Funding Gap - Thursday

‘Any luck?’ I ask fat finance man M, after a young couple leave his office. He still didn’t see them to the door, but unless you’re an impoverished French butcher, I still see no point in flogging a dead horse.

‘Not enough deposit saved yet.’ Bemoans M with a shake of his jowly jaws, before adding.’Makes you wish for the days when you could source a cheeky liar loan and tuck them up with an endowment policy.’

‘That’s disgraceful.’ Chides negotiator S with a pretty pout. I forget she’s so young she didn’t have to flog insurance policies, with dubious benefits to buyers, just to please corporate masters. It was about the time the line between the estate agent’s duty to the vendor became permanently blurred. I’ve worn glasses ever since.

‘You’ll follow them up though.’ I tell M pointedly. He won’t. The only time he shows any forward momentum is when there’s an unfinished packet of biscuits in the office kitchen.

‘They know where to find me.’ Counters M, heading for the aforementioned location.

Yep, and so do we.

‘Not sure I’ll ever be able to afford my own property and I spend all day selling them.’ Announces S sadly.

‘Bank of mum and dad is what you need.’ Says assistant manager T, referring to the one source of finance that will lend, without a raft of fact finding paperwork and a twenty-five year indenture.

‘Haven’t seen my dad for years.’ Answers S mournfully.

‘All the more reason to tap him up for a ten percent deposit.’ Says T jauntily. ‘Push the guilt trip buttons.’

S just shakes her head and looks achingly sad. And all these couples squabbling over the matrimonial home value, still convince themselves separation is in the children’s best interest and won’t harm them at all. It’s still harming me thirty-five years down the line.

‘Didn’t look old enough to buy anyway.’ Contributes B from her lettings’ desk. Didn’t stop her eying up the boyfriend though. I saw her. At least I was more discrete with the girlfriend.

‘You’ll buy eventually.’ I tell S with as much conviction as I can muster. It will probably take another property crash and I’m not sure I’m looking forward to my third one. But the market is cyclical - always has been.

‘Do you think prices will come down then?’ Queries S.

Hell yes. I have for some time, but then with a burgeoning influx of population fuelled by migrants, and pensioners who refuse to die at the appointed age, it may take a while yet. We could build a lot more homes of course, but planning restrictions, green belt policies and greedy landowners aren’t exactly helping things.

‘They can’t keep accelerating.’ I eventually tell S. She doesn’t look convinced.

‘More mug punters for me to let crappy converted flats to.’ Says B, unhelpfully. S scowls at her and so do I, but inwardly, B’s figures help pay my own rent and as an estate agent I don’t need extra enemies.

‘Is it just me,’ asks M, returning with a mug of coffee. ‘Or are buyers looking younger and younger?’ It’s the exact opposite actually, with the average age of a first time buyer being pushed towards middle age. I see countless overgrown children still squatting it their parents’ homes like cosy Cuckoos, but I know what M means.

‘It’s like when policemen start looking young enough to be your baby brother.’ Announces B all glassy-eyed.

‘They’re not real policemen if you just persuade them to dress up like that, for some sweets.’ Snipes S bitchily.

Ouch.

Before a cat fight breaks out - and rather disappointingly - the door opens and some pre-pubescent boy in an ill-fitting Next suit comes in and asks for the keys to a property we have on multi-agency, along with several of our competitors.

‘Who was that spunk bubble?’ Asks M slurping his drink loudly, after the young lad has left.

‘New trainee negotiator for that lot across the road.’ Answers S.

‘Didn’t look old enough to shave.’ Replies M.

‘I could show him something on my register.’ Says B ambiguously.

I’m really feeling my age.

------

Happy Valley Court - Wednesday

Back at another sheltered retirement home development, with that growing sense of foreboding I’ve been getting ever since I valued my first one, about twenty-five years ago. In those days the minimum entry age of fifty-five seemed an age away, and about right for giving up on life and playing Whist in the communal lounge until the undertaker came. Now I’m not so sure…..

‘You can’t park there.’ Croaks an elderly woman, sitting astride one of those bulky motorised wheelchair-come-quad bike things that force you off the pavement and clip your ankles in supermarkets. I swear most occupants aren’t disabled, just too fat and lazy to walk.

‘I’m visiting number forty-two.’ I tell the nosey crone, who in fairness looks wrinkled and wobbly enough to justify her Blue Badge, allowing parking outside my office where I’m not permitted to stop.

The hag’s eyes twinkle. ‘Marjorie’s flat?’ She enquires with a gummy smile. I consult my clipboard and confirm the identity of the elderly owner, who is now in her third month blocking a hospital bed. I’m meeting the son in five minutes, so I need to shake off this old woman with all day to spare.

‘I knew she wouldn’t be back.’ Says the old girl with an unsettling chuckle, before engaging some sort of drive mechanism and whining across the car park towards an open ground floor flat door. 

I want to shout after the gloating woman, and tell her re-sales are really tricky on low-level units, but in truth it will be her beneficiaries who’ll have that problem.

‘Come on up, I’m on the fourth floor.’ Says a male voice, after I’ve buzzed the communal entrance doorbell. The door clicks and I grab it before the cut-off locks again. I’ve spent too many awkward minutes trying to re-establish contact with a hard-of-hearing occupant upstairs, when I’ve not tugged the door in time.

‘You here on business?’ Demand a disembodied voice, as I enter the gloomy foyer and get the first whiff of stewed cabbage that invariably inhabits the halls of these blocks. I see the house manager is in her little cubbyhole-come-office. There was a time when these places all had a live on-site warden to help the residents and to justify the sky-high management charges. Then the bean-counters took over.

I show the sour-faced woman my card and she begrudgingly nods acceptance, before adding curtly. ‘Don’t give them a stupid price. I know what you lot are like.’

I offer my well-practiced false smile and push the lift button. Nearly five minutes later the doors wheeze open. More bean-counter cost saving, I think, as I notice the cheap lift manufacturers logo and begin to wish I’d taken the stairs.

New build has often fetched a premium, but the prices elderly folk pay for these shrunken square footage flats has always disturbed me. During my first property crash I used to sell the second-hand, slightly soiled units, for about half what the parents had paid for them less than eighteen months before they went to the nursing home. Most of the blocks used to be called Something Court. Totally caught would have been more appropriate.

‘That you on the mantlepiece?’ I ask the late-middle aged son of Marjorie, as we try not to step on each others toes in the cramped flat. As usual, the furniture is way to big and dark for the living room/kitchen.

The man looks at the collection of faded photographs on the mock fireplace, wobbly-balanced above an electric fire. 

‘Yes.’ He answers with a self-conscious grin.

‘Mid-seventies?’ I enquire, looking at the shot of him with wrinkle-free skin and a disastrous mullet hair cut, but thinking about a suitable price for his mother’s flat.

‘Afraid so.’ He answers with a sheepish grin and a sweep across his bald pate, where time and genetics have robbed him of his locks.

‘Do you know how much Mum paid for the flat?’ I ask gingerly. Sometimes they say, sometimes they don’t. Then I hit him with the price.

Fortunately, he couldn’t tear his hair out. 

------

Download the ebooks while you still can - links on the right.