Shop 'Till You Drop - Monday

Out on three back-to-back valuations with assistant manager T alongside me. Running appointments together is something I strive to achieve. It’s the best use of time and if you are on a roll, winning an instruction at the first appointment, your confidence blossoms. Then if you nail the next one, the hat-trick, like the euphoria around the cricketing version, seems psychologically to be inevitable – unless they final vendor is a tossser.

Of course it could be argued that having two staff, on each appointment is not something a shipped-in business consultant would advocate, with their colourfully annotated PowerPoint graphics underscoring a spurious time-and-motion study on the overhead projector – but sometimes two heads are better than one. And if you are not gelling with the owner, a quick switch to the good cop, bad cop routine, can help to secure the business.

‘Poundsaver purse?’ Suggests T as we arrive at the first appointment, a pokey studio flat in a cheaply converted Victorian house. It’s a puerile game we play to pass the time, that’s become a bit of a habit. Try to guess the owners supermarket of choice by the appearance of their home. Since everybody started recycling shopping bags it’s become a little trickier to confirm your guess, but it’s surprising how often we are right.

The approach to the flat is littered with bin bags, at least two of which have been gnawed open during the night by some sharp-toothed vermin. Apparently you are never more than a few feet from a rat in the city. Something a wise-guy applicant pointed out recently when remarking on why estate agents offices cluster together in the same street. Grudgingly I had to admit, after he’d left, that it was quite amusing. Although while he was there I frostily pointed out the proximity of our competitors was down primarily to the A2 planning status needed to practice.

‘One nil to me,’ crows T as we exit the pokey flat, suggested price unwelcome by the look in the owner’s eye when I pitched. ‘I could tell he was a cheapskate when he balked at the fee.’ Continues T, as we head back to the car and prepare for the next appointment, my confidence waning just as sure as if I’d been slogged for successive sixes.

Next up a two bed 1990’s built maisonette on a bland identikit estate, the units are timber-framed, something the amateur might not know but something I personally wouldn’t buy. The developer, a well-known national name, that like most over the course of my career have both prospered and flirted with bankruptcy.

‘Loose change at Lidl.’ Predicts T, continuing the game as I scan the communal gardens for any sign of the telltale yellow bags.
‘You can’t always judge a book by it cover.’ I offer lamely, knowing he’s probably right, as I pass a downstairs window where a blank-eyed couch potato is staring at daytime television, on a flickering large screen television.

‘Tertiary position when they built these.’ I tell T as we approach the target property.
‘You remember that far back?’ Responds T incredulously. Spirits continuing to fall along with the gloomy surroundings, I confirm to T I watched the hidden inner wooden skins going up, before the outer-brick was appended.
‘Doesn’t help with these monstrosities overhead.’ I carp, nodding skywards to where brooding Mechano-like pylons straddle the development, overhead cables sighing softly in the breeze.
‘Eco-friendly.’ Quips T inclining his head towards the humming high-voltage carriers. ‘Don’t need to have any lights on in the house at night, the whole place glows for free.’

‘This is more like it.’ I predict, as we arrive at the final appointment, down two-nil in the series after owner of Geiger heights pulled the plug on my presentation, shocked at the costs involved. ‘The Waitrose well,’ I continue, looking at the four bed detached house with new plate people carrier on the drive. ‘These people will appreciate quality and be prepared to pay a little extra for the privilege.’

‘Asda price,’ Laughs T ironically, taping his backside to illustrate the point, after we’ve been shown the door. ‘I think we need to find a new game.’

He doesn’t know how right he is.

Love And Marriage - Wednesday

‘This could be poison.’ I caution towards trainee F as we pull up outside four pairs of tightly drawn semi-detached homes. The potential for neighbourly feuds made even greater than the proximity, by the shortsighted provision of twin shared drives.

‘They fall out over the parking arrangements don’t they?’ Queries F with a little more confidence than usual. He seems to have finally retained a piece of relevant information other than his own name.
‘They do,’ I confirm with a Roger Moore-like raised eyebrow. ‘You remembered that, well done.’

Briefly I’m impressed, thinking perhaps my relentless drumming-in of information might be bearing fruit and the buffoon is actually beginning to function independently from my benevolent-employment life-support system. Visions of cutting the umbilical cord and watching him grow into a fully functioning agent flash before me.

