What has been your best investment?
The Sunday Times Money Supplement

The Sunday Times every week interviews a celebrity for its Money Section. One of the questions they ask is “What has been your best investment?”. Regardless of the celebrity’s background, frequently the answer is property – see below.

3 August 2008 - Neil Hamilton, Former Tory MP
Best Investment - "If we’re talking financial investments, then it has to be property. Non-financially it would have to be Christine."

Do you own a property - "Christine has a flat in London, which has always been hers, and we also have a house in Wiltshire which we bought about three years ago. It is a medieval manor house. It could have nine or ten bedrooms, but we use some as dressing rooms and offices. We bought some nearby 18th-century barns and buildings as a separate lot. We bought it for £1.5m in total. It’s probably worth £1.8m."

What about the London flat - "When Christine first moved to London in 1971 she rented in what was then a new housing association block by Albert Bridge. Over the years she moved up in the same block, to larger apartments, and eventually managed to get one of the penthouses. We have fabulous views over Battersea Park and the river. When council tenants were given the right to buy in 1980, Christine was able to buy her flat very cheaply. I think she paid around £4,000. She sold it almost immediately for ten times as much. I think the flat we’re now in is worth about £400,000."

Does the housing market worry you - "No, not really."

27 July 2008 - Ian Poulter, Golf Open Sensation
What's better - property or pension? "Property. I have a small pension fund but I have no clue what kind. Before I started my professional golf career I did not have a spare penny to put towards a pension."

What property do you own? "I have a property in a village not far from Woburn. I live there half the year.
I also have a four-bedroom property in Orlando, Lake Nona, which I use as my American base when I am playing in the PGA tour. A lot of golfers have houses there, including Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia, and Nick Faldo. It is kind of a golfing community with a good course and lovely houses; it is a great place to be.
My UK house has five bedrooms and sits on a couple of acres and also has a 165-yard practice range where I can work. I bought it for £1.5m and I would think it is worth a couple of million now. I paid $1.5m for the American house in December which, even in this climate, has managed to go up because of the community it’s in. I have another house being built in the Bahamas right now. It’s a five-bedroom property that will be finished by December next year.
Like in Lake Nona, the house is in a private, gated community where there are about 30 individual houses. It sits on the beach and there is a huge water park, a marina, which is also being built, a golf course, a sports centre and an equestrian centre. It is quite an awesome place."

13 July 2008 - Actress Joanna Page
Buying the house in Dulwich. The area was so scruffy as few years ago, but now we have lovely shops and there's a real village atmosphere. Apart from the Dulwich house, we have a number of buy-to-let properties worth about £1m in total. We usually buy in areas where there's going to be lots of development so hopefully they will weather the downturn more than some other areas. Rentals are also going up - they cover the mortgages and we also have some money on top of that. "

15 June 2008 - Tudor Chronicler, John Guy
Best Investment -"When I separated from my ex- wife, we sold the property we had in Scotland and split the profit I used my share to buy in North London. I bought for £155,000 in 1999 and sold 4 years later for £412,000."

1 June 2008 - Original 'It Girl' Tamara Beckwith
Best Investment -"All the properties I have bought have made a nice profit so far. I think it's because I tend to buy wrecks that need doing up."

25 May 2008 - Singer and Song Writer Sandi Thom
Best Investment -"Probably [my] flat in Hove. I reckon that it will go up in value."

13 April 2008 - TV Presenter & Former Olympic Swimming Star Sharron Davies
Best Investment -"My properties. The barn has probably increased most in value and it's been an investment in time and emotion as well."

6 April 2008 - Quiz Show Host & Actor Lez Dennis
Best Investment -"I Bought and sold [my] house...within five or six months and made quite a lot of money on it. That property was in Highgate. I bought it for £750,000 and spent about £200,000 on it and sold it for £1.4m very quickly. That was about five years ago."

30 March 2008 - England Football Star and West Ham United Defender Matthew Upson
Best Investment -"Seven years ago I invested in commercial property in Manchester through a company called Martix Spinningfields. The building was bought by the Royal Bank of Scotland which boosted its value. I've recently cashed in the investment, which has grown by just over 300%."

