Live And Let Live - Wednesday

‘Where is she then?’ I ask, pacing up and down at the office window like some caged zoo animal. I’m booked to carry out a joint appraisal on a house with B our lettings lush and she’s late back. It’s not my favourite task as she’ll be pushing the owner to rent and I’ll be persuading them to sell and bank the cash – assuming they have any equity left.

‘Probably getting pissed or porked.’ Ruminates bloated mortgage man M as he waddles past me and lets out a booming fart.
‘Oh that’s disgusting.’ Cries negotiator S with a shake of her head, followed by her substantial breasts.
‘B or M?’ Asks assistant manager T with a rueful smile.
‘Both.’ Concludes S, grabbing the phone before the third ring and rattling off the company greeting.

Why am I still here? Asks the annoying internal voice, seemingly sent to torment me and remind on a regular basis that I’ve made underachievement an almost Olympian sport. And I gaze forlornly up the high street for any sign of B, as I alternate increasingly fractiously between looking at my watch and the office clock.

With the double-pronged attack of sales and lettings we should in theory increase our chances of winning some business from the forthcoming appointment, plus if we shut out the opposition it hastens their demise ahead of our own. On property porn television programmes you often see the one agent giving both the sales and rental guesstimate but our two disciplines have yet to merge, something I’m keen not to do with B - particularly without adequate protection.

‘Is she coming with you?’ Asks T seemingly innocently, only for M to make a lewd suggestion involving as much faked satisfaction as the customer response forms he’s rumoured to fill out himself. And I inform the team we’ll be taking my car, mainly because it’s parked round the corner on a meter, but also in case she’s too drunk to drive.

‘Careful she doesn’t grab your gear lever on the way.’ Chortles M, clearly on some sort of sugar-induced high after too many pastries.
‘No he’s not her type.’ Proclaims S decisively and I’m left to ponder what that means. I’m wearing trousers – which leaves too old, too poor, or too visibly unsuccessful? None are palatable options. So I ask.

‘Well she prefers younger men, generally.’ Blusters S, as T points out unhelpfully her less than assured shorthold tenancy with a wealthy landlord who was pushing sixty, last year.
‘I meant…..’ stutters S, her face colouring. ‘You… wouldn’t be that shallow.’ She concludes, to her visible relief. I’m spared a further internal reprimand from inner-self reminding me about less then professional thoughts towards S, as B stumbles through the door, face more flushed than S’s.

‘You don’t much care for me do you?’ Asks B as I rev angrily through the traffic, trying to ensure we’re not late, a certain way to alienate a potential client even before we start on management fees for B, or my cocktail of deal breakers. Commission, home information pack, and now a lengthy property information questionnaire half of my semi-literate punters will struggle to complete.

‘What makes you say that?’ I offer gritting my teeth and feeling another filling crumble ominously. And the voice is back, reminding me that it could be the inappropriate sexual conduct before, during and after hours, or the excessive use of alcohol – ditto. Or perhaps just the uncomfortable unwanted reminder of someone else clearly wishing they had made a few wiser career choices along the way. The stench of failure, more pungent than her cocktail of gin and perfume fumes filling the car.

‘We’re not that different when it comes down to it.’ Ventures B with what sounds like a stifled sob, but I put down to a hiccup. Tell her you don’t get slaughtered until after work, nags the inner devil. Mention you haven’t had stranger sex since…..and now even the internal voice is stuck for words; either that or its memory doesn’t stretch back that far.

‘Let’s just try and get through this.’ I tell B as we pull up outside the appointment.
A suitable epithet for the tombstone then, loser! Remarks the voice, no longer as mute as I’d like.

We’re waiting to hear.

See Me After Class - Friday

En-route to a meeting, I have a feeling my gross kerb weight might have been exceeded, as porky mortgage purveyor M sits in the passenger seat. It might be my imagination, or the ageing suspension on the much delayed replacement date of the company smoker, but it feels as if we’re canted to one side.

‘Christ I’m Hank Marvin,’ moans M, as we dip round a left hand curve and he picks at his teeth unpleasantly. ‘I hope they’ve got bacon sarnies at the meeting.’ He has enough body fat to survive longer than a stranded seal, and if the traffic chokes to a complete standstill I could probably live off the blubber right through another winter.