‘You probably remember number 23 London road from last year don’t you?’ I ask, and the blank look drops faster than lettings lady B’s knickers in a nightclub cloakroom.
‘Uh no, not really.’ Replies F, as I apply the handbrake and turn to look at his creased features. ‘It’s just that me and mum used to live in a house like these, and she was always arguing with next door when they parked their caravan across the back of her car.’

‘I didn’t know you lived around here.’ I say, gathering up brief case and camera.
‘Not here, similar.’ Replies F, a wistful look replacing the vapid one as he continues. ‘We lived in quite a few places really. Never stayed for long.’
I’m tempted to ask, if he has so much personal experience of regular property transactions, why he’s failed to grasp much about the business thus far, but he’s not alone in that. It doesn’t seem to stop asinine television presenters with no hands-on knowledge of the business, presenting endless property porn shows on satellite telly.

‘Anyway,’ I continue as we walk up the shared drive and I tap my feet on the crumbling concrete base. ‘There ought to be restrictive covenants in the deeds dictating the access arrangements, for this sort of thing.’
‘Covenants?’ Questions F haltingly as my heart sinks to subterranean levels and I wonder if we have a Sydney office I could send F to, as he seems intent on tunnelling.
‘Nothing to do with witches, or Harry Potter.’ I tell him curtly, as I ring the bell and prepare to present my business card.

The valuation is a pending matrimonial so I know at best it will be a long-haul before we get any business from the appointment. Chances are we’re just being used by one of the parties to get a figure for protracted negotiations as to who stays in the house. F isn’t alone in having a history of fractured childhood homes and multiple moves. There’s a well-supported theory that still chills me on nights lying awake, that you are fated by genetics and conditioning, to repeat the mistakes of your parents.

‘Don’t think you are putting your for sale board up anytime soon.’ Growls a sour-faced woman in her fifties, sat alongside her daughter as a convincing minder. The soon to be single-mum sits mutely clutching a twelve month old baby, as her mother continues undaunted.

‘We just want a figure in writing so that bastard can’t get force her out of the house.’ Snarls the mother-in-law from hell, as I begin to see why the marriage has foundered. It’s probably her caravan that blocks the shared drive most nights. Usually one party wants an artificially high estimate and one a correspondingly low one, depending on their lawyer’s opening gambit. Either way it’s unfailingly dispiriting.

‘I told her he was no good from the start.’ Rails the mother, as the daughter looks teary-eyed at me, while I explain I can only give an impartial suggestion on price, one that is not suitable for court purposes.
‘None of the others wanted a fee.’ Snipes the family spokeswoman as I explain she needs a formal valuation from a surveyor, and she confirms I’m not the only agent listening to a diatribe that would make the counsellor at Relate want to retrain.

Another alternative career off the list then.

Home Truths - Friday

Prepared with briefcase primed and ready I ring the doorbell. I’m rewarded with an excitable high-pitched yapping and the skittering of paws on parquet and my mood sinks.

‘Just try and keep the dog occupied while I pitch will you?’ I hiss at trainee F, alongside me as I sub-consciously manoeuvre the boy to take the first manic clawing of another untrained hound. I’m already doubtful about the valuation, now I’m about to be salivated over by some stinking furball I’m supposed to feign affection for. It’s easier to coo over babies at least they remain in the cot most of the time – ugly or otherwise.

‘I love dogs.’ Enthuses F as I hear footsteps approaching and a half-hearted attempt to control the still barking mutt.
‘Good you can exchange pleasantries and spittle while I try for some business.’ I tell him as the door opens and I paste on a well-practiced smile.

‘Oh don’t mind him.’ Gushes the woman as a floppy-eared blur launches at me unrestrained. Oh but I do, I think maliciously, as the first prickly feeling stirs in my nasal passages and I feel my throat constrict fractionally. ‘He’s just trying to make friends.’ Continues the woman oblivious to the fact her whiffy-pooch is trying to dry-hump my leg in the hallway. So I sidestep the thrusting attentions and introduce the horny animal to F.

‘Oh he likes you,’ trills the infatuated owner as the dog attempts to mount a now less than enthusiastic F as he half-walks, half-limps, into the lounge, his canine admirer frantically copulating against his calf. At least with F’s cheap hand-me-down suit it won’t be quite so critical if it cops a wad of spaniel-spunk down the over-wide pinstripe.

