Homeward Bound - Sunday

‘We just have three more pick-ups then I’ll be back to you in forty minutes with details of your check-in desk.’ Chirrups the annoying, tubby Newcastle girl, who only knows a lot of Greek because she’s shagged half the resort waiters in the last six months. We’re on the coach home and already I’m stressed. I’m still not sure the driver put both cases on board the bus, which could be a mixed blessing as I’ve a feeling we might be a bit overweight on baggage, as well as personally. The all-inclusive package majored on quantity not quality, but if it’s available…

‘Glad we didn’t stay there.’ I say to my wife, as the coach stops outside a budget option, with rooms on to the main road. She shushes me in disapproval. Apparently I have volume control issues. Something to do with pool water in both ears and playing my iPod at high volumes to drown out any chance of conversation with fellow guests wanting free, no obligation valuations on a home 2,000 miles away. I watch, as a hot and stressed chavvy family of five climb on the bus – not that I’m judgemental. The squealing kids are high on sugar and the tattooed parents look half-pissed. The wife is wearing an unflattering crop-top, showing a vast stomach with a pierced belly button that might prove challenging at security. The oafish-looking father of at least one of the kids, judging by the noses, is sadly sporting an England football top. It makes you want to give up.

‘Gate five, enjoy your flight home.’ Chimes Geordie Shore, as I think endure, more like. The big-arsed girl exits stage left with a swarthy-looking driver named Spiros. They clearly have time, or something, to fill before the next incoming flight. I grab the bags and start limping as fast as I can towards the appointed gate.

‘There’s no point in hurrying,’ says my wife annoyingly. ‘You can’t beat the system.’ God, I hate it when she’s right.

Needless to say the family of five future claimants are right behind us in the check-in queue. One that moves at a sloth’s pace, for the next forty minutes, while the youngest budding My Fat Gypsy Wedding starlet, whacks my ankles with one of those ubiquitous ride on cases the Dragons' Den moguls turned down. And they say travel broadens the mind.

‘Can you drink any more?’ Asks my wife, as we halt outside the scanners and join the undignified queue of quaffers all necking as much water and fizzy soft drink as they can hold, before being forced to bin all liquids. There’s a small mountain of unopened cans and bottles being harvested by a sly-faced cleaner. I fully expect to see, spookily similar items on sale at five times the price, just fifteen yards past the x-ray machine. The stress is building and that’s before the inevitable pat down by a vast Cretan with body odour and halitosis, after I set off the scanner buzzer despite having stripped to little more than my underpants and a t-shirt. I swear that back surgeon left some sort of surgical instrument in there somewhere. I should sue, like everyone else.

‘Nothing worthwhile in duty free.’ Reports my wife as I hop back and forth, guarding the bags but desperate for a piss after drinking several litres of water in short order. ‘It’s all a bit overpriced.’ She continues. Like the London property market then, I think, as I leave her with the hand luggage and check out the grim Greek plumbing for the last time. Look, I’m not putting the toilet paper in an adjacent flyblown bin, no matter how many languages you put the sign in. You’re in the EEC now - sort your sewerage out.

‘We have a zero tolerance policy for disruptive behaviour.’ Warns the camp cabin steward, seconds before announcing the ninety-minute air-traffic delay. Then the five-year old kid with a nose stud, sitting behind, starts kicking my seat.

Five and a half hours of coughing, sneezing, seat battering and incipient deep-vein thrombosis later – the knee length socks with shorts are best kept to the imagination – we plunge into a murky Gatwick airport.

I need a break.

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Reanimator - Monday

  

‘Can you do a viewing on number 21?’ Asks negotiator S as I come through the office door.

‘The dead man’s house?’ I ask, plonking my briefcase down and glancing at the message book.

‘Ugh, I wish you wouldn’t call it that.’ Chides S, pretty face frowning.

‘It’s just a fact.’ I tell her seeing with sinking heart that ‘Bomber’ the surveyor will be valuing a sale we agreed ten days ago. Might as well stick the For Sale board back up, I think glumly. Bomber’s idea of valuing is to find out the agreed price and subtract 10%, to arrive at his valuation.

‘Yes but it’s so creepy to think about what happened there.’ Continues S, as I fantasise about catching Bomber in a loft carrying out a Home Buyer’s Report and snatching away his step-ladder.

