How much will the government get back from the £1b being
spent building the 2800-unit Olympic Village? Well, about £750m according to
David Salvi of Clerkenwell-based residential agents, Hurford Salvi Carr, who
kindly calculated the numbers for today's Evening Standard column.
This isn't as bad as it sounds. For that £1b includes at least £200m of costs not normally associated with building new
homes. First, the finance costs of spending £600 million building the units
before getting a penny back: second retro-fitting 2800 kitchens and building a
school; third rental guarantees to the housing association taking the risk of
letting and part-selling 1000 of the units.
And the price of the open plan flats in 2012? That's in
the Standard story. But there was no space to include the technical detail. At
today's price Salvi reckons the 1-bed and two bed flats should fetch £365 sq
ft. Add a 10% uplift to take you to 2012 - and then add a further 5% premium
for Olympic Park status to take the prices to £420 sq ft.
There was also no space to put in the sizes. But bearing
in mind that Boris Johnson has just issued guidance on minimum space standards
its worth adding that the one-bed flats will average 51m2; the 2-beds,
70m2. This is pretty much the same size as the 1000 "social units" - and
compliant with Boris's kick-ass view in another story in the Standard column that the human backside
is the arbiter of minimum space standards.