We do the tour of the house, with F valiantly trying to shake off the lusty pet without actually kicking the thing in the nuts, and for once I’m glad I brought him along. The house stinks of course, something the owner is totally oblivious to, as are most pet owners such is their infatuation for a panting lower-order animal with bad breath that will show them some affection. It’s surely easier to get a husband.

The kitchen reeks of the drooling dog and the bedrooms are not much better, evidence of where the pet is permitted to sleep on the double bed occasioned by a grubby fur-strewn blanket. The bathroom has seen little updating in the last fifteen years and the same amount of cleaning products I’ll warrant. Then we hit the stay at home son’s bedroom.

‘He’s a bit messy,’ shrugs the woman. ‘But boys will be boys.’
I’m a boy too - at least I used to be - I think as I stifle the first sneeze, but I don’t leave my soiled clothes to fester in such quantities. I swear the pile is moving of its own volition as we back out the room and momentarily the stale stench of spent bodily fluids overcomes the pong from pongo.

‘Of course mine is the best in the road.’ Concludes the woman as she lights up a cigarette and the smoke weaves its way towards the yellowing ceiling. I toy with telling her the truth, just as the pet makes a strangulated noise and leaps away from F. The dog’s either ejaculated or F’s surreptitiously booted it. I’m past caring.

So for the record and in the fairly certain expectation that Mrs W isn’t reading - and if she is, in the reasonable belief that people don’t usually recognise themselves, here are the home truths.

People won’t take you as they find you – they just won’t take you, particularly at that price.
Dog hair all over the kitchen surfaces isn’t endearing it’s just slovenly.
Pebbledash has dubious enough value on a 1950’s elevation; it’s certainly not a winner on the close-coupled WC porcelain.
A lawn with patches of yellowy piss stains and spent dog turds is not a selling feature it’s a toilet.
And an unkempt son over twenty-five and still at home is known as a sitting tenant who seriously impacts on value.

No charge for the advice lady, like I said - no sale/no fee.

Money For Nothing - Monday

Troubled trainee F stands alongside me, it’s a labour of love – only without the affection.
‘Nobody in?’ he queries, as I bang on the grubby doorknocker one more time and check my appointment details. But even as I confirm it’s the right place at the right time, I hear shuffling footsteps behind the weathered door and slowly several chains and bolts are drawn with Hammer Horror prescience. Subconsciously I take a half step back and prepare for F to take the impact.

The terraced house is at obvious odds with the homes either side. They have new roof tiles, replacement windows and neatly trimmed hedgerows. In stark contrast the rundown pile we are outside shows years of neglect. Peeling woodwork shed’s ancient shards of faded gloss paint and cloying cobwebs shroud the dim porch light, still lit despite the daylight and despite entreaties to save energy.

The long-standing occupant, reluctantly unshackling his security measures, is a sitting tenant on a protected rent. The landlord wants to sell-up and realise his investment, the old boy finally revealing himself as the door creaks open, isn’t keen on shifting.

‘I’m not moving you know.’ Growls the man, nicotine stained teeth bared aggressively. He’s dressed in a food-flecked vest and those baggy trousers old men like to pull-up to nipple height. ‘I know me rights.’

There are fewer and fewer of these entrenched renters left, as time and MRSA pick them of. Their below market rents were invariably set before the introduction of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy regulations fuelled the beginning of the buy-to-let boom. Effectively guaranteeing landlords possession of their properties at the end of a set term and safeguarding their investment. Those that remain tend to only leave reluctantly and more often than not, horizontally.

The defensive old fella warms marginally when he realises I’m not able to turf him out on the street, and begins to regale F and I with tales of his earlier life. He even offers us a drink, but I politely decline having seen the ancient butler sink, slippery wooden draining board piled high with dirty crockery. No danger of him succumbing to infection, I think as we leave, his immune system must be more robust than mine.

‘He’d have talked forever.’ Muses F as we sit in the car outside and I write up my notes. And I tell the perpetual trainee people like that are invariably lonely and once you’ve overcome their inherent dislike of our profession you can win them over. ‘Just concentrate on talking about them though,’ I advise. ‘It underpins your pitch if they’re selling, plus they don’t know too much about you if it all goes pear-shaped.’

