It's been a tumultuous year in the world of real estate with COVID-19 upending markets around the globe and a barrage of eyebrow-raising property stories hitting the headlines, from record-breaking sales and renovations to catastrophic house collapses and some of the weirdest and oldest residences ever listed. Brace yourself as we reveal the biggest property shocks and surprises of 2020.
Back in February, a documentary on the UK's Channel 4 showcased entrepreneur and philanthropist John Caudwell's palatial refurb of Mayfair House, the vast London mega-mansion made up of two grand townhouses he'd bagged in 2012 for $116 million (£86m). The Phones4U billionaire sunk $87 million (£65m) into the opulent revamp, creating all manner of lavish interiors, including the largest privately owned ballroom in the capital.
Spanning 43,000 square feet, the eight-storey, 15-bedroom home is more than twice the size of the Royal Albert Hall. An army of 300 worked on the spectacular makeover, which saw 78 miles of cables and 650 electrical sockets installed, while 20,000 sheets of gold leaf were used to decorate the rooms. Among the many highlights is the Thai-themed dining room, which stuns with a meandering river filled with tropical fish and a fabulous faux cherry tree.
The subterranean swimming pool features a 'volcano' wall and ceiling complete with a realistic lava effect, and there's also a gym, spa, home cinema, library and Art Deco-inspired lift in the unparalleled property. Worth a hefty $335 million (£250m), Mayfair House, which is used to host events for Caudwell's children's charity, is now among the world's most valuable residential properties.
2020 proved to be a good year for weird homes. A Star Trek fanboy extraordinaire, financier Marc Bell boldly went where few mega-wealthy trekkies would in 2005 when he commissioned this custom Boca Raton mansion partly themed around The Next Generation incarnation of the classic sci-fi TV show. The major investor reportedly spent four years and over a million dollars decking out the property with on-theme memorabilia, space-age furnishings and coveted collectables.
One of the many highlights of the eye-popping 10-bedroom, nine-bathroom property is the home theatre built to resemble the bridge on the Starship Enterprise. It seriously wows with captain chairs, a starry sky light and entry doors that 'whoosh' when opened, not to mention a 10-foot movie screen, 3D projector and seating for 11 people.
Bell also installed a Star Trek-themed bar and created all sorts of other fun spaces, including Call of Duty and Star Wars-themed rooms and a massive recreation room that packs in a 150-gallon fish tank and endless arcade games. Originally listed in 2014 for $35 million (£26.1m), the idiosyncratic home went on the market in April via Senada at Douglas Elliman with a lockdown, knockdown asking price of $25 million (£18.7m).
No stranger to making jaw-dropping pronouncements on Twitter, Elon Musk, who is now the second-richest person on the planet, tweeted in May that he would be "selling almost all of his physical possessions", including all seven of his swish homes. The first home listed, this seven-bedroom, 11-bathroom Bel Air mansion, sold on 12 June for $29 million (£21.6m), a million dollars under the asking price.
The second home put on the market, this five-bedroom, five-bathroom ranch house, which is also located in Bel Air and once belonged to Gene Wilder, was bought on 10 August by the late actor's nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman for $7 million (£5.2m), $2.5 million (£1.9m) shy of the asking price. Musk, who purchased the home in 2013 for $6.8 million (£5m), had one request: "It cannot be torn down or lose any of its soul" – a plea that will no doubt be honoured to the letter by Walker-Pearlman.
Continuing his everything must go sale, Musk went on to list the remaining five homes, though his Modernist Bel Air mansion has since been taken off the market, as has the tech tycoon's historic 10-bedroom, 10-bathroom house in the Silicon Valley town of Hillsborough, south of San Francisco. The property was the most expensive listed with an asking price of $35 million (£26.1m).
Dubbed “the weirdest home ever” by Realtor.com, this truly bizarre three-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Pittsburgh was the US real estate site's most viewed property during the week following its listing in May. Conceived by the seller as the party pad of his dreams, the ranch-style home boasts a number of themed rooms, including this beauty mocked up to resemble a 25th-century spaceship bridge.
Though clearly nowhere near as slick and expensive to create as the aforementioned Starship Enterprise extravaganza, the retro-futuristic-on-a-shoestring room has a charm all of its own, from the mock moonscape views on the windows to the controls stripped from an Apache helicopter and this talking alien figure.
Other USPs of America's most oddball residence include this sand-filled tropical island-themed bedroom and a groovy 1970s hippie crash pad bedroom. Outlandish properties often end up languishing on the market for many months, but this one was sold in August, albeit for $6,500 (£4.8k) under its asking price of $159,000 (£118k).
Truly the stuff of nightmares, this exceedingly creepy four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the Big Apple borough of Queens was described by the New York Post as having the scariest listing photos ever when it hit the market in June. The dilapidated, partly boarded-up exterior was frightening enough, but wait till you see the spine-chilling interior.
Repulsively grimy, the kitchen alone would have surely put off any buyer, no matter how brave they might have been. Dead vines were growing through the broken window, debris littered the floor and mould covered just about everything. You really couldn't create a more disgusting listing photo if you tried.
This bathroom was just as bad with the Post calling the tub the scariest this side of Pyscho. Even more scary was the home's asking price: an unbelievable $828,000 (£614k). The ultimate fixer-upper did however snare a buyer. The house was purchased by a presumably fearless individual for $720,000 (£534k) at the end of September, well in time for Halloween.
Staying with out-there residences, this zany two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in Lake Worth, Florida went viral for obvious reasons when it was placed on the market in August. A lifelong Budweiser aficionado, the former owner made it his mission to decorate the entire pad with cans of his favourite beverage, and achieved his goal with gusto.