2 March 2008 - Best-Selling Author Tilly Bagshawe
Best Investment -"It would have to be our current house in London. We weren't intending it as an investment, it just turned out to be one."

24 February 2008 - Olympic Javelin Medal Winner & Dancing on Ice Star Steve Backley
Best Investment -"A house I bought in Chislehurst...was my best investment. I sold the property in 2002 and it went up 60% in value in that time. I bought it for £225,000 and sold it for £360,000."

17 February 2008 - 1980's Pop Singer Billy Ocean
Best Investment -"My house in Berkshire...[property] has done very well for me over the years."

10 February 2008 - TV Commentator & Former Rugby Union Player Ieuan Evans
Best Investment -"The house we're living in now. We're probably going to get the best return on it."

3 February 2008 - News Reader Nicholas Owen
Best Investment -"I would have to say my house...It cost us £85,000. I thought it was expensive then, but it's probably worth more like £500,000 now."

27 January 2008 - Actress & Buy-to-Let Star Fiona Fullerton
Best Investment -"The flat in Knightsbridge, just opposite Harvey Nichols. I bought it in 1983 for £79,000 and sold it in 1989, just before the recession kicked in, for £240,000 - not that I realised the crash was going to happen."

13 January 2008 - Featherweight Boxing Champion and Hells Kitchen Winner Barry McGuigan
Best Investment - "When I got into the commercial property business in the mid-1990s. One of my purchases was a run down old bank in my hometown of Clones. It's turned out to be a solid investment, as the area is prospering since the Troubles stopped in the late 1990s."

6 January 2008 - BBC Breakfast News Presenter Dermont Murnaghan
Best Investment - "My House - I think it's probably increased 30% - 40% in value."

9 December 2007 - BBC2's Changing Rooms & I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here runner up Linda Barker
Best Investment - "I'm hoping it will be the French property. You always like your newest investment, I guess. The market there is much more buoyant than here."

2 December 2007 - England Rugby Star & Celebrity Dancing on Ice Champion Kryan Bracken
Best Investment - "Probably the London property. It's a big, three-storey house with a garden."

25 November 2007 - TV Consumer Champion and Strictly Come Dancing Star Dominic Littlewood
Best Investment - "I've made quite a lot of money on nearly every house I've owned, including one I sold to Phil Collin's brother, Clive."

24 November 2007 - Neil & Christine Hamilton from The Telegraph Money Supliment
Best Investment - "The very first flat I bought in 1972 in Battersea under co-ownship scheme, paying half by mortgage and renting the other half. In 1981 I bought the other half for £4,500 - there was a hefty discount for the rent I had paid - and I sold it almost immediately for £45,000."

18 November 2007 - Michelin-starred chef Tom Aikens
Best Investment - "When I first came to London with my twin borhter in 1991-2 we bought a two-bedroom property in Clapham. We bought it for £75,000 and kept it for five years, after which we almost quadrupled our money."

28 October 2007 - Band founder of Supertramp Roger Hodgson
Best Investment - "[My] studio in California. I bought the property for $125,000..I think the property is probably worth around $800,000 now."

21 October 2007 - TV Actress Helen Bexendale
Best Investment - "[My] property financially has been my best investment...We bought it about five years ago and it's probably doubled in price since then."

7 October 2007 - TV Historian David Starkey
Best Investment - "It would have to be the house in Highbury. Not sure what it's worth now but houses in the area sell for £1.5m to £2m."

30 September 2007 - Former Rugby Union Captain Martin Johnson
Best Investment - "Keeping my house in Leicester and renting it out. To be honest, I didn't think that house prices would increase so much, and I was seriously wondering whether or not to sell at one point. Luckily, I decided to keep it because I'd spent quite a lot of money doing it up. It's still being rented out. I do pay tax on the rental income but it's not nearly as bad as what I'd have to pay in capital-gains tax if I sold."