‘It’s Bomber’s office on the line boss, has anyone seen him since he surveyed London Road? Only he’s been missing for two days.’

‘Tell them I can’t discuss that over the phone, they’ll have to wait for my written report….’

‘Don’t even think about all that nonsense.’ I tell S coming back to reality. ‘It’s just bricks and mortar and anyway the dead vendors aren’t so fussy about the sale price.’

‘Beneficiaries are though.’ Retorts S. She has a point – two quite prominent ones.

‘Can’t T or F do the viewing anyway?’ I grumble, looking at the office diary and then scanning my inbox. God I yearn for a time, pre-email, when the only disappointment was daily when the postman came, or when you trudged to the Document Exchange box in the nearby lawyer’s office. I see the bean counter boss has sent me three missives in the space of an hour. There’s a man who has never stood on a damp doorstep waiting for viewers who aren’t going to show. He doesn’t even need to push a pen any more – just the Return key.

‘F has the dentist.’ Replies S as a fleeting fantasy involving a large drill and no pain relief for the idiot trainee, flashes through my mind. ‘And T has to visit his Grandmother in hospital later.’

‘I’m sure he’s been to two funerals for dead Grandmothers already.’ I gripe ungraciously.

‘He hasn’t.’ Replies S curtly.

‘What time? I ask throwing in the towel. You need to be resilient in sales but you also need to know when you’re beaten, or you’ll take a lot of unnecessary punishment.

‘Erm, it’s a late one, sorry.’ Says S with a shrug. Not much chance of the owner doing the viewing, short of an unlikely resurrection – particularly as they cremated him.

‘It’s a bit chilly in here.’ Says the woman as I try not to glance at my watch and imagine how incinerated my supper is going to be. Not as toasted as the outgoing owner, but even so…

‘I’ll shut some windows.’ I say, smiling at her and receiving a scowl from her boyfriend in return. Calm down mate, I think, I might want to shaft her but I don’t want sex with the woman.

All the windows I opened on arrival ten minutes before the viewing time, pulled in, smell still lingering in my nostrils, I turn back to the couple. He’s younger than her. Second time round for the lady, divorce proceeds to spend. She is some sort of Cougar; he’s some sort of parasite, suggests the little voice unhelpfully. Don’t judge, just get them to buy it, I answer internally – and stop talking to yourself

‘The sofa set would fit in here easily.’ Says the woman to the sponger, flagging up an Olympic-sized buying signal. The supper can wait. I sense a deal.

‘Can we afford it?’ Asks the man artfully. You mean can her ex-husband? I think.

‘Will they take an offer?’ Asks the lady, smiling at me for the first time.

The ex-owner won’t return my calls, but his bickering children seem keen to get the cash.

‘I’ve got two more viewings tomorrow.’ I answer obliquely. The smile vanishes faster than cake at a Weight Watchers’ Christmas party.

‘You would say that wouldn’t you.’ Sneers the man-boy.

‘We’ll take it.’ Says the decision maker.

Week saved - back from the dead.

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Village Idiot - Friday

Bunch of pirates.’ I say, as I sit in the back of a car for a change and we wind through ever-smaller communities.

‘Is he always like this?’ Asks the lady driver, my wife’s friend.

‘Pretty much.’ My beloved concedes.

‘What about them?’ Asks the other husband, who is sat alongside me, indicating another for sale board.

‘Shitesters and fee cutters.’ I pronounce decisively.

‘He can never switch off.’ Informs my wife as I glance through the steamy car window at another board, one I don’t recognise. I should keep a record book like those bird-watchers, then start again every January – or maybe not.

‘Local independent.’ I say to the other man. We’ve decided to back female equality with all the vigour of a brace of blokes who can now drink at lunchtimes without having to drive afterwards.

‘Are they better then?’ Quizzes my companion, beery breath in my face.

‘Not necessarily.’ I tell him enigmatically, thinking, buy the book if you want tips on the property game. But then writing anonymously isn’t the best marketing strategy I could have adopted. Didn’t really think that through.

‘You won’t find any estate agents where we’re staying anyway.’ Says my wife as we thump across a cattle grid and move into the sort of desolate moor land where most summers, there will be a wild animal on the loose tale circulating, mainly for the amusement of any American werewolves nowhere near London.

