Rocket Science - Monday

Reluctantly I go to another friend of a friend’s fireworks party. It’s curious how with the blurring of months and years, marked mostly by relentless pursuit of sales targets that dance ever further away as if some malicious god has you as the donkey and the deity as the carrot-dangler/stick-wielder, that the passage of time is signposted by another annual festival arriving.

‘I don’t really want to go.’ I grumble as we make our way through the darkened streets and I spot a new opposition For Sale board on a house I valued a few weeks back. ‘You used to love fireworks.’ Chides the wife, oblivious to my growl of protest at the betrayal the flag is illustrating all too obviously. Momentarily I tempted to uproot the hated board and add it to the pile undoubtedly waiting on the bonfire we’re heading for. The public’s dislike of estate agents manifests itself yearly in the pyre of correx flags that burn like phosphorus once you get them going.

‘I used to enjoy it when the kids were still young.’ I tell her. It was the same with Halloween briefly, but this year with the eldest at university and the youngest in the sixth form and eschewing parents carving pumpkins, and extorting only cash not candy, I decided to pass. Without the crutch of kids as a reason to participate there’s something slightly sinister about waiting in the hall with a tray of sweets for strange fancy-dressed children to call. Probably end up listed on some sort of illuminated- squash offenders’ register, if you have a misunderstanding with a finger of fudge.

‘That twat from last year will be there baiting me about property.’ I grumble as a loud bang detonates nearby and I nearly have a cardiac. The oiled-up oaf wanted an argument about how we supposedly manipulate the market last time and I’m not expecting his opinion to have changed, any more than my circumstances.
‘When did you become so angry?’ Asks my wife with a hint of despair and we fall into a silent walk punctuated only by the odd explosion and the excited chatter of unseen children behind garden fences.

And I ponder once again where it all went wrong. There was the faux anger of youth dovetailed neatly with punk rock and the standard testosterone-rich rage that went hand-in-hand. The rather more caring and inclusive new romantic phase when I mellowed slightly and thought I could be a writer, rather than just a writer of room measurements. On reflection, I guess it all started to go pear-shaped when all that acid/rave nonsense started, about the time I got my first child, first manager’s post, and the pressure to perform began to skyrocket.

‘Hear he comes.’ I mutter acidly to my wife after we’ve handed over flowers, a tenner towards the communal incendiaries and a bottle of Bordeaux. And with demoralising predictability the drunk from last year approaches, cheeks ruddy with wine.
‘Ah-hah the property purveyor.’ Stumbles the oaf as I calculate whether my back is strong enough to heft the bore straight on to the bonfire, where at least one of my boards is burning brightly.

Like an overgrown schoolboy who has tired of detaching legs from spiders, the piss-head has moved on to bar-room rhetoric about bankers and estate agents ruining this once proud nation. I’m hoping he’ll start ranting about foreigners taking all the plum jobs in chicken processing plants then at least I might get some grudging kudos for punching him in the face as an exit strategy.

‘You lot,’ babbles the man finger jabbing aggressively. ‘Are the reason my children can’t afford to buy a house.’ My, you are just looking for a fall guy gag falls on deaf ears and the jibe about him not being a very civil servant and needing to get a real job only adds flames to the fire, so my wife pulls me away.

‘Can’t take you anywhere.’ She hisses in tandem with a launching pyrotechnic.
‘Sticky situations wherever I go.’ I tell her forgetting about last year, reaching for a toffee apple, and beginning to enjoy myself.

Could have done without losing the filling.

Surveying The Wreckage - Monday

A familiar car pulls-up outside and a collective groan echoes around the office. It’s the sort of terminally resigned sound you might imagine emanating from an expiring pensioner, moments before the beneficiaries start ringing estate agents for valuations.

‘Now there’s someone that weasel of a warden could happily issue a ticket to.’ Announces assistant manager T to nods of universal approval, as the object of our scorn looks furtively up and down the high street before activating the hazard warning lights – surely a metaphor for his approach – and hurrying towards us.

