Putting on the Ritz
MY PLANS to sell my house and move into the Ritz are beginning to take shape. Already the arithmetic looks good. I would like to think that, as a regular customer, I could reserve a room there for not too much more than £1,000 a week. This would provide a roof over my head and cover any number of domestic costs — council tax, water rates, lighting and heating, house- keeping, linen, security, porterage and oil to pour into the bath and make bubbles. Breakfast in London's most beautiful dining- room will probably be extra. Even so, at something. like £60,000 a year my deal would compare very favourably with the cost of mortgaging a house in London. The interest rate on a mortgage from the Halifax was until this week set at 6.85 per cent, and at that rate interest payments of £60,000 a year gross up to a capital sum of £876,000. Given the way that the London house mar- ket is going, that sort of money would scarcely buy you a pied-a-terre in Fulham. Just at the moment, of course, you might do better to borrow the money and move into Fulham, hoping that your house will increase in value by more than £60,000 a year. Deutsche Bank seems to think that prices are set to go up by a third. The art will be to time that move into the Ritz for the moment when the bubble bursts and prices start to fall. No bell will ring in the market to tell us when that moment comes. Book now.
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