Wetherell

...but what would Bertie Wooster have made of the decor at this Piccadilly pad? When buying a property, you should always take a careful look at the neighbours. You want to know, after all, that they’re your sort of people. The first thing you notice about St James’s Street is that you get a very high class of corner shop. Swaine Adeney Brigg, for example, has been here since 1750, and is so oblivious to modern thinking that it displays hunting pink in the window. Nice to have it so close, though. You never know when you’re going to need hunting pink in a hurry.......

The pulling power of luxury brands has pushed up the cost of renting the best retail space in one Mayfair street by a recession-defying 330 per cent Before July 2006, Mount Street, London W1, was home to a number of arts and antiques dealers and was considered more of a through route from Berkeley Square to Park Lane than a destination in itself. Then came the designer clothes store Marc Jacobs, with the letting of 24/25 Mount Street. Since then, rents for the best space — the first 20ft from the store entrance — have risen from £90 a sq ft to £300 as other designer retailers have clamoured to benefit from the “Jacobs effect”..........

Savvy art lovers are shunning fashion and hype and adorning their walls with contemporary classics Have you ever wondered what experimental art rockers put up on their walls? It’s not what you think, to judge by the sample of Bryan Ferry’s collection being exhibited at the London International Fine Art Fair (LIFAF), which opens today. The avant-garde Roxy Music frontman, who studied art at Newcastle University, may have stirred up the music scene in the 1970s, but when it comes to art to hang on his walls, he likes it to be attractive, accessible and even homely.........

Not much ruffles the creamy white stucco in Belgravia and Mayfair, London’s two primest property postcodes. Yet all of a sudden, change is afoot. In a location where houses change hands for tens of millions of pounds, more property is currently available than anyone in the business can remember. Most of it, however, remains, in any conventional sense, unmarketed. It’s there, it’s for sale, but only if you know the right people. Welcome to London’s secret property market, where contacts, rather than cash, open doors.

The future is bright for sellers in prime locations. For everyone else, the outlook is more gloom Househunters will be out in force shopping for a home this year, but those lucky few able to negotiate the many challenges bedevilling the market will be ruthless customers.