‘What do you call a surveyor at the bottom of the sea?’ Asks negotiator S with a pleasing chest-chuckle and I prepare to humour her, only trainee F jumps in before me.
‘A revenge attack from an agent whose sale he keeps trashing,’ rushes F with the sort of haste that indicates a good deal of forethought. ‘Someone who kidnapped him in an empty house, tortured him with heated-up paperclips, then tied a weight to his feet before dumping him off-shore.’

We all look at F askew, as the oblivious surveyor approaches the door.
‘Actually the answer is: a good start.’ I tell him warily, making a mental note to go easier on the fool at his next appraisal and maybe allocate the stationery ordering to S for a few months. F just glowers at the un-loved man as he breezes in, and fiddles ominously with some unseen objects in that muli-compartment tray we all have sitting in the desk top-drawer,

‘Morning troops.’ Announces the surveyor all false bonhomie. He’s sporting a pasted on grin that could easily morph to a leer. The sort of blank-eyed look you see in police mug shots of perverts and paedophiles. He’s wearing fawn coloured trousers, which his mother he doubtless still lives with, would call slacks, and a checked faux-landowner shirt, twinned with a tweedish jacket featuring leather elbow pads. If it wasn’t for the cobwebs in his hair you might think he spent his time supervising pheasant shoots on his family estate, rather than poking his head in everyone’s loft and business - and bombing sales.

‘How’s the market?’ He follows up with only slightly less bombast. It’s the sort of question you can only ever get wrong. If you are too bullish he’ll only down-value the home he’s about to value on account of your over-optimism. And if you err on the bearish side, he’ll still trash the price you’ve agreed, in an underpinning of his consistently pessimistic view of lending practices and the deleterious housing stock. Stock that he’s certain is doomed to succumb to subsidence, both types of rot, and roof spread that spills over more alarmingly than bloated mortgage man M’s belly.

‘Hope you’re not going to trash this one,’ I say as jovially as I can manage as I hand the man a set of details along with a bunch of keys. ‘We could have sold it twice over.’
‘Ah they all say that.’ Murmurs the surveyor as he signs the keybook with a prissy flourish and F makes stabbing motions behind his back with a letter-opening knife I swear he’s been sharpening.

‘I have to cover my back you know.’ Continues the man, more accurately than his valuation is likely to be, as F starts to growl alarmingly. ‘If you’ve had more than one buyer bidding the chances are they’ve paid over the odds.’ He concludes with a nasally presumption, as I wonder if he was friendless at school too, or if it happened by default when he qualified as a Chartered Surveyor.

It was no different in the early-nineties, I remember. Surveyors were being retrospectively sued by lenders who not many months earlier were encouraging them to rubber-stamp rash loans, with impunity. Once again banks are looking to recoup losses on irresponsible lending by pursuing valuers with the sort of 20/20 hindsight normally reserved for historians or lawyers. I ought to feel a little sympathy for the maligned man. At one stage when they were respected and a gateway to a partnership, I thought about training to become one.

‘I bloody hate those guys.’ Hisses S with venom as the surveyor leaves with a self-conscious wave.
‘Me too,’ I endorse. ‘Me too.’

Winner Takes All - Wednesday

‘We really must have this one.’ Gushes a woman to her partner, as I stand by enjoying buying signals clearer than a Belisha beacon.
‘There are others to look at.’ Counters the man fruitlessly, he hasn’t seen the look on her face, or if he has he’s trying to ignore it.
‘No, this is the one.’ States his financial nemesis with certainty. ‘We mustn’t lose it, we just mustn’t.’

The house is a cracker. I knew that as soon as I listed it. Some homes, in the right area, at the right price, with – ahem – the right agent, will always sell, irrespective of market conditions. Thanks to the planning constraints and a demand and supply equation canted by too many people and not enough property, there are still occasions when an undignified squabble is going to break out over who gets ownership. I kind of like it, in a perverse self-flagellating way.

‘What do we have to do to secure this?’ Pleads the women, ignoring her husband now and turning to me for guidance. I know from long experience females make the majority of buying decisions where property is concerned, and this lady’s eyes are glistening with the sort of lust I only ever see in a bricks and mortar situation these days.