F scratches his chin, cogs almost audibly whirring unless it’s that radiator fan failing to cut out again, then asks almost intelligently.
‘How do you price something like that, if he won’t shift?
And as we’re not due back in the office for a while, I explain about hope value.

Investors gauge what they are prepared to pay, on the return from capital required. Rent received against purchase price, to give a gross percentage yield. Too little and the money is better off in a deposit account, particularly as any short-term capital growth has been dwindling.

‘Yeh right,’ says F brow furrowed like a farm track. I’ve clearly lost him, something I’ve been trying to do for months as it happens, but he ploughs on. ‘But what’s the hope value then?’

It’s a tricky equation, part experience part finger in the air guesswork, predicated on how long any buyer expects the old tenant to live before they get vacant possession. The younger and healthier the occupant, the further below open market value the bid, to make up for the paltry rental return. Auction is the route for disposal I’ll be recommending, as only specialist buyers will have access to funds.

‘So a normal buyer would catch a cold if they owned something like that.’ Ponders F as we cut through the park and pass another sitting tenant stubbornly ensconced on a bench, claw-like hand asking for change. And I nod, before adding.
‘Unless the occupant does first.’

Do-You-Think-He-Saw-Us - Tuesday

‘Here we go again.’ I grump to my rival manager H, the vertically challenged Lothario.
‘You take it all too literally,’ He responds from somewhere uncomfortably close to my groin. ‘Just let it all wash over you, say the right thing at the right time and leave it to the youngsters to lap up all the bull they’ll be peddling.’
H has a point I grudgingly admit, but I think my capacity to swallow any more pseudo-sales babble has probably been reached. I’m starting to reject.

‘This is the funniest bit,’ Whispers H conspiratorially. ‘See how sad their lives really are!’ And after a short intro from the double-act facilitating – God how I hate that term – the course on Cross-selling in a changed market place begins with the obligatory personal introductions, and a hilarious fact about what the individual did at the weekend.

Christ I could tell them all about cross selling, I think angrily, as the first tentative hand goes up volunteering to kick-off proceedings. Sap. Bloody seething selling has been my stock in trade for some time now. Not ostensibly mind, that would take self-destruction a tad too far, but in the form of therapeutic blog entries and idle day dreams as to how I’d do it all differently if I came round again.

‘And we had a family barbecue.’ Drones some earnest new negotiator to a stifled laugh from H. I’m not really listening as my mind is frantically searching for some snippet of not-too-revealing home-life trivia I can divulge, to the less than interested audience. All I can think of is the disastrous first visit to Ikea my wife dragged me on recently.

Now call me old fashioned but if I wanted to experience a maze I’d ship along to Hampton Court and get lost in there. Being totally disorientated and staring at an information board informing me: You Are Here, only served to increase my anger at the soulless experience. Like those estate agencies that refuse to put properties in the window, something wasn’t gelling here. And I couldn’t actually buy anything – just look and get more and more disorientated. The only difference to a garden based labyrinth was the odd soft furnishing and throw cushion display, instead of those fast-growing screening conifers.

‘You know your trouble don’t you.’ Begins H as we take a coffee break and balance what taste like yesterday’s pastries on our saucers.
‘Go on then tell me.’ I say, knowing he will anyway. Never miss the opportunity to put down a competitor. That I did learn, long ago.
‘You keep trying to buck the system.’ Informs H with a hint of glee. ‘And you just mark yourself out then – particularly with your office’s sales figures.’

‘They didn’t get the rant about Ikea did they?’ I ask mournfully, as I swipe a second Danish from the tray and regret it after the first mouthful.
‘Tell them what they want to hear.’ Coaches H. ‘Most of these muppets probably shop at the Swedish barn, particularly those two.’ H indicates the terminally dull course facilitators as they flit around the room forming “business-buddy relationships”.

There’s nothing new under the sun of course, I haven’t learned that much since early Dale Carnegie and Pendle selling system indoctrinations, so twin-earning opportunities and multiple incomes streams, are just like avocado bathrooms, morphing to whisper grey, through to white and back. Same product - different wrapping. Anyway I still can’t get over the fact I want to act for the vendor and get them the best price. Something that can only be blurred when you are tasked to flog the buyer mortgage and insurance products, plus solicitor services and swap-shop utility tariffs.

