Call Me - Wednesday

‘I’ve booked you a valuation this afternoon.’ Announces negotiator S, with that devastating smile. If the estate agency career ever goes pear-shaped she could make a passable living doing toothpaste adverts, either that or some sort of pay-as-you-go webcam based business…

‘Details,’ I prompt rubbing my hands with glee, like some latter-day Ebenezer Scrooge. ‘Details.’

‘All on the market appraisal form.’ Answers S a little smugly. She’s been well trained and will have all the information I need to get a competitive advantage. You might not need any qualifications to be an estate agent, but I’ve spent years learning my craft - and have the qualifications too.

‘Who am I up against?’ I quiz. Knowing that knowledge is power.

‘That’s just the thing answers S hesitantly. ‘Two of the usual suspects. Cheap fee Charlie and the corporate over-valuers.’

‘And?’ I ask, sensing there is one.

‘And one of those ridiculous, fee up-front, on-line outfits.’

Assistant manager T groans and says. ‘Rather you than me boss. They’ll be cheapskates who can’t see past the pound signs.’

T has a point. The on-line operators - most in the industry baulk at calling them estate agents as they don’t have a high street presence and little local knowledge - hence the call-centre tag, tend to attract the industry-naive sellers. They get the money up-front, unlike the traditional model where you only pay for a successful sale and completion, then have no incentive to continue promoting the home, or negotiating hard through the protracted sales’ process.

‘I don’t know why people fall for it.’ Says S. ‘The people they send out have no idea of the local market, tend to get the price horribly high, then disappear like mist on a May morning.’

‘Well it’s con isn’t it.’ States T, semi-rhetorically. ‘Mug them at the start for the money, tie them in to some slapdash battery-farm solicitors firm operating from a barn in Wales, then rely on the small print when they start to complain.’

T isn’t entirely wrong. The backlash against the several high-profile operators who advertise on television, funded by vast amounts of, less than savvy, investors’ start-up money, has begun. And if the market hardens, the directors who have, allegedly, been heavily offloading shares, will need those Spanish holiday homes to run to.

My clients don’t pay me, unless I negotiate a successful sale at a price they are happy with. It may be several thousand pounds, but it’s a results-based fee. If I screw up, if they, or their buyers change their mind. If one of dozens of reasons that can scupper a sale comes about - why one-in-three deals fail - they pay nothing. Nada. Not a sausage. 

‘Ah but the internet agent is £1500 cheaper than you.’ Says the potential vendor when I’m sitting in their pokey one-bed flat, later.

‘And they said our place was worth £15,000 more,’ chips in his girlfriend.

Like an incompetent Victorian canal-digger, I’m shoving water uphill again.

‘Where was the man from?’ I ask.

The couple look a bit sheepish.

‘Erm, a couple of hours drive. away.’ Admits the girl, finally.

‘So not exactly a local property expert.’ I tell them, unnecessarily. 

‘But he’s cheap.’ Persists her boyfriend.

Not if he doesn’t sell it and you’ve paid £850 you’ll never get back, I want to scream.

Successive government and a revolving door’s worth of UK Ministers have failed to get to grips with the housing crisis, but even those flawed policies look like a genius’s insight compared to the lack of understanding of the estate agent’s role and the need to ensure some level of minimum competence and perhaps some exams and licensing. I’ll be long gone before that is resolved.

‘We hear what you are saying.’ Says the boyfriend, as he shows me to the door. You don’t.

‘It’s just we’re saving so much money with the on-line lot.’ You’re not.

‘Can we call you if it doesn’t work out?’ Asks the girlfriend. No need. I’ll be contacting you much more regularly than the call-centre will.

Did you get it?’ Asks S, on my return.

I will.

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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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Starting Over - Sunday

‘How long can we park here?’ I ask my wife anxiously as we pull up outside the faded grandeur of some semi-detached Victorian houses, now mostly converted to student flats. She studies the complicated sign that seems to offer residents permit parking at certain times of the day and free for all, subject to length of stay restrictions, at others. I’m baffled, but unlike my two sons I never made it to a University town, apart from to flog homes. I suppose it is part of the ageing process. Offspring get stronger, live longer and are smarter than their parents. At least if they get both get decent degrees they won’t end up estate agents.

‘I think we’ll be okay for a couple of hours.’ Answers my wife unconvincingly. It’s the sort of conviction she showed when left turned out to be right and a one-way street didn’t really work, if you were going the wrong way. I notice some curtains twitching and thank God the company doesn’t sign-write the cars or I wouldn’t park here at all. Youngest son appears looking taller and fitter than ever, pride and envy odd bedfellows.

‘You made it then.’ He announces by way of a greeting. He’s sat in the back for enough journeys to know it was never a given with my wife’s map reading and my patience. I answer in the affirmative and eye the steps warily. We have the car down on its rear shock absorbers and I’m the man who always tells punters doing your own removals is a false economy.

‘This is really nice.’ I say incredulously as I sit slumped in a leather sofa, back grumbling in tandem with my tummy. Boxes are strewn everywhere but this is still a high standard conversion, far superior to the first forays into the property market I made back in the eighties. Since when did students get picture bay windows, original fireplaces, full gas central heating and a huge 50-inch plasma television? No wonder they end up with thirty grand’s worth of debt. Thank goodness he didn’t opt for one of the comedy qualifications we always laugh at on CVs. If I get another graduate with a 2.2 in Theatre Studies or Event Management I’ll scream unconvincingly and lay out some trestle tables.

‘So this is like the nearest shops and stuff.’ Informs my son after I’ve crosschecked the inventory like an over-zealous astronaut on lift-off then noted the flaws on a snagging list. I’m the guarantor after all and if the landlord thinks I’m coughing for the iron-shaped burn on the bedroom carpet he can think again. We’ve walked into a secondary/tertiary shopping area, peopled by estate agents and take-away food outlets. The rents will be cheaper here and A2 and A3 commercial planning consent easier to obtain. I look inside each competitor and check out the staff. One office is having a meeting, staff grouped around the manager’s desk at the back. I grudgingly approve then move on to the cheaper operators where the telltale signs are shown by window displays with bulbs out and weeds growing on the forecourt. Cheap fee, cheap service I conclude.

‘I hate to say this but this is quite a cool shop.’ States my son as we wheel a trolley round a barn-like home goods store. He’s selected a beanbag, some matching duvet covers and a collapsible clothes dryer. It only seems like moments ago he was playing Pokemon on his hand held Gameboy. I’ll be getting mail-shots from undertakers offering funeral plans soon. I’ve already been insulted by the Saga holidays brochure arriving un-requested.

‘Afternoon.’ Greets a neighbour warily as my wife and I finish unloading the car, son already inside with a supermarket-sweep’s-worth of food and drink we’ve paid for. The man looks comfortable middle class and has emerged from one of the few houses yet to be converted. I’m guessing he’s hoping we might be moving in rather than three more teenagers with loud shirts, loud music and late nights a plenty.

‘Neighbours seem nice.’ I tell my son as I check my watch for the long journey home.

‘Not sure I’d buy here.’ He says

Not for another twenty years on current trends.

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