Shard flats to go for up to £50m each

Thursday 5th July 2012

The sale of ten apartments in London’s Shard skyscraper this summer will hit new heights – both as the tallest homes in Europe, and for their sky-high prices.

The flats on 13 floors in the 95-storey 1,017-feet tall building are likely to go for £30m to £50m apiece.

This puts them in the same price bracket as One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge, Europe’s priciest homes to date.

However, the Shard is not in the plush West End with Harrods as the local corner shop, but in SE1, south of the Thames by London Bridge station, where Charles Dickens observed life in the slums, and where today it’s still possible to pick up a flat for under £300,000.

According to website FindaProperty, even a four-bed flat in SE1 averages just over £1.1m.

Yolande Barnes, of estate agents Savills, said: “You don’t get this pinnacle of value in relation to the surrounding district in any other city in the developed world.

“It’s the equivalent of building the Shard in Harlem.”

The Shard also contains offices, a hotel, a spa, shops, restaurants and public viewing gallery.

It has its official opening today.