16 September 2007 - TV Presenter and London Radio Host Paul Ross
Best Investment - "The house I would have made most profit on was in Petworth, Sussex, but it went to my second wife when we divorced."

9 September 2007 - Rugby Union Star & ITV Rugby World Cup Presenter Martin Bayfield
Best Investment - "My London house did pretty well. It was a tiny two up, two down in Feltham. I bought it for £50,000 and sold it a year-and-a-half later for about £80,000."

26 August 2007 - BBC Apprentice Winner Katie Hopkins
Best Investment - "My first house, which was in Exeter. I bought it for £50,000 about 10 years ago, and sold it for about £95,000 three years later."

19 August 2007 - BBC Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq
Best Investment - "The house I bought with my friends in Shepherds Bush. It's easily worth £100,000 more than when we bought it only a year-and-a-half ago."

12 August 2007 - Singer & actress Toyah Willcox
Best Investment - "The place I've just bought. It's already gone up by £68,000 since February."

5 August 2007 - Comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar
Best Investment - "This home I have now with Meera. Not because of what it's worth, but because it really means something to me."

22 July 2007 - The Bill star Daniel Flynn
Best Investment - "Financially I would have to say my house. We were only able to buy it because my brother lent us £30,000. He hasn't demaned it back luckily - not yet anyway - but we'll pay him back when we sell it."

15 July 2007 - Weather Presenter Sian Lloyd
Best Investment - "Probably my Cardiff house because I've had it so long. Property prices have also shot up in Cardiff."

1 July 2007 - Newsreader John Suchet
Best Investment - "My flat - it's probably worth seven times what I paid for it."

24 June 2007 - Actress Olivia Colman
Best Investment - "Being able to buy our first place. It was a two-bedroom flat in east Dulwich which we bought in 1999. It was part of a three-storey Victorian property and was in a poor condition [...] We bought it for £90,000 with a £30,000 deposit [...]. We sold it two years later for £150,000. I used to think it was going to be a huge tie to have a mortgage, but it wasn't. It's more of a tie not having a property. At least if you're on the property ladder you have the option of selling."

17 June 2007 - King of the Jungle Joe Pasquale
Best Investment - "Probably the house. I haven't been curious enough to find out what its actual value is, but I'm hoping it will also act as another aspect of my retirement plan - if, that is, I ever get around retiring."

3 June 2007 - Ex-Arsenal star Lee Dixon
Best Investment - "My properties. The one in Cornwall has made the most in the shortest amount of time."

27 May 2007 - Risking it All host Martin Webb
Best Investment - "I bought a house in central Brighton for £300,000 in 1997 and I sold it two years ago for £975,000. It was a beautiful regency villa with five bedrooms on a very nice tree-lined road. I kick myself, though, because it's probably worth about £1.3m now."

20 May 2007 - Celebrity It girl Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
Best Investment - "The house I live in now. I have no mortgage on it. I think something like that will always sell - it's different from any other house in London."

13 May 2007 - Fifth Gear star Tiff Needell
Best Investment - "The houses I bought and sold. The house in Petersfield went from £275,000 to £800,000 in 13 years. It was a lovely little caracter house by the side of a hill in a village called West Harting"

22 April 2007 - Actor Nickolas Grace
Best Investment - "The first house I bought in Primrose Hill in 1975. It was a one-bedroom flat, which cost me £13,250. I sold that for about £40,000 in 1984 and bought a place in Hampstead for £75,000. I sold that for about £180,000 in 1989 [...]."

8 April 2007 - TV presenter Amanda Lamb
Best Investment - "The house I bought in Twickenham, before moving to Richmond. I bought it in 1999 for £160,000 and sold it seven years later for £400,000."

25 March 2007 - TV talk show host Matthew Wright
Best Investment - "I have a three-bedroom former 1950s council estate in Primrose Hill. I bought it three-and-a-half years ago for £850,000 [...] It was gutted and revamped and I'd guess it's worth £1.4m now."

