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Estate Agents in West Hampstead, London NW6 - from the Evening Standard - 21st January 1994

It is 2.30 on a wet and cold Friday afternoon in West Hampstead and I'm sitting in the offices of Paramount Properties, one of five along this section of West End Lane. For the better part of an hour Mark Greig, who owns Paramount with his partner Roshan Pathman, has been talking about his business and the property market in general. He's confirmed the rumour that out of this little hole in the wall he is selling more properties than any agency in this part of North London (about five a week ranging in price from £60,000 to £2.5 million); revealed how he survived the recession (repossessions); and extrapolated on the kind of property which is selling faster than he can supply it (prime areas and 'some fringe'). He's even clarified, once and for all, who is out there buying up what he calls the 'best bits' of London (South Africans, Israelis, Arabs and Russians - read: foreign).

Greig is 31 and despite the fact that he's been selling property since he was 17, the hormones are still pumping. He is your stereotypical flashy estate agent - slicked back hair, bespoke suit, Porsche double-parked, mobile phone - and what's more, he doesn't care who knows it. 'Look, ' he says, flashing a mischievous smile, 'me mum loves me.' I don't doubt it for a moment. But I can't help noticing that while the phones in the office haven't stopped ringin, not one punter weaving his way up the high street has even glanced at the glossy promotionals in Paramount's big picture window. I ask Greig finally, whatever happened to an English-driven property market? For a solid hour Mark Greig, agent extraordinaire, has found an easy answer to every single one of my questions. At this one, he just shrugs.

Well, it isn't good enough. Don't get me wrong, I like Mark Greig. There's something about a guy with a Big Mac stain on his Hermes tie, whose honest is as refreshing as it is revealing, but do agents like Greig have their finger on the pulse of a real property market revival? Is the only way forward from this disastrous recession through an influx of foreign money, vying for property in the 'best bits' of London?

The answer is yes, yes... and no. Property is alive and well again and for the moment sales are being driven by the conversion of shekels, dinars, roubles and yen into sterling. But while it may come as a surprise to Mark Greig and agents like him, profound changes about the way we buy and sell property in London are gaining momentum. They are changes that could hold the key to a long-term, English financed property market whose resilience will be based upon a viable, architecturally significant housing stock that refutes the very notion that location is omnipotent.

Consider what has happened to property in New York City over the past decade. While it's still posh to have an Upper East Side address in Manhattan (just as it will always be desirable, for some, to live in Chelsea, Holland Park or Hampstead), there is hardly an area of Manhattan today that hasn't been 'rediscovered' and gentrified. SoHo gave birth to NoHo which begat BoHo, as the dernier cri in residential quarters moved south, north, east and west. Across Manhattan today, from TriBeCa to Riverdale, more and more areas once considered 'marginal' are now 'hot', with an attendant rise in property values.

With the phenomenal success of loft conversions in reclaimed industrial buildings in areas of London like Clerkenwell, King's Cross and Bow, and the surfeit of empty B1 commercial buildings that change of use could transform into housing almost overnight, could the Manhattanisation of London be upon us?

Which brings us back, full circle, to our friend Mark Greig. For significant urban regeneration really to take hold in London, it's going to take estate agents like Greig, with the tenacity and guts to sell anything they put their minds to. While the financial incentive may not generate the quick money Greig is currently getting from his foreign investors, if and when this thing takes off - as we have seen in Manhattan - it's going to be a property market revival of real stamina with unlimited potential.

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