‘Well,’ I begin cautiously as the woman’s eyes narrow ominously and I’m instantly reminded her ardour is for the kitchen, not the klutz with the clipboard. ‘Of course it’s not up to me.’ And then just because I can, I add. ‘Plus there are two further viewings tonight and tomorrow.’

Momentarily I think she’s scalded herself on the espresso machine the owner’s thoughtfully left on, the aroma of coffee second only to fresh-baked bread in the welcoming-whiff department. But she’s just yelping in disapproval. The sort of petulant, foot-stamping disbelief, that wafts faster than Arabica beans, from a certain type of beautiful woman who has never had to try too hard.

‘That’s just not good enough.’ She brays haughtily, turning to the City Boy cash and cum dispenser, for confirmation. He just looks defeated and momentarily a flicker of compassion shivers through my soul until I realise I’m just as heavily targeted as he probably is, work equally silly hours and still can’t afford the downstairs cloakroom of the place he - or more accurately his wife - wants to buy.

‘I can make it worth your while.’ Wheedles the man as his wife nods in confirmation and any hint of empathy with the creep, vanishes faster than sobriety on a stag night.
I’ve never taken a backhander in my life - apart from that slap round the face from my wife – and I probably deserved that. Now I really want someone else to buy this place, but it ultimately isn’t up to me. Despite what the public think.

‘All offers will be put in writing to my client.’ I parrot, falling a little guiltily behind the red tape, like some superannuated civil servant. ‘But of course the decision is theirs and theirs alone.’ I conclude, whilst thinking, although I can guide them in the right direction you pretentious prats. Help them find a better buyer, at a better price, with more chance of completing and less chance of defaulting.

‘Whatever the others offer we’ll better it.’ Snipes the woman, as the unctuous pair depart. ‘I’m afraid I can’t reveal a third party’s bid under a private treaty arrangement.’ I respond sniffily, holding the high morale ground if not the fiscal.
‘It’s no wonder everybody hates you.’ She snarls with the turn of a well-shod heel.

‘How did the viewing go?’ Asks negotiator S as I grump through the door, still smarting. Her sweet-natured concern and the top she’s bursting out of, helping a little to ease my mood.
‘Apparently everyone hates me.’ I reply.
‘You in particular?’ Asks lettings slapper B with a sarcastic curl of her lip. She obviously hasn’t taken a deposit for a day or two.
‘Not really sure.’ I tell them. ‘But I’m definitely doing the next two viewing on number twenty-two.’

Never knowingly piss-off an agent I think, looking forward to dealing with further offers - and feeling the love from the vendor.

Magic Numbers - Friday

‘So I read there’s a real shortage of new properties coming on to the market.’ Begins a prospective vendor as I sit perched on his sofa under the scrutiny of not only him, but also his wife and an evil smelling little rat-dog. ‘So what can you offer me?’

It’s beauty parade of agents time again and I feel like sobbing with frustration, although it could be the pet-hair allergy bubbling up in my eyes. It only takes a few relatively up-beat pieces in the media from vested interests to encourage owners back on the front foot. Not that my erstwhile colleagues in the industry help, pump-priming asking prices in an undignified scramble to gain always needed new instructions.

With as much enthusiasm as I can muster I run through my pitch, highlighting key selling and service points, turning to my visual presentation pack like an emotional crutch when I feel the couples’ concentration wavering.

‘Yes we know all that guff,’ interjects the man bluntly, totally blowing away the sanitised sales situation the trainers like to envisage when they are pushing over-priced identikit courses to our blinkered management team. ‘Just tell me how much you are offering us.’

It’s déjà vu time. The pair of mulch-brains in front of me have reverted to two years ago type, somehow imagining I’ll be wanting to buy their soon to be over-priced pile. My spirits drop faster than an alcoholic landlord’s optic, as they ignore my recommendation for restraint on the marketing figure and push for the most over-inflated number I can muster, without walking away.

‘I’ve read all about it,’ continues the man as both his wife and incredibly his dog nod in unison. ‘Asking prices up 4% at least, people fighting to bid, more buyers than sellers. I reckon we’re in the box seat.’

