Raleigh Court, Crystal Palace SE19
Apartment block forming part of Dulwich Wood Park estate
Architect: Austin Vernon & Partners
Year built: 1959

I wasn’t planning to do a blog entry about this flat that we went to see in Raleigh Court last month (mainly because the photos I took were rubbish and dark) but I noticed the other day that it’d been reduced in price (click here to see the original listing with much better photos!) so thought it was worth a mention.

As I’ve previously mentioned on this blog, I’ve unsuccessfully attempted to buy a flat on this estate on three separate occasions so I’m very familiar with the various issues associated with these flats and how good (and bad) they can look. This particular example wasn’t the best I’d seen but it wasn’t the worst either.

Located on the second floor of Raleigh Court, it wasn’t on a high enough floor for it to have panoramic views but it was bright enough inside (even in the low early evening light) and didn’t face into one of the other blocks. It was relatively neutral decor-wise, retaining the original, open-plan layout that I’ve always liked and the original iroko floor in the main living area. The newish kitchen and bathroom were fine, if not exactly to my taste and the original 1960s hot air heating system that still features in a lot of flats on the estate had been replaced with a modern gas central heating system. The lease, sometimes a problem with flats on this estate, had been recently renewed and was of a decent length (around 120 years).

I thought that the original asking price of £440k wasn’t too bad as I’ve seen flats of this type go for up to £475k on the estate at the height of the market. However, the stagnant property market appears to have caused prices to fall to mid-2015 levels as the seller recently reduced the price to £425k, the same price that a number of similar, slightly worse flats on the estate have gone for in recent months.

Unfortunately, my partner wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about these flats as I am so we didn’t put in an offer but I’d recommend going to see it if you like the estate, especially given the new price.

Exterior photos from The Modern House (because (i) it was getting dark when we had our viewing and (ii) it’s a really difficult building to photograph from the outside.