Moving into this newly sold apartment won't take long.
A London apartment with only 75 square feet - or 7 square meters - of living space was just purchased at auction for 90,000 pounds ($122,000), an 80% increase from its initially planned starting price of 50,000 pounds.
Located in East London's Lower Clapton neighborhood, the apartment features a bunkbed over shelves, drawers and a microwave. There's also a tiny "wet room" with a shower, toilet and sink.
A small space with a large price tag, the flat encapsulates how real estate prices are increasing no matter where you live. The cost for a house in the U.K. hit a record last year, thanks to a supply shortage and low mortgage rates enticing new buyers. Some city dwellers are also opting to live mostly in the suburbs with more space, while keeping a smaller apartment for trips into urban centers.
Even before the auction began, the starting bid for the microflat was bumped up to about $102,000 due to high demand. The current tenant pays almost $1,100 a month in rent and uses it as a "crash pad" a couple nights a week.
My Auction, the online platform that marketed the property and ran the sale, said in a release that it does not know what the buyer plans to do with the apartment, but that it did receive lots of interest from people wanting to rent the place out. At the purchase price, My Auction estimates the apartment would provide a rental yield of about 10% a year.
--With assistance from Lisa Fleisher.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