She’s right. We have a long weekend in a converted pigpen where the rental is enough to make me squeal. The small community can just about sustain a weathered pub and the sort of shop-cum-post office that is more endangered than the big cat supposedly roaming after dark, stealing sheep. I’m figuring a couple of swarthy Eastern Europeans with a four-by-four and rudimentary butchering skills are more likely to be the farm animal killers, than an escaped tiger. But what do I know?

‘What do you reckon this place is worth?’ Asks the husband as we unpack enough food and drink to sustain a fortnight snowed in. I give him my best estimate and he whistles.

‘Crikey how do the locals afford that sort of money?’ He asks aghast, as I try to open the firkin of real ale we’ve picked up en-route. Not sure how many pints in the poly-container but I’m intent on finding out.

‘They can’t afford it.’ I tell him. ‘This is second homeowner land. I bet most of the lights will be off when we walk to the pub later - unless it’s another power cut.’

I come across similar dilemmas every day just more densely packed. If you are already on the property ladder and selling, it doesn’t matter how leftwing your ideals are they soon go out the - recently refurbished in keeping with the Grade Two listed elevation yet still featuring discrete double glazed thermal efficient panels - sash windows, once the asking price is floated: “We’re not giving it away Rupert, not after all we’ve done to it”.

‘You were right.’ Agrees my drinking buddy as we make our way through the darkened hamlet, strange braying noises to both sides. He seems a nice bloke. As an estate agent you choose your friends wisely. Invariably I’m a plus one with my wife. The ladies are now two-steps behind us, natural order briefly returned now there’s no driving do be done. They’ll be lagging back at the bar too.

‘Watch where you’re treading.’ I call back, torch flickering ominously. I meant to change the batteries but a last minute survey problem and my list of jobs for the team to remember distracted me. We step round a pile of freshly deposited shit that would take a JCB to scoop and bag, then see the meagre pub lights.

‘They have dead animals on the wall.’ Hisses my wife as we sit in one corner, locals watching us suspiciously. If they find out I’m responsible for their in-bred children not being able to afford to live here, I’m fearing a Wicker Man moment. I couldn’t light the log burner, but I’m guessing I’d combust quite well.

‘It’s a fox.’ I tell my wife witheringly. ‘Why would they mount a camel’s head?’

She got the hump.

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Santa Baby - Friday

‘Don’t be such an old spoilsport.’ Chides negotiator S playfully. She knows which buttons to press.

‘I’m not.’ I counter unconvincingly.

‘We all just buy something for £5 then wrap it up and do a lucky dip.’ Continues S, championing the office Secret Santa idea.

‘What can you get worth having for a fiver?’ I carp. The list is quite extensive as it happens.

‘It’s just a bit of fun.’ Suggests assistant manager T, adding. ‘There’s not much else to do.’

He has a point, the year end target became unassailable back in September, for the last few days the phones have fallen silent and the only footfall has been outside the office window as desperate shoppers seek inspiration for presents that will be re-gifted in the New Year.

‘You can get some great tins of biscuits at Tesco for cheap money.’ Says porky finance man M. He knows about overfilled plates and mortgage rates but has no idea when enough is enough.

We should be talking to existing vendors and encouraging them to trim their asking prices, rather then their Christmas tree. Should be gently suggesting a tacky inflatable snowman on the lawn and more lights than Blackpool can muster, on their front elevation, isn’t helping viewings. Should be chasing failed valuations and telling prospective vendors buyers are waiting if they are realistic on price expectations. Advising them to ignore the skewed surveys showing ever-rising values, driven by central London la-la land and Russian oligarchs trying to launder dubiously obtained profits. But sometimes you have to know when to stop.

‘Can I go first?’ Asks S excitedly, her vast breasts jiggling in acknowledgement of the fact I’m allowing staff to slope off to the shops to do their present buying, in the absence of any diary appointments. I’m still not sure if S’s décolletage is a feature or a benefit, but I’d happily support both.

‘Your turn boss.’ Says trainee F when he returns, several bags in his paws, the one from a countrywide pet supplies store has me worried and intrigued in equal measure. I know his girlfriend is rough, but that’s ridiculous. I decide not to ask and to watch carefully when he places his offering in the Secret Santa sack, later.

‘Excuse me can you point me in the right direction for ladies’ underwear?’ Asks a grey-haired old lady earnestly. I suppress the sort of monumental sigh that might weaken foundations and have ‘Bomber’, our sale-killing surveyor, reaching for his seismometer and ordering an engineer’s report.

‘I don’t work here madam.’ I say, for the umpteenth time. It happens whenever I go to Marks and Spencer in my business suit. I don’t usually get an argument though.

‘You look like you should work here.’ Persists the old girl doggedly. I haven’t got a lapel badge on, I’m not wearing a green tie and I’ve not tried to flog her a store card, so I could beg to differ. Instead I send her in the direction of returns, where the queue is already building even before the Boxing Day sale.

‘Can I help you sir?’ Asks a female voice and I jump as if someone has tasered me. I let go of the silky nightdress I was unconsciously fingering and feel my cheeks go a crimson that doubtless matches the Basque and panty set I discounted moments ago. The shop assistant does have a name badge, and is about nineteen years old.

‘I’m looking for a present.’ I stutter, feeling like I did on my first ever valuation – hopelessly out of my depth and a bit of a tit.

‘For your partner?’ Asks the girl neutrally. Nobody assumes you’re married any more, or heterosexual, or even a man wanting lingerie for someone other than himself. Progress of sorts, I guess.

‘Do you know what size she is?’ Cajoles the young woman artfully. I look at her, at the nightgown and try to stop an uncomfortable visualisation. The underwear version of the video house tour would just about cover it. Then my download freezes.

God knows, why I said: ‘She’s about your size.’

Now it’ll be me queuing at customer services on the 26^th December.

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Spanish Fly - Sunday

‘I’m not sure we belong here.’ I tell my wife as we search in vain for a couple of non-towelled sun beds. You have to invade the pool early to get a space before these surprisingly sprightly ex-Nazi youths, stake a claim.

‘You are just being foreign-phobic again.’ Hisses my wife, ‘Bet you couldn’t take that attitude at work.’ She continues, as I spot the only free beds are next to the shaded shower where I refuse to soak myself before jumping in the pool. Needless to say the portly Bavarians all follow orders.

She’s right. I don’t discriminate where property is concerned. Not only is it illegal but it’s counter-productive. Without offshore money there’d certainly be a lot of London agents looking to renegotiate their rents, and lazy journalists might need to leave the Central Line for their next glossy interior story.

‘I mean who thought people still wore Speedos outside of the Olympic diving pool?’ I say, as the man I’ve nicknamed Dead Elvis strides by. This scrawny octogenarian sports an improbable silver-coloured quiff and leopard print trunks. His leathery skin is tanned to ebony brown and has more lines than a cyclone affected weather map. I wouldn’t let him within five miles of a school.

‘And here come the Munich festival crew.’ I grumble, as a group of retired German bankers - who else can afford to stop work while they can still herd shopping trolleys round an Asda car park – arrive at the pool bar and order their first beers of the morning. In the cheaper, locals’ bars behind the beach, unemployed Spanish men are also drinking alcohol with a spooky symmetry.

The overweight German men are already in their skimpy, unappetisingly saggy swimsuits, and their perma-tanned wives sport garish prints on their blouses that match their varicose-veined legs. The males wear more gold reserves around their necks and wrists than the Greek economy can muster. I start to yearn for some kids to disrupt the smug air of entitlement and maybe wet this bunch on the outside with the sort of bombs that didn’t remodel Coventry.

‘Don’t check you work emails.’ Scolds my wife as we get out of the midday sun ahead of the mad dogs. I’ve just had a shameful rant that the overworked maid, on a minimum wage sweating in a nylon uniform, hasn’t cleaned our room yet. The naivety of my punk rock anarchist days never seemed further away.

‘I need to know what they are up to.’ I tell my wife switching on my netbook and failing to find a strong enough Wi-Fi signal again. We’ve changed room once already and the receptionist insists on greeting me with a curt, Guten Morgen before breakfast every day. I can’t make another fuss.

‘The office will survive without you.’ Continues my wife so reasonably I want to bark a couple of angry Halts Mauls at her. The paradox is, I ached to escape the office and now I feel like starting a tunnel to get back there. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome, my geography is all over the place, so who knows?

