Here’s why everyone is obsessed with this £5 million Victoria Park house

Don’t tell me you’ve not thought about it. Brushing your teeth with your significant other over those twin porcelain sinks. Breaking a sweat on the Peloton while watching old episodes of Peep Show on your shiny new flatscreen TV. Walking your dog in Victoria Park and buying an overpriced Gail’s tomato-and-courgette summer slice without feeling guilty. Stirring a martini at your very own bar and dishing out entreé canapés for your dinner party around that slick kitchen island. Putting your keys in the lock. Taking a shit in the Toto washlet. 

You’ve thought about it because it is (or it was going to be) your future home. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Why, it’s the £5 million Omaze Victoria Park warehouse conversion, of course. It’s the house of dreams in a location of dreams: Victoria Park village, aka the Notting Hill of Hackney. It’s worth £5 million and the winner is also taking home a sweet £250,000 in cash ‘to make life as comfortable as possible while they work it out’. A former Victorian warehouse with a triple height glass atrium, gym, spa, sauna, jacuzzi and bar, it’s furnished with £160,000 worth of interior design pieces and it has an estimated rental income of £12,000 per month. You can check out what the property looked like before it was done up on Rightmove, here.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Omaze is an American for-profit company which launched in the UK in 2020. They’re sort of shrouded in mystery, but what we do know is that they put on prize draws to win big houses and big money while raising money for various charities; this one is for London’s Air Ambulance Charity. (Irrespective of its entries, Omaze ‘guarantees’ a minimum £1,000,000 donation to every charity partner – possibly to make you feel better about spending your hard-earned cash on entries.) They’re legit, apparently: last year its London offering was a £5 million Chelsea townhouse, which was won by nursing student Oceanne Belle. But there’s something about this particular Omaze draw which has set it apart from all the rest – something that seems to have struck a particular nerve with Londoners far and wide. You’ve been hearing whispers of the ‘Omaze house’ on street corners and have seen manifestation screensavers of it over people’s shoulders on the tube. You’ve been added to WhatsApp groups called ‘Housewarming’. You even started memorising the postcode.

Somehow, everyone is legitimately convinced they would win the property. Over on Reddit, people are planning what they’d do with the winnings: ‘If I win this, I’m going to sell it and get Brown & Brown to build me a house in the Highlands.’ ‘OMG I'm obsessed! I commented on their last London house post that I want the next one in Hackney so I kinda feel like I’m in for the win!’ Over on TikTok, people are just as crazed: ‘I’m gonna live in it. I might rent it out for a little bit, and make a little bit of money, but –’. Why, even I thought I might win it. I didn’t even enter the thing.

If the sound of this property tickles your fancy, we’re sorry to say that (drumroll please) the draw is now closed and will be announced on 8am, Friday August 9. But why were we so darn delusional in the first place? Maybe it’s because we’re all sick of watching AD Celebrity House Tours from our mouldy, over-priced house shares on Kingsland Road or because voyeuristically dreaming about home ownership as the housing crisis intensifies is the only way to make light of our increasingly dire living situations. Maybe it’s because manifestation culture has actually, somehow, stuck. Maybe it’s because this summer has been sub-par, to say the least; maybe it’s because we all need a bit of hope in our life. Maybe it’s not as deep as that. But whatever it is, this house had the city in a cruel, unforgiving chokehold. 

We’re sorry you’ve not won the London Omaze house. Our sincerest condolences. 

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