In fact, every room apart from the bathrooms is covered with Bud cans. The ex-owner started the project in 1990 and it took him 16 years to down enough beers to complete the unique interior design job. The lager-lover even fashioned crown moulding and used different sizes of cans to fit around electrical outlets and air conditioning vents.
When the marketing team at Budweiser heard the house was up for sale, they helped the listing agent promote the property by sharing the story on their social media channels, and offered to fill the fridge with Bud cans on the condition the buyer promised to keep the decoration. A bidding war reportedly ensued and the pad sold in no time at all for a cool-as-an ice-cold-beer $100,000 (£74k).
While commercial property markets in many countries have tanked this year due to the pandemic, which is hardly a surprise, residential real estate in numerous nations around the globe has been hotter than hot, belying expectations. In the US, home prices hit record highs in the autumn as interest rates stayed super-low.
North of the border, house prices have also never been so high, and sales volumes in Canada have smashed records in 2020 to boot. In September they were up a whopping 33.1% compared to the same time last year and the market continues to be buoyant. Across the pond, UK house prices have been similarly surging.
Fuelled by a stamp duty holiday and historically low interest rates, they have risen 4.7% on average this year, hitting a record high in September. Other countries that have seen record house prices in 2020 include Germany, the Netherlands, France, Poland, Russia and New Zealand to name but a few.
Neighbours in the properties surrounding a $11.5 million (£8.5m) townhouse on Durham Place in London's upmarket Chelsea district got the fright of their lives on an otherwise quiet Monday night in early November when the Georgian property, which dates from the late 1700s, came crashing down with an almighty bang.
Miraculously, nobody was hurt in the catastrophic collapse, but at least 40 people had to be evacuated by firefighters in the immediate aftermath. Had the property caved in during the day, as many as 15 builders, who were working on a renovation that included extending the basement and constructing an upper terrace, could have been injured or even lost their lives.
It later transpired the townhouse is owned by the family of the late movie mogul Arthur Abeles and has an illustrious history. Stars of stage and screen including Sean Connery and Noël Coward were wined and dined at the property, and Ronald Reagan once showed up on the driveway to whisk Abeles and his model wife away for a glam weekend in Monaco. It's a bona fide house build disaster!
A trend nobody could have predicted this time last year, buyers in nations around the world have been falling over themselves to snap up rural homes as COVID-19 prompts an ever-growing number of people, many of whom now work from home, to upsize and move to the sticks. By November, the escape to the country mania had reached fever pitch.
By way of example, a London couple entered into a bidding war in November and allegedly forked out double the asking price of $270,000 (£200k) for this modest and decidedly rundown two-bedroom, one-bathroom cottage in Shropshire, which is in dire need of modernisation and doesn't even have a working kitchen. What it does offer however is an idyllic location and breathtaking views.
It's a similar story across the Atlantic. Rural property sales have skyrocketed in the US and Canada, easily outpacing demand for city-centre homes as the exodus continues. In Canada's Cottage Country for instance, demand “is going ballistic” according to Canadian Real Estate Association economist Chris Brent, with buyers more than willing to pay 70% above asking price.
In November, a deep-pocketed buyer was given the opportunity yet again to own America's oldest-surviving log cabin, the C. A. Nothnagle House in Gibbstown, New Jersey. The building is thought to have been constructed as early as 1638 by Finnish immigrants to what was then known as New Sweden, 138 years before the United States was founded.
The cabin's current owners have gone to great lengths to restore the property to its original state, ripping out later additions, and the interior looks much like it would have during the 17th century. The bricks in the fireplace are likely to have been repurposed ballast from the ships that conveyed the first Scandinavian immigrants, and the hanging pots are thought to date from the 1590s.
The age-old property was listed three years ago for $2.9 million (£2.2m). The price was subsequently reduced to $1.8 million (£1.3m) but the cabin remained unsold. It is now on the market with Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty for the discounted price of $875,000 (£649k). Here's hoping a generous benefactor will snap it up and gift the house to the nation.
The tiniest detached house in the UK re-emerged on the market in November with estate agent Newton Fallowell. Located in Leicester's leafy Knighton neighbourhood, the diminutive Rose Cottage is just 13 feet-wide and 26 feet-tall, and measures only 338 square feet in total.
Built in 1900, the standalone property was sold at auction last year for $209,000 (£155k) following the death of its elderly owner. In the meantime, a developer has completely overhauled the dinky house, extending the living room, as well as putting in a new roof, kitchen, bathroom and central heating system. As you can see however, it's surprisingly spacious.
The developer wisely kept things neutral inside and went for a modern feel while retaining the historical character of the property's exterior. The asking price of $370,000 (£275k) may seem rather steep for a home of this size, but it's significantly below the average for the area, which is one of Leicester's most sought-after.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, the gorgeous Villa Firenze in LA's Beverly Hills has been on the market since 2018 when its billionaire owner Steven Udvar-Hazy listed it at a reported $165 million (£122.6m). Though the super-rich CEO of Air Lease Corporation has shaved $5 million (£3.7m) off the asking price, a buyer is yet to be found, prompting Udvar-Hazy to put the mega-mansion up for auction.
The most expensive home ever to go under the hammer will now be offloaded to the highest bidder at a Concierge Auctions sale this month. Best of all, no reserve price has been set, so there's a good chance someone could get the real estate bargain of the century. Sprawling over 20,000 square feet, the 20-bedroom, 23-bathroom property sits on nine acres and is as luxe as they come.
More palazzo than a mere villa, the mega-mansion has all the trappings of the quintessential billionaire's abode and then some, including a library, home theatre, gym, resort-style pool and more, plus it recently underwent a ridiculously high-end refurb, which was an impressive seven years in the making.
Loved this? Like and follow us on Facebook for more amazing real estate stories