With its mouldy front door, boarded-up window and crumbling interior, this mid-terrace property does not look particularly inviting - until you see the asking price. At just £7,000, it could well be the cheapest home in Britain. The sorry abode lies on the edge of the Welsh village of Maerdy in the Rhondda Valley and will be going under the hammer on Thursday.

Heidi Wangemann, of Paul Fosh Auctions in Newport, said the interior of the house, at 108 Edward Street, was in a serious state of disrepair.

'We haven't been able to gain access for safety reasons as the floor boards are up, so we don't know quite how bad it is,' she said.

'We don't come across like kind of property very often.'

According to Wales Online, notices were still pinned to the front door warning tenants to destroy resident rats.

Nigel Lewis, property analyst at FindaProperty.com, said it may be the cheapest home in the UK, but could need somewhere between £25,000 and £50,000 spent on it to make it legally inhabitable. He said: 'Anything under a £30,000 asking price means there must be something horribly wrong with it. These are desperation homes.

'The bricks and mortar may be worth more than £7,000, but these houses are often in areas cut off from the economy.

'It could be bought by a investor. Even if the total cost ends up being £50,000, they may be able to rent it out for £300-400 a month and still make a good return.'

If it sells for around the asking price, it would have undercut what was believed to be the previous cheapest house in Britain - a two-bedroom terraced property in Pritchard Steet, Burnley, which fetched £10,000 earlier this year.