LONDON CALLING:Superluxe property developers Nick and Christian Candy are carrying on business as usual
I can't help thinking that, at the very least, Nick and Christian Candy - the brothers behind super-luxe developers Candy & Candy - must have a gnarled old picture in their attic showing, Dorian-Gray style, a run-down terrace of housing and bailiffs at the door.
Either that or a contract signed with the devil. I just don't understand how they can make so much money in the face of a recession.
As I reported a few weeks ago, they had paid almost £1 billion for the former Chelsea Barracks and Richard Rogers was working up a design for them on the site. Prices would have to break the £5,000 per sq ft mark in order to show a healthy margin. That, I felt, took some chutzpah in the current climate but then they announced that they were in the process of looking to buy one of the big housebuilding firms.
Now, when all around them are floundering, they have managed to flip two of their undeveloped properties - the vast, uninspiring but spectacularly located Kensington Palace and neighbouring Kensington Park hotels - for £320 million, a mark-up of more than £250 million since they bought them in 2006.
The sale to an Emirates-based company was described as a "spectacular vote of confidence in the central London market".
The brothers enhanced the site by gaining consent to convert the buildings to apartments (designed by David Chipperfield this time) and, unlike at their Chelsea Barracks site, have found land away from this development on which to build the affordable allocation.
Quick to scotch any implication that they may be off-loading some of their riskier assets, Nick Candy declared that they turn down most offers because "first and foremost we are developers and we want to build".
A source also said that they had just off-loaded a £15 million apartment and another at a staggering £50 million, both at their One Hyde Park building.
FOR THOSE of you hoping for some sort of trickle-down effect, the prognosis is not good.
The world's squillionaires may feel duty-bound to pay eight-figure sums for a slice of London - even slices of yet-to-be-built London - but further down the chain, the reaction to owning a piece of the "capital of the world" (Nick Candy's description, not mine) is decidedly tepid.
Statistics and a frankly terrifying graph released by Hometrack and the Nationwide Building Society paint a similar picture of plummeting demand and tumbling growth (down to 0.4 per cent since last March according to Hometrack).
Even the smattering of springtime offers has got the usually indefatigably Tiggerish commentators and analysts searching for euphemisms that suggest this is a short-term recovery (or dead cat bounce as our City friends entertainingly call it).
And what of those offers? While Hometrack helpfully gives an average time "on the market" - now up to 8.5 weeks, the longest since the survey began in 2000 - I do wonder how useful this statistic is because, at the moment, those making proceedable offers seem to be fading away like early morning mist.
One acquaintance has had four highly enthusiastic offers on her home since Christmas and each time the buyer has just disappeared in a vague mumble of apology and insecurity about the market.
The next month, as those seeking to offload less than profitable buy-to-lets once the capital gains rate has dropped from 40 per cent to 18 per cent, will be crucial to the mood of the market.
I DON'T think this is going to have landlords deserting in their legions but I thought I would give you a heads-up anyway that the Energy Performance Certificate portion of the much-derided Home Information Pack is to be extended to rental properties whenever they come up for reletting from October.
The certificate will, apparently, be valid for 10 years and cost about £75, so get those energy-saving light bulbs and hot water tank lagging in place now.
For those people who own commercial buildings, much more complicated versions of the same are required from the beginning of this month.
