POTENTIAL buyers have today been flocking to a Suffolk estate agent after drug dealer Edwin Almond's dream house was put on the market.Great Farm House in Trimley St Mary has gone on sale with a guide price of £345,000.

POTENTIAL buyers have today been flocking to a Suffolk estate agent after drug dealer Edwin Almond's dream house was put on the market.

Great Farm House in Trimley St Mary has gone on sale with a guide price of £345,000.

But anyone thinking of taking on the building will have to spend tens of thousands more to turn it into a home.

"We were given instructions to sell it at the end of last week and we put up the signs yesterday," said John Graham of estate agents Charles Hawkins.

"There has already been a lot of interest, both from builders and from people who see it as a project to turn it into a dream home."

Mr Graham was not allowed to say who had put the house on the market, but it was confiscated by the government at a special hearing at Ipswich Crown Court last month.

It is believed Mr Almond himself has instructed the house be put up for sale as per the ruling at his forfeiture of assets hearing.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the administration of the sale was handed to the government's Assets Recovery Agency after the court case.

Mr Graham said the house would need a great deal of work before it became a home again - but the structural condition was not as bad as it might appear at first sight.

"There is a lot of work that needs to be done, especially on the first floor and replacing roof tiles at the back," he said.

"But the overall structure of the building is sound and there had already been some work done - it is largely rewired already."

The price had been set by those instructing the sale - but the price tag had not stopped people asking for information.

"We haven't got all the details printed up yet but we've already had a lot of interest in this property," Mr Graham said.

The price will come as a surprise to many local residents - they had expected it to be offered at between £250,000 and £300,000 because of the work needed.

At the end of last month security was improved with the windows boarded up - leading Trimley residents to describe it as "Colditz."

Great Farmhouse was a five-bedroomed home with two bedrooms on the second floor and three on the first floor.

However the wall between one of the first floor bedrooms and the bathroom had been knocked down as Almond prepared some changes at the house - and had not been replaced.

"That is one of the major works that needs to be done there, but it could be turned into a bathroom and one large bedroom or a bathroom and two smaller rooms, creating a six-bedroomed home," said Mr Graham.

N Is it right for drug dealers' homes to be sold like this? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk