Speculate Accumulate - Thursday

‘Here comes the tosser you can’t abide.’ Warns assistant manager T, glancing out the office window.

‘You’re going to need to narrow it down a bit.’ Chips in loose lettings lush B, with a chuckle.

‘Funny.’ I tell her, with a scowl, but she is probably closer to the truth than I’d like. Several decades of dealing with people’s property problems and my milk of human kindness is more curdled than bottles on a dead pensioner’s doorstep.

‘Who is it?’ I hiss at T. I can’t walk to the window without being exposed - and people still won’t let me forget that time I absent-mindedly adjusted my trousers while changing bulbs on the illuminated display.

‘That slimeball of a speculator.’ Answers T.

‘Yuck, I hate him.’ Says negotiator S with a shiver. She’s a pretty good judge of character - most of the time.

‘Well he won’t be wanting to talk to me.’ Predicts B. ‘He’s lets all his grotty homes in multiple occupation himself, too much of a cheapskate to use a proper agent.’

Everyone looks at B in unison.

‘What?’ She demands, but it’s too late, the office door is opening and a chancer oilier than a leak at an olive factory, slides in.

I dislike speculators with a passion. They prey on distressed sellers and corruptible estate agents. Hoping to buy a property below the market value then sell it on with minimal cosmetic improvement, at a huge mark-up. They are not adverse to offering the infamous “brown envelope” to crooked agents - cash in hand for favourable access to a property to the exclusion of other competitors. It’s illegal and one of the few principles I’ve refused to compromise over the years. I act for the vendor, they pay my fee and I never forget it.

‘Alright guys.’ Calls the thirty-something man, dressed in expensive designer jeans and a t-shirt that probably cost more than my suit. I can now see his personalised number plate Range Rover, bumped up on the kerb across the road. There’s never a traffic warden around when you need one - get caught up on a difficult telephone call when you’ve rushed in to collect a set of keys though, and they appear like flies round a turd.

‘You got anything for me?’ Continues the Armani-clad vulture. ‘Repossessions, deceased estates anyone desperate to sell?’

I pride myself on getting the best possible price for any owner that entrusts their home to me, so by definition, flogging their property to a speculator wanting an immediate mark-up isn’t fulfilling my part of the contract.

‘Nothing.’ I tell the man bluntly. ‘Not with an earn in it.’

‘Oh come on.’ he wheedles. ‘You lot never find me anything.’

There’s a reason for that, I think spikily. I may have compromised on some of my youthful principles - the endowment selling scandal wasn’t my finest hour - but I have never knowingly undersold a client’s home.

‘Nothing that would suit you at the moment.’ I tell him, my body language about as unfriendly as it can be, but this guy has a hide like a rhinoceros. Don’t say it, I think as I see the words forming. If I wanted to be insulted I’d just video the sales charts at the monthly manager’s meeting and play it back endlessly…

‘I’ll make it worth your while.’ He spouts, with a salacious grin. He said it.

‘Give you any re-sales,’ he adds, then looking across at B. ‘Or the chance to find me some tenants.’

B smiles back in a sickly fashion. ‘No scumbag social security spongers though,’ continues the man as I see S’s hackles, and breasts rising. ‘They are nothing but trouble.’

‘Well done.’ Praises S as I watch the speculator jog across the road and drive away, as seconds later that hated traffic warden wanders round the corner. Typical.

‘You told him where to get off.’ Continues S with a smile that could melt glaciers faster than global warming.

‘He’ll be back.’ Predicts T. ‘People like that are impervious. He’ll do anything for a quick profit.’

True. But my pride is intact - until the next sales meeting anyway.

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One Lump Or Two - Wednesday

‘Got those keys you were waiting for.’ Says negotiator S even before I’ve sat down. The last two appointments have been a colossal waste of time but you need to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince, so I keep puckering up.

I ask her if it’s the lender I think it is and the less than salubrious part of town I’m expecting? She answers in the affirmative. My sigh must hit some sort of nerve, as she smiles sweetly and says.