I really ache to tell him a few home truths. To let him know that mythical cash-rich Russians exploiting the parlous state of the pound wouldn’t look twice at his bog-standard Barratt box. To enlighten him that the rest of the country isn’t the same as the London market, despite what he’d like to believe. Vladimir and Svetlana, his nubile model/socialite/freeloader bride, may not have English as their first language but they sure as hell know the difference between Westminster and Wigan.

‘You do need to be aware of the difference between asking prices and actual selling prices.’ I cajole gently, knowing that too much honesty will only result in the opposition’s board in the front garden within forty-eight hours.
‘Ah-ha you would say that,’ Interjects his wife who I’m beginning to suspect is the source of my irritation as much as the dog. Perhaps I’m allergic to over-priced perfume as well as property. ‘All you lot want is a quick sale and a massive commission.’

Default punter’s position on the industry denied, I skirt the ludicrous price proposed by two of the other agents and gently test the water on my fee. And the man laughs in my face. Then his wife does the same only with the sort of sneer that could curdle milk. Then the bloody dog starts growling at me in empathy with his owners.

‘You’re way out.’ Announces the man haughtily. ‘I’ve been offered a full one per-cent lower than that, and they’ll defer the cost of that Home Information Pack nonsense until we sell.’

‘He’s trying to rip-us off.’ Snipes the wife in a heavy stage whisper to her husband as I prepare to be shown the door. I’ve been thrown out of better places than your timber-framed shack I ache to say. Instead I wish them luck and make a diary note to contact them again in twelve weeks, when they’ll be needing a real agent not some clueless kid with a commission-heavy salary, a suit from Next, and a calculator with one too many noughts on the readout.

‘Any luck?’ Asks trainee F breezily when I slump through the office door. He wouldn’t be able to read body language if a stiff was lying in the doorway first thing in the morning.

‘It’s not about luck.’ I tell him witheringly. Before exiting to buy a lottery ticket.

Happy Family - Monday

On a valuation with mortgage man M in-tow. It takes me several sets of traffic lights before I realise the lack of acceleration isn’t due to the ageing fleet car, but the big man’s corpulent bulk seriously impacting on my 0-60 figure. To add insult to injury one of those glorified Indian built electric milk float cars pulls up soundlessly alongside at the next red stop light, and my foot begins revving the accelerator menacingly.

‘Calm down tiger.’ Quips the base rate plus two blubber mountain. ‘Don’t want another camera flashing you.’
‘Fat chance of that.’ I spit back unthinkingly, and a stony silence to match the electric cars decibel rating, descends on the cabin.

‘I didn’t mean it like that’ I venture clumsily as we ease into a box junction with only a 50/50 chance of exiting it without stopping in the yellow hatching.
‘It’s not my fault you know.’ Sulks M as I think, please don’t say it’s hormonal I’ve seen the pastry crumbs on the office carpet.

‘I eat to forget you know.’ Suggests M with a melancholy sigh. ‘Ever since my missus upped and left me.’
It seems churlish to point out he was a bloater long before she legged it with the kids, so for once I keep quiet, a useful skill for a salesman that I don’t always adhere to outside of a sign-up situation.

‘This one’s a matrimonial too isn’t it?’ Questions M as I spy our turning and leave the main drag to inch down a narrow road with cars parked either side. Once again my door mirrors are under threat as I weave along cautiously trying to dodge over-wide four-by-fours, while looking for some house numbers to help me identify how close we are to the target property.

‘Possible sale, possible re-mortgage with the new boyfriend.’ I tell M as I spot a parking slot then curse as I see it’s zoned for residents only. The doctor on call badge might have to make an outing from the glove box again, but I’m loath to overuse it in case the wardens start clocking the car.

‘If he’s got any sense he won’t get involved with a woman with kids dragging behind her.’ Suggests M sourly as he waddles alongside me and we walk back towards the house, parking space found. M’s only bitter because his ex-wife and his children are now tied-up with some smarm-bag with a BMW and a 34-inch waist. ‘You know,’ posits M as I make to ring the doorbell and he wheezes behind me two steps down. ‘The only time my wife really rode me hard was over the divorce settlement.’ And with those salient words ringing in my ears and the bell doing the same, footsteps approach.

