Unusual property sales of 2015

The property market has been downright crazy in 2015. Price hikes may have slowed a little in London towards the end of the year, but prices are now at jaw-dropping levels. And it's not just the prices that have been unusual - there have been a fair number of weird and wonderful properties hitting the market too - and even some house sales that were somewhat unexpected.

1. Black Friday Frenzy
The massive demand for affordable property in London, and the dearth of supply, led to a Black Friday frenzy in November. One company launched a development of one-bedroom flats and tiny studio apartments in Hounslow, costing as little as £199,000. Desperate buyers queued overnight to be in with a chance of snapping up one of the cheapest. In the first three hours they were on sale, buyers snapped up 215 flats - at a rate of £335 a minute.

2. One of the smallest ever
One of the smallest properties ever sold in London hit the rental market in September. For £895 a week you got high class fixtures and fittings in swanky Knightsbridge, The only drawback was that you had to squeeze into 72 square feet. We had to go back to 2005 to find a smaller flat on the rental market.
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3. Most expensive flat
However, when it comes to jaw-dropping prices, it takes a lot to beat the country's most expensive flat - which went on the market in June this year - for an astonishing £75 million. For that you got five bedrooms in the incredibly exclusive One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge. At the time it was thought to be the most expensive flat ever to have hit the open market - although rumour has it that one of the penthouses in the development sold privately for £140 million.

4. Most expensive house
Of course, if you want to put that into perspective, there's always the country's most expensive house. That's at 2-8a Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, and boasts 60,000 square feet of living space, 45 bedrooms and a swimming pool in the basement. It had been on the market since 2012, and reportedly sold for £280 million (£20 million less than the asking price). The buyer immediately put the entire contents of the house up for auction.

5. Scottish affordability
At the other end of the spectrum, an entire Scottish estate hit the market, for less than the price of a London house this year. The Aird Bheag Estate is on the market for £375,000. It includes 2,754 acres of countryside on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides - complete with a three bedroom house, outbuildings and a suitable space for landing helicopters.

6. 5p bargain
If you fancied a spot of island life with an even smaller price tag, there was an interesting option on the market in March for just 5p. Yes 5p. For that you got your own property on a Norwegian Island, with a choice of beautiful beaches. The only downside is that you have to renovate what is currently a derelict shack. The building work is likely to have been made slightly trickier by the fact that the island of Buoya is part of Helgeland, an archipelago on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Norway, and the house is the only one on the island.

7. Most expensive shed
It's not safe to assume that all derelict and collapsing sheds are affordable though. In August one in Goudhurst in Kent went on the market for £895,000. The reason for the insane price tag was that the shed stands in a desirable plot, with impressive views, and has planning permission for a six-bedroom property designed by Sir Terry Farrell.

8. Hobbit house
If all this talk of prices is getting a bit depressing, in June we spotted a house in Minneapolis that was fanciful enough to raise anyone's spirits. The owner's commitment to bringing the outside in included stone mosaics over the kitchen cabinets and the fridge, tree murals, animal print, and in one striking instance, a waterfall cascading down the wall by the stairs. There was even a mural of a wolf in a cave greeting guests by the street.

9. Sold behind his back
Sometimes it's not the property or the price that's unusual - it's the sale itself. In November, it emerged that a woman from the West Midlands had found an unusual way to get revenge on her cheating husband. While he was on a two-week work trip to New York she sold the property (which was in her name), so that when he arrived home, he found a group of students living there.

10. Unusual sale
Meanwhile, a development in Beverley hit the news, for including an odd clause in the property details. Any buyers wanting a home in the development (based around a Victorian hospital) had to agree never to hang clothes outside in a way that would "detract from the visual enjoyment of the building".