Hope you don't mind the box room! One of London's smallest homes sells for £100,000 MORE than its asking price at £713,000 (but could fetch £1 million after a refurb)

• e-mail

One of London's smallest homes in Chelsea has sold for £100,000 more than its asking price at £700,000.

The one-bedroom property, which had been put on the market for the first time in 50 years, boasts just 290 square feet of floor space but more than 100 people viewed it after it went on sale last month.

And despite it requiring a full renovation, the home on Britten Street was so sought after that 19 people ended up making offers and a last minute bidding war resulted in Robin Swailes paying £713,823.

One of London's smallest detached homes, located in upmarket Chelsea, has sold for more than £700,000 after a bidding war

The one-bedroom property had been put on the market for the first time in 50 years and needs plenty of work done to it

The property boasts just 290 square feet of floor space but more than 100 people viewed it after it went on sale last month

Despite it requiring a full renovation, the home on Britten Street was so sought after that 19 people ended up making offers

A last minute bidding war resulted in Robin Swailes, who runs North Oxford Property Services, paying £713,823 for the home

Mr Swailes, 54, who runs North Oxford Property Services, used his pension to fund the purchase because he feels he will get a better return from the property.

He said: 'Everyone dreams of owning a detached house in central London. It is small but beautiful and we're going to renovate it and use it as a pied-a-terre.'

The final price paid for the home - sold by Douglas and Gordon - is around three times the average home in England and Wales and a staggering £2,400 per sq ft.

Once fully restored the home - which is near the famous King's Road - could be worth £1million. Walk through the front door and you're straight into the reception room, with a doorway leading to the kitchen and shower room.

Stairs lead up to the sole bedroom on the first floor, with a window overlooking St Luke's Gardens, a pretty park which has a church in the grounds. The home was put on the market for the first time since 1969.

LonRes, which analyses the property market in the capital, said the average detached home in central London is 4,130 sq ft which is 14 times the size of the home on Britten Street.

New owner Mr Swailes, 54, used his pension to fund the purchase because he feels he will get a better return from the home

The final price paid is around three times the average home in England and Wales and a staggering £2,400 per sq ft

Mr Swailes said the property is 'small but beautiful and we're going to renovate it and use it as a pied-a-terre'

Once fully restored the home in Chelsea - which is near the famous King’s Road - could be worth £1million

Ed McCulloch, sales manager at Douglas & Gordon in Chelsea, said: 'When fully refurbished, the value of this proper Chelsea gem will almost certainly increase in price, making it a great investment

'Properties this unique are extremely rare, and the person who owns it can be safe in the knowledge that no-one else lives in a house quite like them.' 

In comparison, other properties that have been on the market for around £700,000 in previous years include a converted Cold War-era bunker in Yeovil, Somerset, which become a five-bedroom timber-clad eco-house.

With £700,000 you could also get a 16th century thatched property near the village of Bosbury, Herefordshire, including a bowling green set within two acres of grounds and its own nine-hole golf course in the garden.

Further afield with the same budget, you could also go for a stunning 14-bedroom castle in the Dordogne, France, for £700,000 - which also features 14 bathrooms and its own suit of armour - as well as 46 hectares of land. 

Stairs lead up to the sole bedroom on the first floor, with a window overlooking St Luke's Gardens in Chelsea (pictured)

The home was put on the market for the first time since 1969 and sold for more than £100,000 above its asking price

When fully refurbished, the value of the home 'will almost certainly increase in price', according to the estate agent

Floor plan: The owner 'can be safe in the knowledge that no-one else lives in a house quite like them', the estate agent said

London’s smallest home is believed to be a 188 sq ft property in Islington, which is less than half the size of a train carriage and a fifth of the size of the average new build – and sold for £275,000 in September 2014.

Guinness World Records currently recognise a house in Conwy, North Wales, as Britain's smallest house. The house, aptly called The Smallest House in Great Britain, is just 10ft tall and has two rooms.

It can only fit four people at a time and is around 6ft wide, but tourists still pay the £1 fee to enter every year. It was occupied for about 200 years until local fisherman Robert Jones, who was 6ft 3in tall, moved out in 1900.

The narrowest property in Britain is a terraced home onthe Isle of Cumbrae off the Ayrshire coast in Scotland. That home has a 3ft 1in front façade, although it does spread to 22ft wide as it moves back from the road. 

Last year developer Mark Keely unveiled plans for Britain's smallest new build house - squeezed into a 12ft-wide space between a Barclays bank branch and a Grade-II-listed period property in Wheatley, Oxfordshire.