‘Bloody nonsense anyway,’ Continues M, as my mobile phone rings insistently but I ignore it. I forgot to clip on that absurd attachment that makes my ear ache and I swear could be causing a tumour. ‘I don’t know why I couldn’t have brought my own car.’

The latest company standing order – a rulebook now approaching Russian novel length – is to share business journeys where possible. So far I’ve not persuaded negotiator S to come with me as with appointments sparser than I’d like, she rarely leaves the office. So regrettably, it’s M’s flabby man breasts separated by the straining seat belt rather than S’s delectable curves. I swear the inertia real hit the end of its travel when he wound the webbing out to fit his bulky frame, on entrance.

‘What’s your exit strategy?’ Asks M as the traffic clears momentarily and I gun the engine and head for the gap. Probably out my window if we flip onto your side, I think absurdly, as the brief acceleration is halted by another bank of red brake lights.

‘When it all goes belly-up?’ Presses M, seeing the confusion writ large on my face and not enlightening me greatly, as I have a vision of his vast stomach rolling sideways with G-force and tipping the car onto its door handles. Then I realise he’s talking about the market and our immediate job prospects.

Truth is, you may have dreamed about something happening, lusted after it even, but unless it’s an invitation to treat from S, the reality can be somewhat more sobering. My CV remains as up-to-date as the British army’s hardware and I have a feeling in the job market, I’ll be similarly outgunned.

‘I used to think I’d go and work for a bank.’ Chuckles M ruefully his whole frame rumbling unsettlingly, unless the tick-over needs tweaking again. The thought of another morning in the main dealers service reception reading back copies of our property adverts with comical two-year old prices to reflect on, leaves me hoping it’s the fat man.
‘Of course that’s a non-starter now,’ continues M, as my phone jangles again. ‘You not going to answer that then?’ He says frowning, fat paw straining lustfully to answer the call, with all the restraint he shows in the pie shop every morning.

I leave the mobile, figuring it’s more likely to be the ringback service than a head-hunter wanting an embittered estate agent to start immediately on double bubble with a car upgrade, then M asks disconcertingly.
‘Did you always want to do this then?’

Hell no I want to scream, and I’m whisked back to a careers advisor conversation buried deep in the sub-conscious, but clearly still festering.

‘Soo,’ the teacher ventured barely able to keep the sarcasm from his voice. ‘If a rock star and an airline pilot doesn’t work out, have you considered anything more down to earth?’
‘Aiming too high then?’ I asked, with a wry smile.
‘Do you always use humour as a defence mechanism?’ Responded the man, with what in hindsight was my first psychoanalysis.

Telling him I always liked English and maybe fancied writing brought a swift disparaging look at my report card marks and a handful of leaflets on clerical jobs.
‘Or you could try selling,’ He added almost as an afterthought. ‘You don’t need too many qualifications - just the gift of the gab.’

I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants ever since.

Profit And Loss Account - Monday

‘Has nobody heard of the Kiss principle?’ I shout in exasperation as another avoidable cock-up envelops the office and several grand’s worth of precious income is jeopardised.

F the imbecile trainee has lost another key – I sometimes think the locksmith is paying him a retainer – and M the moribund mortgage man has prevaricated over a hard to place self-employed loan, misleading us over the man’s financial standing while he tried, ever more desperately, to place the loan with the shadier operators.

The seller has finally lost patience and is threatening to pull the plug on the whole protracted process and if he does my commission will vanish faster than a container full of illegal immigrants at Dover. Like a punch-drunk boxer, I too find myself wanting to throw in the towel.

‘Kiss?’ Queries F dragging me back to reality as I find myself staring at S the comely negotiator once more.
‘Keep it simple stupid!’ I snap, as I enlighten him on the one worthwhile industry acronym I know.

‘I wouldn’t mind kissing - or keeping it simple with her!’ Slobbers M nodding towards S as he waddles back to his lending lair and prepares to fabricate three years accounts. I’m tempted to reprimand the big man and remind him of appropriate employee-to-employee conduct, but those in glasshouses…..