‘He seems a bit sleazy.’ I confess to M as we take a quick tour of the enclosed garden, discarded children’s toys scattered around the grass. The mother and new lover are watching us from the kitchen as the kettle boils. I want to gather my thoughts on a suggested asking price if they move on, and M just seems intent on becoming increasingly morose. Doubtless he’ll cheer up if they offer biscuits and decide to re-finance instead.

‘So, we just need some figures for now, see where we stand.’ Informs the lady as her weasel-faced new lodger eyes me suspiciously and I try not to do the same back. I’ve stuck with my wife – or more accurately she’s stuck with me – but just the thought of some proto-paedo coming near your kids should be enough for any man to keep it in his trousers.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been to homes where it’s obvious – at least to me – the woman left with the family, is succumbing to an ever less trustworthy and less able succession of boyfriends just to fill the affection gap left by a departed husband. Maybe they should just comfort eat like M, at least the children wouldn’t have to lock their bedroom doors every evening.

‘I wouldn’t trust that bloke with my kids’ gerbil.’ Says M as we return to the car.
‘Call social services?’ I ask in jest.
‘Let’s see if they re-mortgage first.’ Announces M pragmatically. ‘I’m starving here.’

Building Confidence - Wednesday

‘There goes another one.’ Announces imbecilic trainee F, as the plate glass office window shakes disturbingly and I wonder where the twenty-four hour emergency glass repair callout number is again. Last time it was either a drunk with the brick, or someone about to be repossessed, returning their failed investment a bit at a time.

‘I always fancied driving one of those.’ Continues F wistfully as the lumbering yellow JCB throbs past, queue of traffic gathering behind. You might be doing that sooner than you think sonny, I think uncharitably, as the cloud of diesel fumes dissipates and the engine noise recedes.

‘I reckon the builders are definitely stirring.’ Proclaims assistant manager T. ‘Do you think they know the market is turning?’ And all eyes turn to me and I feel the weight of expectancy almost as much as the fat chavvy mother-to-be who is now staring in the window - as if in need of my answer too, rather than some belated contraceptive advice.

Second-guessing the market is something I’ve singularly failed to do over two decades plus. Witness the number of times I nearly bought a buy-to-let bargain then choked on the all too familiar downsides. Builders however have to make the tricky margin call, as a new start on site, to sales in the bag, will run to twelve months or so, that’s without the protracted planning process beforehand. Around the patch, cement mixers are beginning to churn.

‘You’ve got a site to look at this afternoon.’ Announces negotiator S with a winning smile and she gives me the location. I’ve watched the hording for some time with the optimistic Coming Soon banner, but now the developer has pushed the button and scaffolding is sprouting above the boundary boards.

‘Too early to call.’ I hedge, returning to prediction mode, appointment locked in my head, possible price projections already rotating like the concrete churners, around my brain.
‘I wouldn’t rule out a double dip.’ Predicts blubbery mortgage man M, appropriately enough stuffing his fat paw into the biscuit barrel for the second time. ‘Some of these companies are going to catch a cold if you ask me.’

The fact is only time will tell, and if multi-million pound taxpayer-funded government departments can’t budget for toffee, there’s no real reason why a glorified bricklayer who made it good, or a washed-up estate agent who didn’t, are going to be any more accurate. I’ve always been slightly off with my timing – just ask my wife.

Pulling up outside the site later, I’m still running square footage prices and local comparisons around my head, as I gaze at the sprouting buildings that are going to dwarf the older homes surrounding the in-fill site. The front gate is swung back, festooned with multiple health and safety notices, and the road stained with clay-coloured heavy vehicle tracks.

‘Oi-oi,’ Calls some wag from halfway up the scaffolding. ‘Another wonk in a suit coming, someone chuck him a hat!’ And I step gingerly through the debris, past a hulking concrete hopper and a stuttering-engine dumper truck towards the site hut.

All site visitors must report to works foreman. Instructs another notice, as I hop onto a First World War-style duckboard and cross a soggy looking patch of scrappy terrain, wondering if they’ll be piling these properties or if I’ll be dealing with the subsidence claims in ten years time – heaven forbid.

