£5200 for 10 houses

[wanderer]

PUBLISHED: September 3, 2015 10:15 am LAST UPDATED: September 3, 2015 1:19 pm
£520 for a Wolverhampton house - or take 10 for £5,200


Bob and Stella Hammonds who have lived in their house since the 1960s, when it would have cost just a few thousand pounds


And that is exactly what someone bought in 1947 - '10 villa residences' in Wolverhampton for the bargain price of just £5,200.

In today's money and accounting for inflation the properties in Ridge Lane, Wednesfield would still have been an incredible bargain at just £19,436.42.


These 10 villa residences in Ridge Lane, Wednesfield, once sold for £5,200
The E&S piece from 1947 revealing the job lot of houses for £5,200

The rock bottom sum was revealed in a fragile copy of the Express & Star from July 17 that year, sent in by reader Pauline Poole, who found two copies of the newspaper during a clear-out of her home in Harrowby Place, Willenhall and said they made for 'fascinating reading'.

The story, headlined £5,200 for Wednesfield investment property, reads: "Ten Wednesfield villa residences sold as investment property in one lot, realised £5,200 when offered for public auction by Dick Fuell at the Star and Garter Hotel, Wolverhampton, last night. They were 28 to 46 (even), Ridge Lane, net annual income from them amounting to £284 16s 8d."

Average annual earnings in 1947 were around £300 meaning the houses would have been much more affordable than they are today

[sophie]

I'm sure its very interesting but why is so much of your message repeated. Is it a computer glitch or what?

[jofra]

I suspect (from past experience) that the original article (that has probably been copied and pasted from a news(paper) web site included pictures, and that the duplicated bits were captions to those pictures which did not paste across....

[wanderer]

sorry about duplications