I still vividly recall a drafted in American trainer preaching his letter-based selling system to a sceptical bunch of Brits. The man had a moustache – a sign now I think of it – and seriously expected straight-laced UK agents to write to buyers and sellers on birthdays and the anniversary of their purchase to say Hi, and remind them you were their Estate Agent For Life. My ex-boss never did forgive me for laughing out loud.

‘You know what you are don’t you?’ Concludes H as we traipse to the car park. ‘A dinosaur.’

He’s dead right.

Trickle Down Theory - Thursday

‘Is this really necessary?’ Gripes assistant manager T from the passenger seat, as behind me trainee F masticates slowly, the sound annoying me even though I can’t see his face in the rear view mirror.
‘Great way to get to know your patch intimately.’ I tell T, as we pull into the road in question.
‘There’s satellite navigation for that nowadays.’ Replies T caustically.
I wouldn’t mind getting to know her patch!’ Guffaws F as a young girl struts by haughtily.

‘God you lot are so crude.’ Complains negotiator S from the back seat I can see clearly. She’s the reason I almost clipped a parked car as we entered the area, but now I have to make clear, for my own sake and to avoid any future difficulty at employment tribunals, that F’s comment is not acceptable in a modern and enlightened discrimination-free workplace.

‘Shut-up,’ I reprimand the boy abruptly before adding bluntly. ‘And if that’s gum you are chewing you can lose it now.’
‘It’s nicotine gum,’ replies F defensively. ‘I’m trying to get off the weed.’
‘I don’t care if it’s edible kelp,’ I tell him, secretly rather pleased with the retort. ‘You don’t chew in view of the public and while we’re about it you don’t make offensive remarks about them either.’

‘Hypocrite.’ Hisses T as we exit the car and S flashes me the sort of smile that makes me forget the sort of double standards I’ve just employed. As a young punk rocker, I used to despise hypocrites and capitalists with equal vigour, but it’s curious how time and disappointment contrive to make you resemble that which you used to decry.

‘Back at the car in half an hour or so.’ I instruct before getting my own back on T by telling him to go one way down the road with F, while I head off the other with S. ‘I’m never sure if theses leaflets actually work.’ Posits S as we start off, clutching the handouts I fashioned earlier on the office PC. I’ve avoided the crass: We have someone urgently waiting for your home. Call Darren immediately, school of flyer, for something I feel is a little more refined and less likely to get me sued. But in the end it’s the same con-man, in a better suit.

‘It gets us out of the office and doing something positive.’ I tell S as we begin weaving up and down drives avoiding ominously barking dogs and the occasional car washer, who look at us with the barely concealed hostility of the regularly junk-mailed recipient. The footslogging is made more palatable by S’s pretty countenance as we meet at the head of each drive, in a protracted pavement fandango.

‘Is that true about the gum chewing.’ She asks, as we pause and re-assess the number of leaflets left, against the remaining homes.
‘Yep, I tell her. ‘And clean shoes, hair not too long. No visible tattoos, neat finger nails, no comedy ties and spinach-free teeth, all help. You can tell a lot about people’s foibles if you are observant enough.’

‘How did you learn all this stuff?’ Asks S, seemingly genuinely interested, although those rose-tinted glasses to tend to filter everything flatteringly for the susceptible wearer.
‘School of hard knocks,’ I tell her. ‘Every time I notice something costing us business I make a mental note to add it to the list. Facial piercing is a no-no too.’

‘People think selling is all about telling.’ I continue as we walk back to the car almost as if we’re together other than in a business sense. ‘But you need to watch and listen more than talk. One mouth, two ears.’ I tell her sagely, paraphrasing past sales courses a little but pretending it’s all my own work.

‘You should write all this stuff down.’ Trills S enthusiastically as I spy F and T fast approaching, a small yapping dog manically chasing F’s ankles for sport. ‘Maybe write a book or something.’ I laugh dryly in response, cheeks colouring.
‘No I’m serious.’ Presses S.
‘Nobody would want to read about estate agents.’ I tell her wearily.

There’s plenty I’d like to tell S, but discretion is the better part of valour.