7. Despite being empty, most are still owned
“Billionaire’s Row”, also known as The Bishops Avenue is a road that leads from Hampstead to East Finchley in North London. The road is, quite simply put, one of the most fascinating residential streets in the world. The average house price is around £20 million, however, a large percentage of houses along this particularly long road are left abandoned. The history behind this rather interesting avenue is quite extraordinary. A majority of the mansions sold on The Bishops Avenue were during the 80s where they were roughly priced around £1 million. Many of these buyers were actually royalty, for example a row of ten mansions worth at least £73 million were reportedly purchased on behalf of the Saudi royal family between 1989 and 1993. A majority of these properties have never actually been used, and since there purchase over 30 years ago have been left to rot and allow nature to take over. Nowadays, the types of scenes you’ll see from these abandoned mansions are drained and decayed swimming pools, wild bushes forming around gates and building structure, collapsed tiling and damp all over the floors and ceilings. Many of these mansions, if they are to be sold on, will be at a significantly reduced price, and will most likely need to be refurbished to some extreme levels. The backlash of these abandoned mansions have certainly been felt by local residents, as it tarnishes the reputation of the area and many believe it looks very ugly, despite Hampstead being seen as one of the most pleasant looking areas in London.