18 March 2007 - Badminton ace Nathan Robertson
Best Investment - "The property I'm living in now. My neighbours below, who have a slightly smaller flat, put thiers on the market recently for £260,000."

11 March 2007 - Watchdog host Julia Bradbury
Best Investment - "Probably the flat. It has gone up in value about three times since I bought it. Also, buying a freehold last year certainly increased its value"

4 March 2007 - TV panel game host Dara O'Briain
Best Investment - "Judging by the number of leaphlets that I get put through my door by desparate estate agents, my house must be doing well."

25 February 2007 - Oliver Heath - Tv eco-homes designer
Best Investment - "My house in Brighton. I bought it in 2003 for £220,000 and it must be worth at least £350,000 in the present market. I carried out a sustainable refurbishment which wasn't cheap but it is great to be able to live with your own work."

18 February 2007 - Ray Fearon half-horse human in Harry Potter and the Philisopher's Stone
Best Investment - "Property probably.[...] I own a modern one-bedroom flat in Wimbledon village. I bought it in 1998 and it's worth about £200,000 now. "

11 February 2007 - TV Detective Andrew Lancel
Best Investment - "We have a two-bedroom terraced cottage just outside Liverpool which we bought five years ago. We paid just under £100,000 for it and it has probably more than doubled in value now."

28 January 2007 - Wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie, Jo Wood
Best Investment - "Our house in London. We bought it in 1998 for £3m and it was valued last year at between £10m and £12m - and a lot more if it was redeveloped"

7 January 2007 - Mary Poppins leading lady Laura Michelle Kelly
Best Investment - "My first ever house in Beckton, east London, when i was 19. It got me on the ladder and gave me security. It was a four-bedroom house and it had a garden and garage. I bought it to be near Nick, who's now my husband. He had a flat on the opposite side of the road at the time. I bought it for £113,000 and sold it for £189,000 after about four years. I used the money to buy the Streatham property"

31 December 2006 - The Apprentice Contestant Syed Ahmed
Best Investment - "My properties in Docklands. After selling my first house, I bought another one a few years later, in 1995, for £102,000. I invested £30,000 and then sold it in 2001. I made a large profit on this "

17 December 2006 - Guitarist Graham Coxon
Best Investment - "The house I bought from my friend was a good one. I have some offshore bonds that have done really well too. I scoop off what they make every year to live off."

3 December 2006 - BBC broadcaster Sue Cook
Best Investment - "My five bedroom regency house in Belsize Park. I bought it in 1994 for £58,000 before property prices went up and its now worth about £2.5M."

26 November 2006 - How not to decorate star Justin Ryan
Best Investment - "That would be the house in Glasgow. It was built as a home, but by the 1900s it had become a commercial premises and was eventually being used as offices. We took the risk when we bought it that we would be able to convert it to a residential property again and make a tidy profit."

19 November 2006 - World motor racing champion Andy Priaulx
Best Investment - "All the properties I've bought and sold in the UK have been good investments. I doubled my money on one property in Northampton, for example, and made a substantial profit on another one in just 14 months."

22 October 2006 - Queen of chat Trisha Goddard
Best Investment - "That has to be my mews cottage in Surbiton that I bought in 1985 for about £37,000. I was a stewardess in the Middle East for Gulf Air and chose the property because it was convenient for Heathrow. It was also easy to get to London by bus or train. I sold it 5 years later for just under £100,000."

15 October 2006 - Five News’s Lara Lewington
Best Investment - "That would definitely be my flat. I was lucky in that I bought at the right time, and I have also added to the value by doing it up. I haven’t had it valued but I know from what similar flats are going for that I’ve made a lot of money on it. I wouldn’t say it’s quite doubled in value, but I’ve still made a pretty good return over three years or so".

8 October 2006 - Radio 1 star Annie Mac
Best Investment - "I'm hoping the Belfast flat will prove to be my best investment. I have also invested in some solid oak floor boards for the top floor of my boyfriend's flat, which should boots its value."

