Huge Issues - Wednesday

'Spare some change man?’ Asks the rough sleeper, propped in a grubby sleeping bag in an empty shop doorway. He looks suitably forlorn and judging by the damp piece of cardboard he’s lying on, the scattering of meagre possessions and the slumbering mangy dog, tethered by a piece of string, he’s genuinely been here all night.

‘Sorry pal.' I say, even before I’ve fully considered my thoughts, and I play out a familiar pantomime of throwing my hands apart, palms up, to signify I’ve no cash. Of course I do have money and if he takes contactless cards payments, as some professional beggars are rumoured to do - because the Big Issue man can seemingly afford a mobile phone - then I could help him with the price of a coffee. But conversely, if I can’t afford to buy my caffeine fix at  Costa or Starbucks why should I pay for his full-fat latte and slice of over-priced brownie?

‘Probably wouldn’t spend it on a hot drink anyway.’ I mutter to myself, as I continue towards the office and stumble across another homeless man, in another empty shop unit doorway. Pleasingly, it’s a commercial unit that not too long ago housed a fledgling, cut-price fee, estate agency firm. I saw them out of business, as I’ve done many others over my career. There are no short-cuts to good service and a good reputation.

‘Can you help me out?’ Pleads the second vagrant, lying on another bed of commercial packaging that isn’t going to be recycled any time soon. He has the sort of impressive beard, that with a little grooming, would put the second-coming hipsters who do buy coffee around here, to shame.

I could help the man out, I could point him in the direction of the job centre and let him know that if he applies himself, takes a bit of pride in his appearance and doesn’t spend all his benefit money on cheap cider and roll-up cigarettes, then I could possibly rent him a studio flat in six months time. But nothing is ever that simple.

‘I’m all out man.’ I tell the bedraggled figure. I’m not. It’s a blatant lie, but I’m torn between wanting to help these people out and the nagging feeling I’m being played. Plus, estate agents do have a reputation to protect…

‘Have a good day anyway.’ Mutters the man into his voluminous beard. Bastard. He’s been on the guilt-trip-close, sale’s course. I’m half-tempted to turn around and give him a pound coin or two, but that nagging article a racist couple showed me in their Daily Mail a few weeks ago, as they bemoaned the country and planned their flight to somewhere sunnier, is lodged like a parasite in my brain.

‘You see that’s what they do.’ Said the husband earnestly, showing me the picture of some eastern European pair, parking their BMW on a meter for the day and heading to the west end of London for a lucrative day’s begging.

‘The country is going to the dogs.’ Echoed his sun-bleached wife. ‘That’s why we’re leaving.’

They’ll be back once one of them gets ill and they’ll doubtless wonder why the NHS can’t help them, because all the non-native care staff have also left the country. I’m not going anywhere. I had the chance long ago, and figured if you can’t make it here, in the birthplace of democracy, in one of the most - until now- welcoming and liberal societies on earth, you won’t be making it anywhere else, just because you need a stronger sun cream.

As I approach the office I notice two more commercial boards above recently vacated shops. A horrible feeling of deja vu engulfs me. I’ve seen decimated high streets before and failed estate agency firms, the whole thing has ominous portents. Maybe the only way to solve the UK housing crisis is for another big property recession? It’s like a turkey wishing for Christmas, I realise, and it could be me sleeping rough if it really bites.

‘Big Issue sir?’ Asks a gruff voice, from nowhere.

Yes it is.

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The God Of Small Things - Friday

‘You’ve a studio flat to look at later.’ Announces negotiator S as I re-enter the office after the joyless  run to pick up a low-calorie, taste-free, meal deal.

‘What’s that going to be like?’ Asks trainee F gormlessly.

‘The stationery cupboard.’ I tell him, dumping the wafer-thin sandwich, pseudo-crisps and tired-looking fruit combo on the desk.

I follow F’s gaze towards the aforementioned paper and pen repository. God, I sometimes long for less litigious times when it was acceptable to clout a dozy trainee around the ear, or just ask for his office keys, without verbal warnings in writing and a multi-stage disciplinary process monitored by Human  Resources' drones and legal insurance companies. I’ll have to settle for sending F on an afternoon’s leaflet dropping in the rain.

‘He means it will be compact.’ Says S to F, gently.

‘Cramped.’ Adds assistant manager T, who seems to have ducked the undersized valuation somehow.

‘Bijou, even.’ Contributes fat mortgage man M with a chubby-chopped smile. That confuses F even further, until lettings lush B adds:

‘Shite.’

I vividly remember when I first visited a studio flat, back in the late eighties when developers and speculators were busy maximising profit and minimising square-footage, in shabbily converted, once grand, Victorian family homes.

Tagging along with the kindly surveyor I was training with, we entered a top floor roof space, once designated for servants or Not Needed On Journey labelled packing cases, to find a plaster boarded space with sloping roof lines, fit only for Snow White cast members.

As I tried to hold the old-school tape measure to the widest extremity, I was thinking if this was the lounge, with a DIY style galley kitchen incongruously in one corner, how pokey was the bedroom going to be?

The first door I tried was minuscule shower room with no natural light, a wheezy extractor fan, and a toilet wedged so tight to the angled ceiling that you’d never piss standing up. The second door I tugged, expecting to find the sleeping accommodation, turned out to conceal a clumsily-lagged hot water tank.

