London's Expensive Mansion on the Blocks

With an asking price that is said to be 800 times the average property price in London, this mansion on Hyde Park could be the most expensive piece of real estate to come on the market, though it is not being marketed officially.

Financial Times reports that the property, which is said to be the largest single family home in London, is being offered only to a select group of wealthy international buyers.

The 60,000 square feet property was once owned by the Lebanese late prime minister Rafic Hariri and was later gifted to Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, after Hariri’s assassination in the Beirut bomb blast in 2005. Hariri is said to have had close ties with the prince’s family, who also died in October 2011.

This mansion is in the market for $483 million, which is twice the asking price of the city’s previous expensive sale – $226 million for a One Hyde Park penthouse.

If the mansion manages to garner its asking price, the stamp duty alone will be $34 million.

"The list of people who can afford it would be very brief, and will be on the Forbes 500 list," property expert Henry Pryor told The Guardian. "The person who buys it will be looking for the opportunity to have one of the best addresses in London – it's a trophy rather than an investment."

The seven-storey house, which was originally built in 1982 as four separate family homes, has 45 bedrooms and is “slightly smaller than the playing surface of a Premier League football pitch,” the Financial Times reported.

It also has an indoor swimming pool, industrial sized kitchen, underground parking, bulletproof windows, and gold leaf decorations that is said to be worth millions.

“The property is one of London’s most unique residences and really only comparable to two others," Oliver Hooper of Huntly Hooper real estate agency told the Sun. “Those are Bridgewater House next to St James’s Palace, which is owned by the Latsis family, and Dudley House, in Mayfair owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is the Emir of Qatar. As Bridgewater House and Dudley House are not for sale, I suspect this will be the only chance to get a house of this size in the area for a good number of years.

“Properties like these are in such short supply that for them to become available for purchase is a very rare opportunity.”