My mobile rings as I battle the traffic to get back to
the office. Needless to say I haven’t remembered to stuff the ugly bluetooth
earpiece device in the side of my head – I’m still not convinced it doesn’t
irradiate the few brain cells that haven’t been permanently damaged by this
job.
‘Really?’ I ask the empty car, as I see the office number
flashing insistently. There was a time in the late eighties when I thought it
was the height of cool to have a brick-like cellular phone clamped to the
centre consol of my Ford Orion Ghia, now I detest the 24/7 availability mobile
communications provide. I check the traffic and scan for any police cars. Can I
risk a sneaky conversation, or should I try and double park to take the call?
‘Yes?’ I say curtly as I make sure I’m not about to
plough into a woman with pushchair on a pedestrian crossing. Estate agents
already get enough bad publicity.
‘Where are you boss?’ Asks trainee F via a crackling
connection. In the car you cretin crosses my mind but sarcasm doesn’t travel
well over the airwaves, plus I’m not sure if cretin is an allowable term of
endearment for staff any longer. There must be a memo somewhere.
‘Can you do a quick add-on viewing at Mrs Brown’s house?’
Asks F after I’ve given him my location – still moving slowly but in full
control of the car officer. My mind whirs in time with the nagging sound from
under the bonnet, possibly a water pump I’ve been told. But the prospect of
sitting in the grubby main dealer’s service area drinking molten-plastic-laced
instant coffee and reading back copies of the local property paper while some
oik in overalls takes an hour to tell me the part isn’t in stock, just makes me
want to weep.
I can’t for the life of me remember who Mrs Brown is. I
know every property but the names elude me after all this time. I ask for the
address and another dilemma presents itself. We need a viewing rather urgently
on Mrs Brown’s home. Nobody has looked in over a month of marketing. One of the
main gripes about agents once they have the home to sell is lack of contact. I
urge staff to call clients once a week – the rather racily titled, but actually
none too pleasurable, vendor contact – only after four weeks of excuses and no
punters the calls become uncomfortable. There’s only so many times you can
promise another advert and say the market will pick up once the kids are back
at school.
‘Give me the details.’ I tell F reluctantly, stopping
alongside a delivery van hazard lights flashing, back door flung wide open. I
jot down the viewers name and the appointed time and check F has ensured Mrs
Brown will be there. We don’t have a key and it wouldn’t be the first time the
imbecile has sent another staff member to a home we don’t have access to.
Viewers can get pretty pissy if all they can see is a widescreen view of the
hall via the letterbox alongside an assurance that it’s very nice inside too.
‘Glad to finally have someone coming to look.’ Announces
Mrs Brown a little frostily, once I’ve arrived ten minutes early and gone
inside to complete this week’s vendor contact – without the touchy-feely bit
obviously. She’s overweight and over fifty and even estate agents have some
standards.
We bat some rather stiff small talk back and forth as I
notice she’s vacuumed the carpets and sprayed something fresh smelling round
the lounge in the time it took her to rush home from work.
The best time to sell a home is when it’s new to the
market. A month of marketing means price, position and those ghastly pot plants
out front are putting people off. In Mrs Brown’s mind though it’s doubtless my
fault.
‘They’re not coming are they?’ She finally asks twenty
minutes after the arranged time and five minutes after I’ve run out of excuses.
Once again my profession drops below journalist on the
most hated list. It was good while it lasted.
----
An estate agent and a columnist - not a popular mix but take a free peek at the book anyway.
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