‘What did that achieve?’ Asks my wife as we go back to the hotel terrace for a pricey coffee, as there is no kettle in the room. We’ll be taking the tea bags back home again then.

‘Not a lot.’ I acknowledge. The asinine work emails I’ve just scanned made me testier than ever and now my shorts are feeling so tight I reckon I’ll need to concede to the next waist size up when we next travel. All this food and alcohol is starting to take its toll, my liver is grumbling as much as I do and I’ve a feeling I’ll still be finding sand in places I didn’t know I had, in February.

‘No we don’t want any fake sunglasses.’ I snap at the African lad flogging knock-off designer shades with authentic looks and all the UV protection you’d get popping you pants on your head. Then the smokers sit next to us, something I now find as offensive as someone squatting down and taking a dump alongside you.

Auf Wiedersehen. 

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The Way It Is - Friday

‘That tool on London road is back on the market with someone else.’ Announces assistant manger T dismissively, as he walks through the door bristling. I’m guessing the market appraisal he’s just been on was a waste of time, but then seventy percent of them are. If it’s not another agent cutting fees or over-inflating value, it’s an owner with unrealistic price expectations, no serious intention of moving, and wanting a figure for their divorce negotiations or building insurance claim.

‘He’s a tosser.’ Agrees negotiator S feistily. She usually charms the vendors with regular contact – something, if they’ve seen her in person males and the separating lesbian couple, crave even more – but the miserable man at the house in question was immune to her assets.

‘It’s not an easy sell.’ I agree, not wishing to be seen denigrating a client without the cloak of anonymity.

The house is right on a busy road, with difficult access and a poor plot size. Families dislike the proximity to the traffic for fear of children running out into the road, older buyers are not prepared to put up with the noise, at least not at the figure the owner expects. Annoyingly, I told him all this at the time but he insisted on a higher than recommended asking price. In a moment of weakness and under pressure from the bean counter boss on my new instruction targets, I relented.

‘We should find out how much it’s on the market for.’ I say, wondering how much he’s reduced now he’s swapped agents and cursing inwardly for the lost marketing costs, not to mention the hurt a rival agents sold board will inflict every time I drive past, until completion.

‘Already done that.’ Says T smugly waving his web connected mobile. It’s the famous one that people will pay a premium price for - no matter how close to the dual carriageway they are. I tried to master it once and failed miserably, which doesn’t say much for my intellect. Outwitted by a smartphone.

‘Have a guess.’ Teases T shaking his head in seeming disbelief. I go first; lopping £50,000 of the price we laboured at for four months. T just continues shaking his cranium. S tries £30k lower than before and T scoffs in derision. Five fruitless minutes later as S and I compete in an ever-spiralling series of reductions that eventually get back to 1990 prices and an approximation of affordability, we give up.

There was a time, pre internet portals, when you had to resort to subterfuge to find out what other agents were marketing at. Registering on their mailing list with a false identity, ringing up and disguising your voice pretending you’d seen the board and were a serious buyer, or waiting until the weekly property paper appeared and scanning that. They did it to us, so we had no choice but to reciprocate. Now you just look on-line

Then dozy trainee F pipes up, bringing me back to the price guessing game as he says ‘I reckon it’s gone up.’

I spit out a derisive laugh as S shakes her head and her tits follow in tandem, but even before my sarcastic chuckle, or S’s breasts have stilled, I realise the uncomfortable truth. The idiot savant is right. And T confirms it.

‘Yep, it’s on the market for £20,000 more than we had it for.’ Scoffs T waving his phone in confirmation.

‘Nobody will ever pay that.’ Predicts S confidently.

‘And if they do,’ I begin less confidently, before I regain my equilibrium by appending a more certain. ‘The surveyor will down-value it ruthlessly.’

‘They down-value whatever the agreed price is.’ Sneers T with feeling.

‘So why would the other agent put it on for such a ridiculous price?’ Asks F with the second sensible comment of his career to date.

And I tell him: because they can, because they are probably under pressure to maintain their market share, board count and register. Because the person they sent to value it is probably unqualified, and inexperienced, with a bad suit and a badly sign-written car. ‘It’s ridiculous.’ Concludes F.

Make that three.

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