Picture: Nikolay Bogdev)

The house also has a brand new kitchen-dining area and ‘additional living space’ on the floor below, according to the listing on David Astburys, including a family bathroom, a ‘secret’ cinema/bar room and a bedroom.

Meanwhile, the upper floors boast three double bedrooms, each with its own en suite, plus a ‘sizeable’ loft for storage.

The Canonbury property has four bedrooms(Credits: Nikolay Bogdev)

The house now spans across four floors (Picture: Zoopla)

The average price for a property in London was £708,363 over the last year according to Rightmove but properties in the family-friendly suburb of Canonbury sold for an overall average price of £934,290 over the same period.

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Most of the sales in the area were flats, which sold for an average price of £633,512.

Meanwhile, terraced properties sold for an average of £1,659,972, with semi-detached properties taking in £3,873,333. Prices in the area have increased 9% in the past year.

Londoners are moving to sleepy seaside town nicknamed ‘God’s waiting room’

If you’ve been priced out of London, perhaps it’s time to start looking at a location with an unfortunate nickname.

The East Sussex town of Bexhill-on-Sea is receiving a surge of interest among young remote workers, despite gaining the nickname ‘God’s waiting room’ on account of its ageing population.

The sleepy suburb offers affordable housing that the capital simply can’t compete with.

In March 2024, the average price for a home in Bexhill is £338,833, which is around £367,000 less than London.

Elsewhere in the country, people have also been giving their council homes a whole new lease of life, with one woman in Sheffield spending £3,000 of her own money  to renovate her house herself.

Celene Francis, 25, moved into her council house in April 2020 with her daughter.

‘When we moved in the house was in a terrible state,’ she recalled. ‘It was just full of wallpaper – the doors were purple, and the flooring was terrible.

The entrance before Celene’s renovation (Picture: Celene Francis / SWNS)

‘The person who previously lived here was a smoker, so all the ceilings and woodwork was yellow and the garden was overgrown – it was a mess really’.

Four years later and the home’s new look is still a work in progress, but after searching the aisles in B&M Bargain, Ikea and H&M’s home section, Celene has managed to achieve a glorious transformation by plastering the walls and ceilings, painting all the rooms and replacing the doors.

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