X Factor: who owns the latest house?
October 3, 2011 at 12:41 PM Lawrence Hall 1 comment
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
The X Factor ‘house’ is fast becoming a national institution as every year another enormous home in North London is revealed as the contestants’ base for the TV talent spotting show.
The latest property to join this illustrious list is Connaught House, a white, six-bedroom detached property to rent in Hertford Heath, just south of Hertford, pictured below.
The house was bought for £5.5 million in 2006 by David and Karina Rickards, at the time both serial entrepreneurs featured in the Sunday Times Rich List after selling their broadband firm Pipex for £55m in 2003. You may remember its rather odd adverts featuring David Hasselhoff.
But the couple, who have disappeared from public view somewhat recently, have been trying to rent the property out since April this year for £12,000 a month.
They may get more than they bargain for. Renting a property out to X Factor can be on the one hand very lucrative (ITV often pay up to £120,000 to get exclusive access to a property during the programme’s four-month run) but there’s downsides too.
That’s because the properties often need heavy modifications to house the wannabe pop stars on the programme and, for example, master bedrooms are turned into dormitories while dining rooms become recording or photographic studios. Also, each property hired out to the programme usually gets heavy wear-and-tear and several of the ‘houses’ – including one in Hampstead two years ago – have had to be expensively refurbished once the programme is over – at the expense of the TV production company.
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gitesforsalefrance | October 4, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Why would they bother? Letting it out, that is. Does the notoreity count for more than the damage done to the property? Suppose it must, to judge from the interest in this sort of letting.