The smell of freshly-sawn MDF tangs at my nose as I ascend the staircase, emerging into some weird minimalist white view of hell. It's a pleasant enough space, but I now know that the 'Ikea chic' of the catalogue is far more carefully-considered than one might expect. This is simply empty. The immaculately-quoiffed sales exec executes a commendable impression of someone who isn't turning her nose up at me, and asks what sort of price I'm looking at.
"Well," I bluster, "around here, I guess a two-bedroom flat is around a hundred thousand. So these places are - what - double that sort of money?"
She smiles graciously, evidently relieved that her judgement is sound and she read me right. "More like double that."
Oh. P'raps not, then.
I nose around for a few minutes, grateful the decor is so clinically vile, before escaping through the MDF gauntlet.
"The exchange", in case you were wondering, not that there's any information there.
