London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2025

London’s smallest microflat up for sale at £50,000 for 7 square metres

London’s smallest microflat up for sale at £50,000 for 7 square metres

Property in a Victorian conversion in Lower Clapton has a bed, microwave, bathroom and incumbent tenant

Imagine distilling your life to fit in just 7 square metres. There would just about be space for a bed, a toilet and shower, a sink, a microwave and some storage. But no room for a kitchen to cook in, decorations, a place to store equipment for hobbies, or to have anyone round to visit.

This is life in London’s smallest microflat. Located in a Victorian conversion in Lower Clapton, east London it is thought by its sellers to be the smallest to have gone on the market in the capital. The minimum price set by auctioneers is £50,000, but it is expected to go for more as it was bought for £103,500 in May 2017.

The flat is an example of what experts say is a growing phenomenon of tiny homes, driven by soaring rent and property prices. Microflats are becoming more sought-after and even smaller, they say.

The Clapton flat has recently been renovated and has a large window. To maximise space, it has a captain’s bed above storage space and cupboards. The space between the bed and the wall is about wide enough to spread your arms in, and there’s a foldout table for eating or working on. A toilet and shower are in a separate wet room.

… the bed, microwave and storage …


The owner has already recouped their investment by getting £800 in rent each month. The current tenant lives elsewhere for most of the time and spends just a night or two each week in the flat as it is closer to work.

The auction minimum is well below the average deposit for first-time buyers in London, which Halifax calculated at £130,357 in 2020, but Neal Hudson, a housing analyst, warned that first-time buyers should be aware it is not sustainable to live in a tiny flat long-term and that if they are unable to sell they could find themselves stuck.

The price is a powerful symbol of how inaccessible housing has become. The TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp recently irked millennials by suggesting they could afford to buy their own homes if they spent less on the gym, easyJet flights, coffee and Netflix. Critics have pointed out that when she bought her first flat, the average home cost £50,000 and measured 73.4 sq m – 10 times bigger than the Clapton flat.

… the bathroom …


Stuart Collar-Brown, the director of My Auction, which is selling the flat, said that although it was the cheapest flat with a long leasehold on the market within a 10-mile radius, he expected it would be bought by an investor rather than a first-time buyer, as high street banks will not lend on properties below 30 sq m.

With rental income estimated at about £10,000, investors were likely to be able to recoup the £50,000 outlay within five years, he said. Suitable tenants would not spend much time at home and would be those who were tired of house-sharing but unable to afford more space, or who lived elsewhere and needed a crash pad for work, he said. For instance, doctors or nurses working in nearby Homerton hospital, or workers in the City, given the area’s good transport links to Liverpool Street.

In 2019 a 9 sq m flat in another part of Hackney was on the market for £130,000. The estate agents Wild & Co said it received two offers, both below the asking price, and it took 28 viewings to find tenants, who paid £600 a month.

Microflats are becoming more popular and their size is shrinking, according to research by Philip Hubbard, a professor of urban studies at Kings’s College London. One in 15 apartments in London fall below the national minimum standard of 37 sq m for a one-bedroom home, while the median size of UK properties below the space standard fell by one square metre to 29 sq m this year.

… and back out to the entrance. Tour over.


Hubbard recommended that buyers look for flats above 37 sq m since fewer windows and the inability to divide living, working and leisure space take a toll on sleep and mental health, and smaller properties are more expensive per square metre.

Julia Rugg, a research fellow at York University’s Centre for Housing Policy, said the Clapton sale reflected the “inflated nature of the housing market in London” and said it would be a “worrying development” if microflats were seen as a solution to housing affordability.

“This is accommodation that is barely suitable as a hotel room, and does not constitute sustainable liveable space. The property lacks comfort or amenity and forces reliance on disposable items. The neighbourhood may well be awash with bars and cafes but relying on these for living space makes life very expensive,” she said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
×