The e-mail in-box pings presciently and I reluctantly click open another familiar message from my bean counter boss. One thing the modern estate agency is not short of – unlike friends – is data. Reams of statistics chug out of my printer daily as every applicant, viewing, valuation, fresh instruction, sale and financial lead, is monitored and cross-checked with all the vigour of an airline pilots pre-flight checklist.

And of course the numbers are translated into the inevitable personal and office targets. The universal yoke every sales person labours under until they crack and join a commune - or a government department.

Judging by the increasingly complex, rainforest-wrecking volume of paper churning through the laser copier lately, the bean counter has not heard of the Kiss acronym, and he could do with a reminder on the other well-known target aide memoir – SMART. Objectives should be: Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic and Time Defined. Although word around the company is the increasingly superfluous grouping, should now read. Shrewd. Man. Advocates. Redundancy. Time.

‘How’s things for you?’ I ask later, instigating a much more accurate litmus test than the bean counter’s dusty numbers. I’m in a darkened half-finished stairwell, sporting a bright yellow hard hat, quizzing a powder-coated plasterer as he skims some paper-thin board. The nervy developer, increasingly desperate to shift expensive product, has disappeared to take a phone call from his bank manager and left me with the hired help.

Centrally produced statistics, from organisations like lenders and the land registry have built in obsolescence and are often out of date by the time they surface. But the sub-contractors on site know what’s happening.

And as if to confirm it the scruffy tradesman confirms his work has dried-up faster than the freshly applied screed in front of us. Before going on to enlighten me about several local developers who are delaying payments and in his opinion, about to go bust. And for good measure he tells me, what I know, every body else suspects, and the owner refuses to acknowledge, by saying.
‘And these places will never fetch the prices they’re asking.’

‘What about this bloke?’ I whisper as the developer re-appears worry lines etched across his once cocky features. And I quickly ask if the approaching entrepreneur is worth getting involved with. Particularly as he wants my company to throw extensive and expensive advertising at his near completed block – one I’ve no budget for and will need to get ratified by my parsimonious boss.

The savvy sub-contractor warns me to repeat those earlier actions, when I made my way up the rickety half-finished staircase, and to tread with caution.
‘Smart money says he’ll go belly-up before the year-end.’ Concludes the grubby guru before scooping up a red-hued trowel of mix and spreading it with a flourish.

Have a feeling it won’t be long before my numbers up too.

The Walk Of Life - Wednesday

Sat in another dusty front room of memories and the feeling of foreboding is almost palpable. The old woman in the chair opposite has the sort of face a Botox salesman would have wet dreams over. More creases than idiot F’s self-ironed shirt and drooping jowls succumbing to the inexorable pull of gravity. I’m depressed even before she starts her well-signposted reasons for moving.

‘It’s the family you see love,’ she begins voice faltering, eyes milky with age and resignation. ‘They think I can’t cope in this big old house anymore.’ Translation: get the money and spend it as soon as possible before the old goat needs a self-funding care package.

I guess families have fought and manoeuvred over still breathing relatives to improve their position, for time in memoriam - just read Jane Austen if you can manage a book without former SAS operatives slotting bad guys each chapter – but it doesn’t make it any more palatable.

‘Think I’d be better off in one of those retirement flats you see,’ mumbles the old girl looking wistfully at the mantelpiece where assorted grandchildren are displayed in various stiffly posed school photos. ‘Only I’m not so sure I want to leave this place,’ continues the woman. ‘My kids all grew up here and the grandchildren love the garden.’ So would a developer, I think avariciously, glancing at the overgrown wilderness through the French doors. Reports might be mixed still but the speculators will start buying land again eventually - they always do.

‘Do they come often then?’ I ask stupidly, remembering too late to always frame and rehearse your question in advance, even when the recipient has cold-calling undertakers posting business cards through their letterbox.
‘Oh they are very busy people you see.’ Apologises the woman with a self-deprecating shrug. They’ll be free for the reading of the will doubtless, I think to myself, and make a mental note that if I survive my wife, to blow any equity I have left on a brace of sympathetic Amsterdam hookers en-route to the Swiss exit flat – no need for orange emergency pull-cords in that apartment.

