It’s not a surprise that Hugo Taylor gives off a bit of a glow. He’s tall, slim, 25 and handsome. He’s also one of the stars of television show Made in Chelsea, E4’s new hit “structured reality” programme, in which well-heeled youngsters are filmed as they go about their hedonistic lives in West London.
Away from the glamorous screen, however, Hugo needs a place to live in real life. This is why we are standing on the handsomely pillared front porch of a towering terraced house in Chelsea, Cranley Gardens, to be exact, with Hattie Taylor (no relation), from the estate agents Knight Frank, to show us around.
We’re viewing a two-bedroom ground-floor flat, which is on the market for an eye-watering £1,100 per week. It’s £300 more than even Hugo, with his ample budget, wants to stretch to, but then again, this is an expensive part of town.
And here’s an exclusive: Hugo is not going to be renting alone. Ooh, say fans of the show, scenting a new storyline. Is he finally going to move in with Millie (Mackintosh), his girlfriend from the first series? The answer is no. Nor will the second series (to be screened later this year) feature him inviting his on-screen mucker Spencer Matthews to come and share with him.
“It was mooted at one point, but I thought he and I together would be just too much,” says Hugo (they have quite a competitive relationship). “Instead, I’m going to be sharing with a friend from my school days [Hugo was a boarder at Harrow]. We get on OK, and he’s a bit OCD when it comes to tidiness, so that should mean the place is looked after.”
The only problem with this flat is that one of the two bedrooms is definitely bigger and better than the other, with a rather nice roof terrace into the bargain. “For some unspecified reason I assume that I’m going to have the bigger room,” grins Hugo sheepishly. “But I can see how that might cause problems.”
It’s not the only potential obstacle. In the hallway a row of pointed silver coat pegs protrudes at head height, like sharpened antlers. Also, there is no dining table, despite the granite-worktopped, all-mod-cons kitchen.
On the plus side, though, the ceilings are 15ft high, and the house is lavishly deep from front to back. “I like a place with a bit of, I don’t know what,” yawns Hugo. “Longishness, I suppose.”
Suddenly, he comes over all tired. It’s partly because he’s been on at least a dozen different apartment-viewings in the past few days. Partly, too, because of his filming commitments, which he has to fit around his day job, as PR and marketing manager for Bourne Capital, a property investment firm based in Waterloo.
“I have to do all the filming in my time off work,” he sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Which makes for some very long days indeed.” That said, even before the cameras came along, there was already a crossover between his work and social life.
“The company I work for has a clever policy of opening up social venues in parts of town that they are developing in,” says Hugo. “It helps to bring that particular area up and give it a bit of a buzz.”
Amid all the filming and professional socialising, though, he needs a bit of time off-duty. This is why it’s important for him to find a flat of his own. He is not quite ready for the commitment (or expense) of buying a place, so rental is the only way to go. But does it have to be in Chelsea?
“Oh, definitely,” comes the somewhat shocked reply. “I’ve lived in Chelsea all my life. I was brought up in Eaton Square and used to walk to school [Sussex House Preparatory] each day.
“It’s the kind of place where you might not necessarily know your immediate neighbours, but you know a lot of people in the area.”
The next property we view is a second-floor flat in Redcliffe Square, SW10. It not only has more light and a better view (trees and park) than the previous place, but, at £795 per week, is £305 cheaper.
And that’s not bad for this area. Chelsea prices have held up despite the slowdown, and don’t even seem to have been affected by the recent riots.
“The most expensive rental property I’ve handled recently had its own swimming pool and cost £11,000 per week,” says Hattie.
“The rule of thumb is that 30 per cent of our lets are to European clients and 70 per cent to non-European. Mostly, the people who rent from us are in the private finance sector, so a lot of viewings take place at the end of the working day. A 7pm viewing is quite early.
“There are three main reasons we’re seeing an increase in demand for rentals. Sometimes people are only in London for a fixed period, sometimes they don’t think it’s the right time to buy and at other times they simply can’t afford to buy.”
That’s a position in which people all over the UK find themselves. According to the latest figures, rental prices across the country are being pushed up by demand from frustrated first-time buyers.
The website LSL Property Services says rents in England and Wales rose by 0.7 per cent in the month of June, pushing the average rental cost in the UK to a record high of £701 per month.
Meanwhile, Findaproperty.com, which takes into account asking prices rather than achieved prices, puts the figure even higher. It says the UK average is £876 per month, with the North East (£578) and Yorkshire and Humberside (£561) at the lower end of the scale and the South East at the top (£1,112).
All of this means that the idea of buy-to-let is slowly coming back into favour. The website Moneyfacts.co.uk puts the number of buy-to-let mortgages on the market at about 500, as against fewer than 200 in June 2009. Even so, the total is still nowhere near the 3,650 that were available in 2007.
Ian Potter, operations manager for the Association of Residential Letting Agents, agrees. “People are approaching buy-to-let in a much more cautious way,” he says. “Whereas in the past, they saw buying a flat and renting it out as a form of speculation, now they are being more diligent about their research and more professional in their approach.
“Yes, it’s true there is a rising demand for rental accommodation. This is because buyers are frightened of making a financial commitment in the current climate. They also feel insecure about their jobs and, at the younger end of the market, they don’t want to tie themselves to a property and thereby lessen their employment mobility.
“At the same time, though, a lot of it is down to simple lack of housing stock. We should be building 200,000 new properties per year and we’ll have trouble this year building 100,000.”
So with properties at such a premium, it’s no surprise that places get snapped up quickly, especially in prosperous areas.
Speaking of which, Hattie says, there have already been two offers made on the Redcliffe Square flat that Hugo has got his eye on, both of them close to the asking price. This means he is going to have to make his mind up soon.
“What I like about this place,” he says, “is that the bedrooms aren’t as big, but there’s lots more entertaining space and a decent-size dining table.” There are plates, wine glasses and fresh flowers tastefully laid out. And a pair of champagne glasses beside the bath.
All right, so he thinks the low-slung, white sofas are “hideous” but, at the same time, he likes the overall “London-ness” of the apartment.
So will he go for the flat with the ready-laid dining table, or the one with the smarter address?
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