‘So they sleep in the lounge?’ I remember asking, hesitantly. A somewhat smarter, and smarter-dressed version of F, on reflection.

‘It’s a new concept.’ Enlightened the old, Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, with a frown. ‘It won’t catch on. I’m going to down-value it.’

‘I’m not sure I’d want to buy a flat that small.’ Speculates F, once he’s finally grasped the concept of turning your sweaty sofa into a bed at the end of an evening.

‘Just as well, you couldn’t afford it on your salary.’ Says M with a hearty guffaw. ‘Particularly when you’re on commission. Not even I could fudge the employer’s reference enough to find a lender for you.’ He adds, unkindly.

‘We all have to start somewhere.’ Counters S, fiercely. 

‘Yeh? Well if I can’t bolt on endowments, or PPI sales any more, I’m not about to risk my licence fabricating income am I?’ Sneers M.

‘Can’t he self-certificate?’ Asks B from her lettings enclave.

Only for sick notes.

‘We need to trade up.’ Says the earnest young woman later. She has an obvious swelling in her belly, as her stooping boyfriend nods in agreement and tries not to bang his head on the ceiling. There’s not enough room to swing a cat in the tired-looking conversion, and yet paradoxically, they have a hissy furball in residence, one that is weaving between my legs, purring aggressively and shedding fur all over my dark blue trousers. I can feel the first sneeze bubbling up.

I can’t see they’ll even get back what they paid for the pokey little studio flat. The dodgy developer helped fund the deposit, probably on the back of an inflated sale price and a complicit broker. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, particularly as the poor women is expecting a baby shortly. I wouldn’t mind killing the cat though.

Not a great success.

Price upset them.

Suit needs cleaning - and turns out she wasn’t pregnant.

Fail.

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Come On In - Thursday

‘Come on in, I won’t bite.’ I mutter under my breath as I sit at the front desk covering what in the public sector would be a lunch hour, but in sales is usually a snatched sandwich at our desk, or in the case of S my well-upholstered negotiator, in the kitchen standing up.

Her seat was warm when I sat in it, something I could have done without – you don’t want to be distracted when you are setting a forward-thinking, modern manager’s example.

‘Looks like they might come in.’ Says S from the back of the office, speech slightly hampered by whatever she has in her mouth – best not to imagine.

‘They’re wavering.’ I tell her, projecting my voice like a third-rate ventriloquist. I don’t want the punters to think I’m talking about them; the door is a big enough barrier.

‘Do you want me to relieve you?’ Asks S.

‘Not really.’ I eventually splutter after a head-spinning scenario involving adults’ only material, not suitable for family consumption.

‘I don’t mind.’ Continues S as the seat below me warms up even more. Fortunately the young couple and their child decide to cross the threshold. I’m up out of the seat like a greyhound from the traps, only without the mechanical stuffed rabbit obviously. That would just be ridiculous.

I know S is watching, as is B now from her lettings’ desk. Chances are the loved-up pair will want to rent not buy, but either way I need to step up to the plate.

I grab the door and usher the young family in. A little voice inside is telling me they won’t be able to afford anything we have in the window, and rather censoriously, that maybe they should have thought about some family planning precautions ahead of sorting out somewhere to live. I must be getting old.

‘How may I help you?’ I enquire, after giving them the time of day. It’s an open question, one I drill into the junior members of staff. Qualifying applicants is the first filtration we apply, you’ll spend every waking hour dealing with time-wasters otherwise. Moments later they are sat at S’s desk, with me back in the hot seat.

The baby in the pushchair looks at me with that fixed guileless stare only an infant can maintain. She doesn’t know I’m an estate agent yet, so she’s smiling more than her parents are. I can sense the antipathy mixed with caution the young couple are exuding. Their daughter might like me, but they aren’t so sure.

‘What do you think you can set aside for monthly housing expenses?’ I probe, thinking if they have a decent income and jobs that aren’t on a zero-hours contract, I might be able to wheel them into fat man M, our financial advisor, except he’s not in his office. There’s a man who does take his full lunch allowance, mid-morning, midday and mid-afternoon.

It turns out they have already been to the bank of mum and step-dad. A 10% deposit can unlock a few doors now lending has eased a little. The trouble is their spending power finishes far short of a two-bedroom unit their family situation probably demands.

Names, numbers and contact details harvested and a commitment to at least a phone call from M when he returns, I’m feeling quite smug, particularly as I can still feel S watching and judging me. B lost interest as soon as the couple were buyers not renters. She’s filing her nails again noisily, much to my irritation. I try for a solicitor referral but they draw the line at that.

‘We saw one in the window we might be able to afford.’ Says the woman, confirming another pre-conception, always sell to the decision maker - invariably the female.

I know the property she’s talking about, it’s the only one on display suitable for first-time buyers’ budgets.

 ‘A studio flat, what’s that?’ Asks the young woman. Her daughter is now eyeing me with suspicion too. Innocence doesn’t last long.

I explain the living, eating, sleeping and virtually dumping in the same room, concept. 

‘That’s ridiculous.’ States the man, finally engaging. 

Welcome to my world.

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