As I wait for the woman to make a cup of tea, a good ploy to stay a little longer and work on a sole agency contract, I scan the mementoes around the room and feel the melancholy building. The owner is scuttling in the kitchen as a kettle rolls to the boil and I know without looking there’ll be china cups, a milk jug and biscuits. Sure enough she labours back in, carrying a flowery tray. Here it comes, I think, as she sinks back into the well-worn armchair with a groan then looks at me, before not disappointing.

‘Don’t get old will you young man?’
Now I’m far from young, but it clearly depends on your perspective and if you can feel the disturbed air as the grim reaper sharpens his scythe. Or in this case the hurried activity as the feuding family check your bank balance. Healthier than her as it happens - sorry, but the statement was on the open bureau.
‘It’s no fun at all.’ Continues the woman, eyes as watery as her cuppa.

The rich tea’s are stale, as expected, the cups tannin stained and the sides flecked with flaking dried product from innumerable drinks gone by and the next question is just as predictable.
‘What do you think of these sheltered home schemes then?’

Now here’s a dilemma. I hate them with a passion, the claustrophobic square footage, the busybody manager, the smell of cabbage and confusion in the stairwells and the forced bonhomie of the communal lounges with their high back chairs, dribbling whist drives, and blaring volume daytime television screen.

‘They’re not too bad at all,’ says a familiar voice whose principles disappeared much sooner than that ladies fashion store my wife used to like. And the hypocrite adds a failsafe disturbance sale ploy, by adding.
‘And of course security is so much better for someone living alone.’

‘I think the family were hoping I’d get a little more than that.’ Ponders the old lady when I hit her with a realistic asking price.

Self-defeating as it is, I’m rather hoping she decides to stay put.

Cut And Run - Friday

Back to the traditional barber shop for the five-week maintenance chop. Nothing worse than those ageing men who insist on growing the remaining top of head hair longer, in a vain attempt to hide thinning thatch a-la-Bobby Charlton – an ancient footballer for those with a career shorter than mine.

There’s something comforting in the familiarity and the chummy male camaraderie of the hairdresser’s establishment. The only women venturing in are the young mother’s clutching their boys’ hands and hoping the clipper-cut won’t be too severe.

‘Just a gentle trim please.’ Pleads the yummy-mummy ahead of me in the queue, as the barber places the booster seat in the chair and begins to finger the coloured clipper guards. ‘I want to keep the blonde bits for as long as possible.’

‘Yeh make the most of it love,’ chuckles some wag further down the bench, face buried in The Sun newspaper around page three. ‘Before you know it he’ll be looking like me!’

The joker is as bald as a coot on top and I can only imagine he’ll be demanding some sort of follicle-challenged discount when the barber gets round to trimming his nape hair. Not that I’m feeling any happier as I gaze into the unforgiving mirror opposite. And to compound matters while the hairdresser begins buzzing around the little guy’s hair, as the mother winces and hovers just stopping short of collecting the falling locks for prosperity, he asks loudly.
‘How’s the property market then?’

Every waiting punter turns towards me, faces a mixture of distaste and eager expectation.
‘He’s an estate agent,’ clarifies the grass with the scissors, as I feel the jovial atmosphere vanish faster than cakes in our office kitchen. And now even the little kid having his locks done, is turning in the chair, smock riding up as he spins expectantly, presumably seeking news on early-adopters first time buyer initiatives.

‘Get off the fence pal.’ Calls out a muscle-bound guy two down from me after I’ve waffled about mixed signals and a shortage of quality property coming to the market keeping prices underpinned in the better areas.

‘You lot are responsible for the whole mess anyway.’ Announces the mother suddenly showing more interest in average selling prices than her kid’s haircut. ‘Always shoving prices up when it’s sunny and cutting them down when things turn sticky.’

‘Thanks for that.’ I mutter angrily to the barber when I finally make the chair and the queue and the animosity has subsided.
‘Just trying for a bit of banter.’ He says defensively as I contemplate stiffing him on his usual tip, then think better of it as I’ll be back in just over a month.
‘I don’t make the market,’ I whine as the clippers do the same. ‘I’m just a barometer for it.’
‘Barometer,’ Laughs the barber manically. ‘Some of those people were thinking more along the lines of bastard!’

