Provincial cities just aren't cool

Gather round and listen to the woeful tale of the aspirational provincial city that aspired to metropolitan living.

Leicester is a city of suburbs, of three bedroom semis. of driveways and small gardens. Like most provincial cities it aspires to be more......more what, it's not quite sure about, but, just more than it already is, or at least less boring.

For smart, eye catching To-Let boards, to get your property noticed.

Let's be more like London it thought, you know more trendy, more cool, like Tony said, 'Cool Leicester', let's be cool!!!

So as the majority of Britains provincial cities did, it dived into the world of city apartment developments. These were snapped up by the local 'bright young things' and BTL property investors who thought cool must be the future.

It even developed it's own skyscraper the Thames Tower, like in London....cool.

It was so cool all 112 apartments over it's 16 floors were snapped up off plan.

But then we all decided apartments weren't cool anymore and today only 14 have been bought and are occupied. The avalanche of withdrawals have caused the collapse of the developer, Brampton Asset Management (Leicester) Ltd.

The administrator is now chasing the buyers who broke their contracts and will be trying to force them to complete their purchases.

Maybe investors should steer clear of cool and pick boring and sensible property investments, 2 and 3 bedroom houses as Fergus Wilson advises.

With city centre apartments suffering worst in the recession will they be the slums of the future? - Read more analysis in this BBC article

Find out what rabbit thinks of his city centre apartment investment

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