Handbag that costs as much as a house!

YOU can buy a three-bedroom house in Birmingham for £155,000. Alternatively, you could spend the same amount on a handbag – as happened yesterday.

The record for the most expensive handbag ever sold in Europe was shattered at an auction in London when that sum was paid for this blue crocodile Hermes Birkin, embellished with gold and 18-carat diamonds.

Wealthy buyers, many from the emerging Asian market, flocked to Christie’s in Mayfair for the chance to get their hands on 169 luxury lots. Bags from designers including Gucci, Chanel and Louis Vuitton fetched upwards of £20,000, while Hermes bags sold for double that.

Christie’s confirmed that yesterday’s sale totalled £2,087,375.

Many of the pricey bags are seen as lucrative investments, with the Birkin beating both the stock market and gold as an investment since it was launched in 1984. The iconic bag is collected by a number of celebrities, with Victoriaictoria Beckham thought to have a collection tion of over 100. The previous record was set in 2015 in Paris s when a rare Birkin sold for r £139,500.