1 October 2006 - Eurovision star Gina G
Best Investment - "My flat in Chiswick, which has almost doubled in value since we bought it. The flat cost us £180,000 but is now worth about £350,000. I want to pay off the mortgage and hold on to it as an inheritance for my son."

10 September 2006 - Round the World Pioneer Sir Robin Knox-Johnston
Best Investment - "Probably the London flats. I bought both in the 1990s, for £70,000 & £65,000 respectively. Both are now worth at least three times that now."

13 August 2006 - Yachtswoman Dee Caffari
Best Investment - "My best investment has been getting on the property ladder. It was a bit of a stretch at the time, but hopefully it will turn out to have been a good decision. I plan to move again soon because we don't have a garden at the moment."

30 July 2006 - Olympic runner Mark Richardson
Best Investment - "I would have to say our flat in Windsor. It was the first property I ever bought and cost £107,000, which seemed a vast amount at the time but now I wish I had bought five as its worth about £250,000 now."

16 July 2006 - Actress and singer Shona Lindsay
Best Investment - "I was lucky with the first flat I bought on my own, when property prices weren't as ludicrous as they are now. It was a 2 bedroom flat in Clapham, south London, and I paid £52,000 for it. When I sold it about 4 years later I got £150,000. I also bought a little flat in Vauxhall, south London, for £140,000, and I think it has gone up by about £110,000 in the past 5 years or so. I haven't sold it because I rent it out, but I know I won't have a problem when I come to put it on the market as I have to fight off tenants every time it comes up for rent."

9 July 2006 - Michelen-starred chef Marcus Wareing
Best Investment - "I own our family home in Wandsworth and a one-bedroom flat, also in London, that I bought as an investment. I have generally gone for new-build properties in the past, but the house we live in at the moment was built in 1983 and I love it. It cost £1.3m and I should think it’s probably gone up by about £100,000 in the year or so we’ve had it — mainly because of changes we’ve made to the lighting and flooring. My plan now is to pay off as much of the mortgage as possible so I can move into the house of my dreams, which would have a bigger garden, lots of character and maybe a gym."

2 July 2006 - England cricketer Alistair Cook
Best Investment - "My best investment so far is definately my house. I love having my own place, even though my mum and dad are only 5 minutes down the road."

25 June 2006 - Fame Academy tutor David Grant
Best Investment - "After Carrie & I got married in 1988, we moved into our first flat together. Interest rates were at about 15% at the time and we had problems with negative equity when house prices crashed. We rode that out, though, and in the end it proved to be a good investment because it allowed us to buy our second home - which is the one we now rent out. We bought that in 1997 and I know it's about three times as much now."

18 June 2006 - Naomi Campbell's personal assistant Carole White
Best Investment - "That’s property too. I bought my first flat, in Maida Vale, for about £50,000 in 1989 and I sold it for £250,000 two years later. That’s a much better return than my pension - or even those poker nights."

4 June 2006 - TV vet Joe Inglis
Best Investment - "That would probably be our last house in Cheltenham. We made about £70,000 to £80,000 on it in the two-and-a-half years we owned it and that allowed us to buy the house in France without taking out a mortgage. It's pretty run down, but we're doing it up slowly and we hope to keep it for the rest of our lives."

28 May 2006 - Liberal Democrat MP Julia Goldsworthy
Best Investment - "I haven't had my house valued since I bought it, but I'm hoping it will turn out to be a sound investment - especially because prices are rising ridiculously fast in Cornwall. I'm also glad that I spent so much time and money campaigning to become an MP, because I really love my job."

21 May 2006 - Poker champion Joe Hachem
Best Investment - "That would definitely have to be property. When I bought our home in Australia in the late 1990s, I paid a record price for the area of around £130,000 but its now worth more than £300,000. A friend once said to me that investing in your home is the best thing you could ever do because you can make money while you sleep, which has been very true."

7 May 2006 - Sitcom star Rodney Bewes
Best Investment - "In 1968 we bought our cottage in a village near the Lizard for £3,000. It has proved a wonderful investment. Not only have we spent holidays there every year, it has also made money for us as I have always rented it out. Today it is worth about £345,000."

