Beatles’ childhood homes are selling at ridiculous premiums
The semi-detached house at 1 Blomfield Rd. in Liverpool is a modest three-bedroom with a stucco exterior, wood-paneled walls, and red shag carpeting. In a typical scenario, such details would make the house feel outdated and undesirable. But Tuesday’s sale was far from typical: The property, which was home to John Lennon’s mom until her death in 1958, sold at auction for $229,000.
That’s $59,000 more than what comparable homes typically list for in the area. The buyer was a London woman named Jackie Holmes, who bought George Harrison’s childhood home last year for $231,000. She told the Liverpool Echo that she plans to live in one home and rent out the other as a Beatles-themed apartment.
This strain of Beatlemania has been going around. Over the last 18 months, anonymous buyers paid $229,000 for one of Paul McCartney’s childhood homes, and $712,000 for the house Lennon lived in until he was 5. Those prices represent markups ranging from 100 percent to 200 percent, based on the prices of similar nearby homes listed on the real estate website Rightmove.
Lennon never lived in the house that sold on Tuesday, though it has a place in Beatles lore for its proximity to Penny Lane and because Lennon was visiting his mother when she was struck and killed by an automobile. McCartney only lived in the house sold last month at auction for a few years. Harrison spent much of his childhood in the house that sold last year, and he sometimes hosted practices for the Quarrymen, the band that later evolved into the Beatles.
By: Patrick Clark
Source: Bloomberg News
