​Raheem Sterling Can't Sell His Awful, Awful House

Images via RightMove

While most millennials are struggling to get on the metaphorical property ladder, clambering over each other in a writhing mass of humanity in our desperation to grasp that elusive first rung, the nation's young footballers have the exact opposite problem. For them, Britain's ruinous housing market is making it impossible to offload their gaudy, opulent mansions – mainly because nobody is willing to risk their capital on a property that's both hugely expensive and utterly tasteless.

That might not seem like a cause for sympathy at first glance but, when you hear the human stories behind the market trend, it's hard not to feel a pang of pity. Take Raheem Sterling, for instance. He's just had to knock £300,000 off the asking price for a house originally valued at £1.5million – and all because of an innocent predilection for awful, awful decor.

Sterling has been trying to shift his former residence on Merseyside since he made the move from Liverpool to Manchester City last summer, so it's been up for sale for the best part of a year. Now, according to the Liverpool Echo, he's trying to get rid of it at a knockdown price. But before you feel too sorry for young Raheem, remember that £300,000 doesn't even equate to two weeks' wages on his current deal at City, placing him comfortably above his fellow aspirational millennials.

So why won't anyone buy the property? Well, it might have something to do with the animal-print walls, in-house barber's salon, and entire room dedicated to the life and times of Michael Jackson.

In a relative sense, Sterling's approach to interior design really isn't that outlandish. If your average university-age manchild was handed several million quid a year to play football, he'd probably end up living in a revolving glass masturbatorium suspended from a hundred-foot effigy of Sir Killalot from Robot Wars.

Nonetheless, we imagine the average property investor feels a Michael Jackson-themed room is surplus to requirements. The King of Pop might have produced some perfectly crafted tunes in his lifetime, but let's face it: nobody wants to live in a house in which a macabre, disembodied mannequin of the late MJ occupies a whole room. It's creepy as fuck, sure, but it's also impractical.

Add to that Sterling's cinema room, basketball court and personal solarium (rich person's conservatory), and it's little wonder that his house fails to appeal to a broad range of buyers.

Still, at least he's not having to sell the Robot Wars masturbatorium. That'd be an absolute nightmare.