Room with a view - £7 million

Scotland’s most expensive flat, yours for £7m. The penthouse is priced at offers of more than £6.3m or a fixed price of £7.3m to take it off the market immediately – smashing the previous record for a Scottish apartment, thought to be Whittingehame House in East Lothian, priced at £2.5m which sold in 2010. Selling prices in Edinburgh for whole houses have nudged £5m, while rural estates can go for far more.

It is no surprise that the newly-refurbished Hamilton Grand in St Andrews is the most expensive apartments in Scotland. The former hotel towers looks across the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and therefore has a legitimate claim to “the best view in golf”. It was bought in 2009 by US billionaire Herb Kohler’s company, which is creating 26 apartments, with prices starting from £2.2m and ranging in size from 1,133 to 2,780 square feet. Owners will share a roof garden with sweeping vistas over the golf course and coast, and the penthouse will have its own private terrace along two sides overlooking the 18th green. Jamie Macnab of Savills, which is marketing the Hamilton Grand in the UK, said buyers are likely to come from abroad. There will be a golf concierge and butler service in the building and residents will have access to the Old Course Hotel facilities and spa. Complimentary membership of the Duke’s Course is included and permanent residents can apply for a yearly golf ticket for the more famous links courses.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/scotland-s-most-expensive-flat-yours-for-7m-1-2316884

THE GAP WIDEN

Mumbai property

Some recent figures showing the gap between the working class and the owning class were revealed in chart form. They show that the average Indian worker would need to work for three centuries to pay for a luxury home in Mumbai, making that city the least affordable in the world for locals, according to an analysis of real estate and wages. "The CHART OF THE DAY shows a 100-square-meter luxury residence in Mumbai costs about $1.14 million, or 308 times the average annual income in India, based on calculations from a housing index compiled using 63 markets by Knight Frank LLP and income estimates of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for purchasing-power parity in 2011. Shanghai buyers would need 233 times the per-capita income in China and Moscow inhabitants 144 times Russian earnings. Singapore and New York homebuyers would need 43 years and 48 years, respectively, for equivalent residences using national income averages, the data show." (Bloomberg, 10 April) During the 48 years the New York worker would have to toil to purchase a luxury home he would have to spend nothing on food or clothing. In London he would have to work for 136 years! RD