16 Apr 2006 - Radio 2 star Janey Lee Grace
Best Investment - "I'm hoping that the house in Margate will turn out to be our best investment. We did quite well out of the sale of our family home in Hertfordshire, but the one in Margate has gone up 20% in the three years since we bought it, according to a recent valuation, so if the rises continue we should make quite a bit on it."

9 Apr 2006 - Professional rugby player Justin Marshall
Best Investment - "My top investment to date would be The Grumpy Mole, a bar I went into in Christchurch, which was also a franchise. We ran the bar for four years and it was very successful. Nicolle and I made several thousand dollars after paying off the debt."

2 Apr 2006 - Professional golfer Padraig Harrington
Best Investment - "I would say the best investment is my house. I believe it is the house I will live in for the rest of my life, so I won't ever have to move. At the time, one of my brothers gave me some good advice. He told me that I must, if I could, go beyond my budget so I would never feel that I would outgrow my house. Basically I spent all my money on the property. I definitely overstretched myself to pay for it, and I am very happy that I did. The house is set on two and a half acres, and we spent 18 months looking for the plot. It is the house of my dreams."

19 Mar 2006 - Heartbeat actor John Duttine
Best Investment - "It is the house we sold near Looe in Cornwall. We moved there in 1997 when property prices in London were on the rise. We sold Mel's house in Chiswick for £450,000 and bought in Cornwall for £230,000. The property was a 16th century farmhouse in eight acres of land with barns and outbuildings. I guess we must have spe nt £100,000 on improving it and we sold it for £700,000."

5 Mar 2006 - Celebrity Fit Club instructor Harvey Walden
Best Investment - "Property has definately been my best investment so far. Prices in the area I live have doubled in the few years I have lived there. So, I should get more than twice what I paid when I come to sell it."

19 Feb 2006 - TV dog trainer Victoria Stilwell
Best Investment - "I would say that property has been our best investment so far. The house we recently sold in New Jersey went up substantially in value during the three years we owned it, and I also made a healthy five-figure sum on my first flat in London, which I sold in 2000. Not bad for an initial investment of £3,000."

12 Feb 2006 - Radio and TV personality Neil Fox
Best Investment - "Again, it is property. Our Victorian townhouse has doubled in value in the past eight years, though we have spent a reasonable amount on improvements. We have put another floor in it."

5 Feb 2006 - Actress Dora Bryan
Best Investment - "At the time we bought the hotel it was a good investment because Bill only paid £80,000 for this huge property on the seafront."

11 Dec 2005 - TV Chef Antony Worrall Thompson
Best Investment - "I bought a couple of houses near Henley last year that have done really well. The one I bought for £195,000 is now worth about £245,000 and the other one, for which I paid £245,000, was recently valued at £400,000."

20 Nov 2005 - Heaven & Earth presenter Max Flint
Best Investment - "That would have to be the cottage where I live, which has almost doubled in value since I bought it three years ago. I also think that switching to an offset mortgage makes it an even better investment. I'm a big fan of the offset model, as you can really see how your money's working for you."

13 Nov 2005 - Radio 1 DJ Rob Da Bank
Best Investment - "The house we live in at the moment has gone up in value. We bought it for £300,000 about three years ago and its now worth about £360,000, which is nice. We've done bits and bobs to it over the years, but we haven't made any big changes. Its quite an unusual property. The previous owner built a spaceship in the garden, which might not appear to everyone."

6 Nov 2005 - Correspondent Gavin Hewitt
Best Investment - "Probably my home. We own a four bedroom late Victorian terraced house and in 20 years it has gone up sevenfold. If I were a first-time buyer today without any other equity in property, I could not afford to buy it."

23 Oct 2005 - Holby City actress Amanda Mealing
Best Investment - "The first flat my husband and I had in Ealing, west London, really set us up. We bought it in 1997 when we got married and sold it two years later for almost double what we paid. That really changed our thinking about property and investment."