Househunter St Peter's, Covent Garden, London

One of the most spectacular apartments to hit the market this year is the show loft in the newly converted St Peter's Hospital. It backs on to the secret garden of the actors' church of St Paul's and it is hard to believe you are only a stone's throw from the noisy piazza. Inside, the apartment has double-height ceilings and windows, leaving space to create a proper galleried floor with a second bedroom and bathroom. The show flat, along with the other seven loft-style shells, is for sale from Knight Frank & Rutley for pounds 950,000. Prices in the building start at pounds 450,000.

For what it's worth

A small sign of optimism in the interminable gloom that has characterised the property market this year comes from the latest monthly report of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The number of agents reporting that prices are still falling has dropped from a high of 32 per cent in July to 21 per cent in October. For the third year running business has slumped in the autumn, with the 122 agents surveyed selling an average of 24 houses a quarter now compared with 33 in the three months to the end of September. Estate agents say one-bed flats, small terraces and ex-council houses are becoming almost impossible to sell.

Who's moving

Jurgen Klinsmann has finally given up the house he rented as a player for Tottenham Hotspur. The house in Old Brewery Mews, Hampstead, north London, has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and the very European facility of a sauna. It is available through Chestertons in Hampstead (0171-794 1125) for pounds 550 a week.