What could you get for £150,000 in 1988?

How about a four-bed villa on the Côte d’Azur?What can you get for £150,000? In the era of €1 Italian ruins, a disused London staircase selling for £20,000 and Monte Carlo penthouses and Californian mega-mansions fetching north of £200m, it’s not a question with an easy answer. Back in 1988, when the Observer investigated the very same question, it was a similarly mixed – if vastly more encouraging – picture across the world.UK readers should