Don’t blame the messenger I think mournfully, as the hair begins to fall and suddenly I’m the just departed child’s age again. Sitting in a long dead barber’s chair in a converted garage, watching the hair fall onto the smock with a comforting distraction. The buzz of the electric clippers, the faint smell of lubricating oil and the almost restful movement of the blades across skull, as the dark brown locks tumble and I daydream about what I’ll be when I grow up.

‘How do you want the bit where it’s thinning?’ Asks a suddenly twenty-first century voice harshly. And I tumble back into the chair, greying cast-offs falling into my lap like fallout from a summer bonfire.
‘Can you leave it a tad longer?’ Asks a familiar voice and suddenly the Charlton brothers are dancing mockingly on the pitch in front of me where the mirror should be.

‘That looks nice.’ Announces negotiator S as I skulk back into the office, fallen bits the paper towel didn’t catch already itching underneath my shirt collar. And I look at her suspiciously, the sort of look I was receiving only twenty minutes earlier as I painted a rosier picture than entirely accurate to my property market interrogators.

You never really know if you’re getting the bald truth.

Happy Clappy - Monday

Pull up outside a Victorian terraced house and feel an immediate sense of disappointment. The sparse front garden has been allowed to go wild with unidentified plant-life running riot, it could be ragweed it could even be cannabis if it wasn’t for the north facing elevation and the lack of any heat-and-light lamps. B in lettings is still negotiating with group legal over the house she rented that turned out to have a loft full of grass growing and a unfeasibly low electric bill - until the police found the direct plug-in to the street’s main circuit.

I scan my valuation sheet, not much detail there to tell me what to expect behind the garish patterned curtains that might actually be some sort of Bolivian rug. As I approach the door my hay fever early warning system starts to twitch. The neighbours might be glad the owner, a Ms according to my notes – not a good sign – is thinking of leaving, but trying to shift the shabbiest house in the road is going to test my team’s marketing skills.

As I bang loudly on the tarnished brass knocker for the second time, I finally hear footsteps as one of those irritating wind chime pipes spins by my ear emitting a dull ringing sound – something I get more and more, tubular hanging arrangements or not.

‘The agent yah?’ Questions the wild haired woman who answers rhetorically, as she gazes at my proffered business card with a barely disguised look of distaste. Necessary evil, she’s obviously thinking. Unnecessary evil I’m thinking, as I step inside to an unpleasant herbal pong and nearly slip-up on some sort of dead sheep’s carcass strewn over the parquet flooring. Health and safety zealots would love this, I chuckle to myself as we move to a front room with more throw rugs than a wig makers Christmas party.

A brace of grubby looking children of junior school age, are sitting on a lop-sided sofa, clad in homemade jumpers. The sort of tops that still give me shivers nearly forty years down the line. I told my mother I’d pay for a school jumper out of my pocket money if necessary, but she still insisted on knitting grey monstrosities she never managed to get the v-neck collar quite right on.

‘Kids off school today?’ I query, looking for a non-contentious line of conversation to break the ice with.
‘They’re having a home day.’ The born-too-late hippy announces mysteriously, as I think don’t let my youngest get wind of this wheeze. Meanwhile, the two urchins eye a man in a suit with the sort of suspicion usually reserved for those soapbox street preachers exhorting you to repent before it’s too late.

As we exit the kitchen back door and walk to the rear of the house my heart sinks further. The whole garden area has been given over to some sort of feudal farming strip. Wild flowers, unidentifiable vegetables and a chicken run with another unpleasant pong emanating from a crooked coop, assault my senses. The first sneeze arrives, shortly before I notice the flea-bitten cat winding itself round my trouser legs.

‘How did the valuation go?’ Asks assistant manger T when I return to the office. He’s half hoping I won the business and doubtless half thinking if I haven’t, he’d have done better. So I tell them about the new age family and their caring and sharing values. One’s that ended pretty abruptly when I recommended an asking price. Capitalism returned with a vengeance then.