‘Sales Director has pissed off to lunch.’ Announces the foreman offering me a grubby calloused hand, with reluctance. ‘So you’ve got me. I’ll show you some drawings.’ I watch, one eye on the soft porn calendar taped to the portacabin wall – building sites being one of the last vestiges for unashamed girly-shot displays – as the gruff man unfolds a series of steely-grey architectural prints, with almost religious reverence.

‘To tell you the truth,’ Confides the man, as we walk the site later and I feel the ludicrous yellow safety helmet slipping on my head and start fretting about hat-hair for the rest of the day. ‘The bosses will probably end up selling direct themselves if the market improves in time. They’re just covering their backs by talking to you lot.’

Double-dip it is then.

Market Conditions - Thursday

Sat at the morning meeting, troops huddled round me in a protective semi-circle, overhead lights off to deter any pre-opening-hours nutters coming in from the rain. I’ve done the usual crosschecks before take-off. The review of offers pending and their progress, the delegation of appointments for the day depending on who I’ve deemed the most suitable staff member to attend, the run-through of recent viewings and the need for more follow-up of buyers, more feedback to vendors.

Blubber-boy M has said his almost pre-recorded piece about everyone feeding him more mortgage and insurance leads, in-between hurried mouthfuls of some ghastly grease-flecked bacon and brown sauce monstrosity. You can almost hear the man’s arteries furring up. And B in lettings has reminded everyone that she needs more landlords and less foreign students. All par for the course.

They all look at me expectantly, boredom and indifference just an undisguised look away, and wait for my morning add-on. It’s something I try from time-to-time, to stimulate some sort of sleepy-eyed debate before the phones start to ring. Not sure it’s working.

‘So,’ I begin ‘Did anyone listen to that radio four report on the way in this morning?’
And as soon as I utter the words I realise it’s a mistake. The looks have shifted from incipient apathy to a mixture of pity and disbelief.

‘You succumbed to the old people’s channel then?’ Mocks M as a thin film of un-solidified fat sprays across the desk and actually completes a vacant entry in the viewing book comments section. ‘I can accept radio two, but all that pompous drivel about politics and bankers.’

‘It was about the property market actually.’ I counter, tapping a favourite news page into the computer as I respond. ‘Another survey saying prices are on the up.’ Even as I say it I realise it’s a mistake and I should have just closed the meeting and headed for a much-needed second of the morning, piss.

Trouble is you end up just selecting the market reports that suit your purpose – buying or selling – and with surveys so narrowly drawn and supply and demand as fragile as a sixteen year old X-Factor contestant’s ego, it can only end in tears.

‘Those reports are rubbish’ Says negotiator S earnestly, her head shaking in tandem with her tits. ‘They conflict most of the time.’ I’m a whisker away from saying inappropriately: ‘Those puppies don’t conflict do they? They’re in perfect harmony.’ When I’m saved by assistant manger T peering at my just-loaded screen.

‘Look at this nonsense.’ He says tapping a long-nailed finger on the screen and leaving a mark. ‘Seems estate agents days are numbered.’ And he proceeds to read a piece on agents being doomed by the rise of internet search sites. A debatable point annoyingly endorsed by some dial-up-and-quote, supposed industry spokesperson.

It seems one in four agents have closed since the peak of the market, but then one in four deserved to I confirm, as the debate gets interesting and we forget to turn on the lights.

‘I’ve seen all this before.’ I tell the team with a world-weary shrug, as we read that the rent-a-headline spokesman has tried to use the hated Home Information Packs as a valid reason for not selling privately, or engaging one of the joke DIY property websites who provide a self-assembly for sale board - and little else.

‘Not much better than those cowboys who ring-up from your private sale car advert in the paper, and promise they’ve a line of buyers waiting for a late-model Trabant.’ I quip to universal confusion.

‘What’s a Trabant?’ Asks S, instantly making me feel my age and nothing else. I decide to change the subject, as I suddenly feel as redundant as an East German motor.

‘Take it from me.’ I tell them decisively, rising to hit the lights, which all start pinging and flickering into life apart from the one wretched tube that never works properly, no matter how often you change the starter. ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’

‘You not well then?’ Asks trainee F to universal groans of despair.

I’ve felt better.