Pakistani politician buys Tony Blair’s family home

By Salman Siddiqui October 07, 2012 - Updated 723 PKT 12 7 4 0 Print this story By Murtaza Ali Shah LONDON: A Pakistani politician has bought a house from former Prime Minister Tony Blair after outbidding dozens of millionaires who were vying to buy the house due to the political significance attached to the Edwardian property. Dr Ashraf Chohan, a Pakistani professional with interests in nursing homes and real estate, paid £1.3 million to Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Blair, a human rights lawyer, for their house near his clinic in Marylebone, an exclusive London area, only a stone’s throw from Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and Rehman Malik’s properties in nearby Park Lane and Marble Arch areas. Incidentally, Dr Chohan belongs to PML-N and was a Punjab assembly lawmaker from Gujranwala until the dual national Pakistanis were barred from holding a public office. The Blairs had put the property on market for over 6 months and although there was a huge interest in the sale from the property hunters who make business out of places linked to celebrities, Dr Chohan stunned everyone when he gave an offer that the Blairs found hard to refuse. The market price of the house is stated to be £1.3 million in papers but it’s understood that in every such sale, tens of thousands of Pounds are paid under the table to win the deal. When reached for comment, the estate agent, who negotiated the sale of the house, refused to answer whether any amount in cash had been paid to the Blairs but it is believed that the deal was finalised after Tony Blair told the estate agent that he was interested in the offer put up by the Pakistani doctor. Speaking to ‘The News’ Dr Chohan commented that when he heard about the Blairs’ were selling their home through press reports, he didn’t even think about bidding for it because of the huge interest the property was receiving. “Then I was told that property hunters were trying to play hard and negotiate the price and taking their time to see the interest trend in the house. I made an offer to the Blairs they found difficult to turn down and the deal was done. “Doing business with notables is a joy in itself and it has been interesting to see how this deal has attracted so much attention. When Pakistanis do good in public life, this helps to lift the image of the country of their origin. I always tell my clients and business people that I am a proud Pakistani and my motherland sets my direction,” he said. Dr Chohan has been a neighbour to the Blairs for several years. “It has been shocking to see children of Tony Blair doing their own shopping, cycling around like ordinary children, having no protocol to them. We would hardly see children of ministers in Pakistan mixing with anyone other than their own class. The Blairs have been very good neighbours, always courteous.” Since the deal was finalised two weeks ago, Dr Chohan’s new home has received huge attention from media. He has been interviewed about the purchase of the house and the questions to him have focused on whether he will sell the house at an even an inflated price, his connections with Blairs and his decision to buy the house from a leader who remains deeply controversial. Tony Blair and his wife have recently been in news for their interest in real estate investment and it is believed that that they own properties worth £14 million. Dr Chohan, who came to Britain 22 years ago from Pakistan, owns 6 properties around and in central London and his worth stands at around £17 Million. Tony Blair currently lives a few streets away from the property he has sold to the Pakistani doctor in a £3.7 million mansion on Connaught Square. Scotland Yard’s armed officers provide round-the-clock protection to the Blair family due to his role in the Iraq war. ====================== More Pakistanis prefer building a home rather than buying one By Farooq Tirmizi Published: October 7, 2012 Data from zameen.com suggests that the difference in the average price of a house and an empty plot of land is substantial. DESIGN: FAIZAN DAWOOD. KARACHI: When it comes to home ownership, most Pakistanis appear to prefer buying land and building the home themselves rather than buying a readymade house, according to data compiled by real estate website zameen.com. Real estate is an asset class that the vast majority of people feel they are experts in, which is somewhat remarkable considering the fact that there is very little data available on the subject. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, however, one company has tried to compile data on the real estate market in Pakistan. Zameen.com is probably the largest real estate website in the country and has been tracking listings on its website since 2006. It has decided to release some of its data through a report, and has offered an exclusive sneak peak to The Express Tribune, which we present today to our readers. The data is taken from listings and searches on zameen.com for the first six months of the calendar year 2012, and covers some of the largest cities in Pakistan. The insights offered are somewhat surprising. The data suggests that almost 61% of the searches on the zameen.com website are for empty plots of residential land, as opposed to houses. Residential real estate inquiries themselves amount to about half of the total inquiries on the website, with the remainder focusing largely on commercial and industrial real estate. While the 61% number may be skewed slightly, owing to a larger volume of inquiries from real estate developers, it nonetheless does suggest a clear pattern: despite the advent of large residential developments made by real estate companies, a significant proportion of Pakistanis still prefer buying the land themselves and having their homes custom-built. Part of the reason for this may be traditional: people like living in a house that they themselves designed, or at least had significant input in designing. But at least part of the reason may also be economic. Data from zameen.com suggests that the difference in the average price of a house and an empty plot of land is substantial. A one-kanal (605 square yard) house in Karachi, for instance, will cost the buyer an average of Rs33.8 million, according to zameen.com’s database. A plot of land of the same area will cost approximately Rs14.5 million, leaving the buyer with Rs19.3 million to build a home according to their own needs and still come up equal to the average price of a house. It might even be possible to build a house for less and pocket the difference as savings. The data from zameen.com has some limitations. Since it is an online database, it skews towards wealthier, higher-priced neighbourhoods. Fewer people in lower-priced neighbourhoods buy and sell real estate over the internet. Nevertheless, the trends it highlights offer useful insights to people seeking to buy a home as well as people looking to invest in real estate. For instance, there are some significant regional variations between cities as well as significant differences within each city itself. The existence of these differences is intuitive, but they have never been quantified before. The first report offers a limited snapshot of prices at one time and only covers a few cities. Over time, more data is expected to become available, including a comparison of prices over time, which would help buyers of real estate answer the age-old question: by exactly how much do real estate prices appreciate over time, and does that make real estate a good investment? The current report also highlights one more interesting trend: prices per square yard in most cities are, broadly speaking, higher for smaller plots than they are for larger ones. There is, however, one exception: prices of a 300 square yard house or plot tend to be the lowest on a per square yard basis, in virtually all cities across Pakistan. Published in The Express Tribune, October 8th, 2012. ==================