On the night of the event, protesters smashed one huge glass front window of high-end estate agent Foxton's and daubed "Yuppies out" on another.
According to Yolande Barnes, head of residential research for Savills, another high-end estate agency, movements in London property are closely aligned with those in the price of gold.
As installed in the center's insufficiently luxurious and architecturally amorphous galleries, however, the idea of the high-end estate sale and the implied socio-cultural critique lose all traction.
Finally, there were 20 camera teams assembled for the shoot, following not just religious types but ordinary working people, juxtaposing a high-end estate agent with a protest group who occupy empty houses.
High-end estate items and antiques, affordable furniture, jewelry, books and other artifacts are the meat of his business: his clients have included Lauren Bacall and Ellen Barkin and, in his dealer days, the hotelier Leona Helmsley (she was not, he recalled, mean to him).
He had invited his marketing agency and a high-end estate agent to decide on the name of his new, billion-pound block of luxury flats in Kensington, which was already rising above some of the world's most valuable square feet.
High-end estate agents have said that even those with more than £30m to spend – including Google's billionaire chairman Eric Schmidt – have been struggling to find suitable accommodation in the capital, while figures released last month by Nationwide building society showed the average UK home is increasing in value by more than £50 a day.
At James Pendleton, one of several high-end estate agents in a street near the common, advertising sizeable terraced properties for just under £1.5m, Peter Clarkson said he had heard from buyers trying to cut deals and a seller who thought they might be able to benefit.
The website, created with the high-end estate agent consultancy Knight Frank and the architects Ryder Architecture, tells potential builders they do not need to worry about affordable housing lowering the tone of the development as the legally required affordable units can be housed in a separate development on the main hospital site.
Launched in late 2016, Nested competes with high-end estate agents by providing all of the services needed to sell your house, but with a key difference.
