Tuesday 21 February 2017 9:31 am

The “cheapest home in Mayfair” has gone on sale for just £500,000 (but there’s a catch)

If you have ambitions of being a small fish in a very expensive pond, look no further than a two-bedroom apartment which has just gone on sale in London's most exclusive borough, Mayfair, at the bargain price of just £500,000. Admittedly, though, there's a catch…

The apartment, next to Claridges on Davies Street, has been dubbed "the biggest bargain in central London" by its agent, which pointed out the average two-bed in Mayfair sells at £2.8m. In fact, fewer than than five per cent of homes sold in the area last year went for less than seven figures – and none were priced below £750,000.

The problem? The lease on the apartment, set across three storeys in Erskine House, a recently-built apartment block, is just 12 years.

Still – Wetherell, the ultra-posh London agent which is handling the sale, reckons it's still a bargain. Over 12 years, the cost of the apartment works out at £868 per week – compared with £1,300 per week to rent the average Mayfair home.

The flat is likely to be snapped up by a super-rich student looking for a pied-a-terre in London's poshest neighbourhood. Wetherell suggested the buyer will be Qatari or Saudi Arabian: "£500,000 is pocket money for wealthy students from the Middle East," it said.

Peter Wetherell, its chief executive, added: “This flat has forced me to eat my words and to retract a bold claim I made just last year.

"Last year we forecast the extinction of the sub-£1m flat in Mayfair. Well this flat clearly proves that mega-bargains can still be snapped up in Mayfair. Like the Dodo, sub-£1m flats are still extremely rare in Mayfair so we expect it to sell extremely quickly.”

If you're after something more bijou, how about this tiny Chelsea house, which was put on sale for £600,000 last week? Although it's worth pointing out house prices in the area haven't exactly grown recently…