‘Think the kids went to one of those Monty-something schools,’ I say in mitigation trying to move away from the failed appointment discussion.
‘Monty Python?’ Asks T with a grin, as I begin to wonder if it was actually one of those alternative Waldorf establishments the children attended. Curiously they too have a nebulous John Cleese connection from my salad days.

‘It’s Montessori actually,’ sniffs B. ‘A friend of mine sends her kids to one.’
Turns out they get no formal qualifications - but can knit a bomb shelter out of goat hair, given enough warning.

Think I may have missed a trick. But it’s too late to ring my mother now.

Old School - Wednesday

Assistant manager T bounces through the door on the balls of his feet waving an offer sheet and announces gleefully. ‘Incoming!’
Negotiator S and I look up with welcoming smiles, retarded trainee F ducks momentarily before giving a cheesy grin of apology, and mortgage man M pauses mid-munch and begins waddling towards his next feed.

‘Multiple flipping bids,’ crows T gleefully, waving the paperwork triumphantly. ‘The recession is officially over!’
‘You couldn’t be further from the truth.’ Snipes B from her lettings desk sourly. B is pissed-off as opposed to pissed, as her latest fleeting boyfriend has dumped her unceremoniously, proving conclusively that one swallow doesn’t make a summer.

‘Ignore her,’ I tell T waving him across to the desk I’m perched at. ‘Let’s see the details.’ And T hurries over, face flushed with excitement and I have to physically stop myself from reminding him hastily issued offers are a long way from an exchange of contracts and some commission being banked.

I knew there’d be bids forthcoming anyway as I listed the cracking little house with a super south facing garden, and realistic, motivated vendors. T has three bids in the space of an afternoon of viewings, each one documented, each one doubtless with a different set of circumstances.

The trick with the luxury of more than one offer is to establish who is in the best position to perform, taking into account their chain status, their finances and their motivation. Sadly it isn’t always the punter with the highest bid though. And ever since the banks, insurance companies and building societies became involved with front-line estate agency the original duty to your principal – the owner selling – became a little blurred.

‘Who needs finance?’ Salivates M leaning in and shedding a dandruffy snowfall of sugar from his half-masticated doughnut across the desk. M’s piggy eyes are alight with expectation as he trawls through the information T has managed to collate. There still needs to be some more research and calls to other agents involved in the chains to verify status, but M has already decided whom he wants to buy.

‘These look the best bet,’ concludes M, podgy finger with a hint of jam on the tip, prodding at a couple that need a chunky but findable mortgage and doubtless some nice bolt-on insurance policies. I’ve scanned the data too, and I disagree with my traditional estate agents hat on. I can already feel the inherent conflict of interest a financial services office target imposes on me. The bean counter is never far from my thoughts – some of them carrying high-tariff prison sentences.

In law we have a duty of care to establish the position and finances of the three parties interested, in law we must also not discriminate against any buyer if they are unwilling to use our ancillary products. M with his broking service, tame local lawyers, or crummy group tie-ins with centralised conveyancing battery farms, even the removal firm that drop in a wine-box every Christmas, if we shovel some business their way.

‘I’ll speak to them all and see what’s in it for me,’ proclaims M before hastily correcting himself. ‘I mean us.’
‘Best buyer for the owner remember.’ I caution to deaf ears as M’s roly-poly gait migrates towards his office, his buttocks chafing moistly with excitement.

Two hours later there is a bidding war unfolding and a potential lose-lose situation. M has rather pleasingly, failed to coerce any of the punters to use his services and reluctantly confirmed their status and ability to me, like a petulant schoolgirl.

‘What should we do?’ Asks the owner when I tell him the embarrassment of riches we’ve contrived to present him with. In the background I can hear his wife prompting in a stage whisper. ‘I told you it was too cheap Martin.’

And before the situation spirals out of control I tell the owner how I’ll now endeavour to obtain best offers from all three parties and we can then make an informed decision on the basis not just of the numbers - but their ability to perform. It is a tricky balancing act and needs polished negotiating skills not to alienate everyone, but then that’s what the vendors are paying me for.

Suddenly I’m enjoying myself again.






P.S The link below has just been brought to my attention - stick with it, it's not what it seems....




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YM9Ereg2Zo