The £375,000 house that's less than seven feet wide

Updated
The narrow Hackney house
The narrow Hackney house



The latest contender for the UK's narrowest house has just hit the market - a one-bedroom end of terrace measuring just seven feet wide.

In Clifden Road in Hackney, East London, the freehold property is squeezed in at the end of a row of Victorian houses and is on the market with a guide price of £350,000 to £375,000 through agent Felicity J Lord.

The living room of the narrow Hackney house
The living room of the narrow Hackney house



There's a bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor with a kitchen and living room above. And while the living room is a reasonable length at 15'5" long, it's just 6'11" wide, and the kitchen measures less than seven feet square. All in all, the house amounts to less than 800 square feet.

Outside, there are tiny gardens to the front and rear, as well as a roof terrace.

The kitchen of the narrow Hackney house
The kitchen of the narrow Hackney house



The property is much the same width as a Harringay house which went on the market last autumn. Put up for auction on October 1, it didn't sell, despite attracting bids of over £240,000 - £5,000 more than the guide price. Built in a driveway between two other houses, it was owned by a property developer who now looks set to rent it out instead.

Both these houses, though, look positively palatial compared with a property that's recently gone on the market in Sheffield. The detached house is up for sale for £99,000, despite measuring just 359 square feet.

Even tinier is a house in London's fashionable Islington, which went on the market last year: at just 188 square feet, it's smaller than many family tents. However, the pint-sized flat was viewed by thousands of people online, and sold easily for £270,000.

A report last autumn from free-market think-tank the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the UK has the smallest homes in Europe, averaging just 66 square metres, compared with 118 square metres in Ireland, 115 square metres in Denmark and 110 square metres in Italy.

The reason, of course, is the high house prices that mean people will put up with more or less anything, just to get onto the property ladder. This time last year, we reported on the rise of so-called semi-studio flats, some of which measure just ten feet square in total.

The government recently published plans for minimum space standards for new homes, specifying that every bedroom should be at least 7.05 feet wide - meaning that something the same size as the Clifden Road property wouldn't qualify. However, these standards are, at least for the time being, voluntary; and London property developers may not take a great deal of notice.

Read more on AOL Money:
Is this Britain's smallest detached house?
Breathe in: could you live in this tiny house?
Tiny Islington house could be London's smallest

Tiny Homes With Big Appeal
Tiny Homes With Big Appeal





Advertisement