An estate agents admit that even they were ‘shocked’ to be tasked with advertising a ‘cramped’ London flat for almost £500,000 – with a bathtub in the hallway.
Prospective buyers were shocked to find the tub exposed and only yards from the front door in the near half-a-million-pound flat, located in Kentish Town in North West London.
Some even claimed they felt sorry for people trying to get on the London property ladder and joked about how having a bath in your hallway summed up the size of flats currently on the market in the capital.
From the estate agent’s photos, the interior of the house seems like a normal flat with a bedroom, shower room, kitchen, dining room and outside decking area.
It is only after entering the property through the front door that house-hunters discovered the sneaky tub squeezed into a white tiled area in the hallway.
A London flat with an ‘extra’ bath squeezed into the hallway has been put on the market for £500,000
But estate agents Burghleys say the quirky feature has not put potential buyers off the one bedroom apartment
The unusual listing, located in Kentish Town, in North West London, has ‘raised eyebrows’ and seen interesting reactions from viewers
The flat was listed on Rightmove by Burghleys Estate Agents for £475,000 and is being advertised as a ‘unique’ one-bedroom garden flat with shower room and ‘extra’ bath.
Ashley Gendler, the director of the company, said they were shocked to find the tub in the hallway of the property but says it hasn’t put prospective buyers off viewing the one-bedroom flat.
Ashley said: ‘There have been remarks about it as it’s not something you would usually see.
‘It was an architecturally designed conversion not by the current owner but by the previous owner who we know nothing about, so we don’t know the reasons why he did this.
‘It may well be that he lived there on his own and no one was coming into the flat so he put a bath there because he couldn’t fit one into the shower room so that was the next available place to put it.
‘There have been a few raised eyebrows, people commenting saying it’s odd and a few double takes.
‘It’s quite simple to take the bath out and replace it with storage cupboards in that area if you wanted to.
‘We have the eyes and ears of the general public when they are out viewing properties and we were quite taken back as well.
‘But when we first viewed it, this area was filled with junk.
‘We didn’t even know there was a bath there. It had to be pointed out to us so it was even more of a shock to us.
‘There are plenty of flats being sold just with shower rooms and not with baths. Whoever converted the flat several years ago didn’t have to put a bath in there.
‘The property is getting a great deal of interest at the moment. I think people who have the common sense to either leave it or take the bath out and replace it with storage cupboards.
‘People are not being resistant to viewing it because there is a bath in the hallway.’
According to the agents, the bath tub was added by a previous owner who redesigned the flat
But some on social media said they felt sorry that flats like this are what’s on offer for first-time buyers trying to get on the property ladder
On social media, users were quick to comment on the odd placing of the family ‘bathroom’.
One user said: ‘Have a nice hallway bath and then get into your crawl space.. Bliss.’
Another said: ‘Why even bother with the bath just have a shower not as if having a bath adds to the property.’
A third added: ‘I feel so bad for the normal people of London.
‘How are you ever supposed to get any kind of housing security with rents rising at instance amounts and you can’t even get a mortgage for a flat where you need to have a bath in the hallway.’
A fourth commented: ‘I’d invite you in but the missus is having a bath.’
Another said: ‘So pretty much half a million pounds for a cramped space in a converted house with a ‘garden’ that is smaller than my parking area and then you have to pay ground rent on top because it is a leasehold.’