‘Do you want a cup of tea before you go back out?’

She’ll make someone a very happy man one day, I just hope it’s not the low-life she’s currently with - or that she’s still working for me when she falls pregnant. Employment laws are great on paper but in practice - well let’s just say it’s the reason H, my vertically-challenged rival manager, doesn’t recruit women of childbearing age any longer.

I can almost hear the howls of disgust from half the population. But I’m not H, I always employ the best person for the job, irrespective of gender. In fact if she were to stay in the business, S would become a better estate agent than anyone else in the office - myself included. Sadly, I’ve lost track of the number of talented women I’ve worked with over the years whose biological clock meant an early exit from the industry. I rather envy them, apart from the pushing and screaming bit…

‘You can come with me to measure up if you like.’ I tell S as she returns with a mug of steaming tea. I make a mental note to make the next cuppa. I don’t like asking any staff member to do something I’m not prepared to do. H thinks I’m an idiot to take this view - and regrettably his sales figures tend to bear that out. I won’t change though.

‘What’s it going to be like?’ Says S warily. I have to almost physically stop myself looking at her legs. If there are fleas again, those calves and ankles are way too exposed.

‘It’s a voluntary repossession.’ I tell her, glancing at the paperwork spread before me. There’s a half ream of conditions and demands that would make sole traders think hard about taking on the onerous task for the fee involved. But we have corporate masters and group agreements to service, which is why I collect those thick rubber bands the postman drops. Secure round your trouser bottoms and it’s a long way for the little bloodsuckers to leap once they sense the warmth of a fresh human body.

‘Shite area.’ Answers assistant manager T, to S’s question. He looks a bit peeved I’ve asked her to accompany me, but she’s a lot tastier and not only to wingless jumping parasites.

‘Everyone has to live somewhere.’ Counters S feistily, before adding. ‘Of course I’d like to come.’

Got to love her left of centre politics, though she might start swinging the other way after seeing too many more spitefully trashed former homes. They do say socialism is something that can only be cured by age and financial good fortune. But for now, got to love her….

‘Why are there so many fridges and washing machines outside?’ Asks S as I weave through the narrow street we are visiting, eyes straining for the house number. I should really put my driving glasses on but they make me look like a sad, middle-aged man.

‘Since they started charging commercial vehicles at the municipal tip.’ I tell her. ‘People don’t go as often, or they dump their waste goods at the side of the nearest bit of rural road.’

‘Probably why they are all still on the pavement.’ Says S with a wry smile.

This place is far from any greenery and has yet to be gentrified. The housing stock is low grade, spec built homes, in need of love and attention. Once the skips start appearing and a delicatessen and a coffee shop opens, the area will be on the up.

‘Not sure I like it here.’ Says S as I fiddle with the door lock.

We don’t stay long.

Next time I’ll take the right keys.

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Banking On It - Thursday

‘Now that’s what I’m talking about.’ I exclaim, brandishing two meaty completion cheques head high. Solicitors are slow to change - slow at everything now I come to think of it - but there’s something reassuringly solid in receiving a fat, touch it, feel it, sniff it commission cheque when a deal has finally ended happily.

‘Err, what are you doing?’ Asks negotiator S warily. I look at her, then realise I have actually, unwittingly, held the largest of the cheques to my nose.

‘The smell of money.’ Chuckles assistant manager T. ‘Gives old-time estate agents a hard on.’

I scowl at T and his head goes down. He’s been on the same HR courses as me and knows when a comment is inappropriate in the work place. Fortunately, I’m tucked well into the desk, so my excitement at receiving the funds is concealed by the aptly named modesty panel.

‘I do all my banking on-line.’ Says trainee F, with that vapid look I just didn’t notice when i interviewed him. I was too impressed by the fact he was one of the few who had bothered to wear a suit and who could actually speak audibly. I blame his mother, both for the tailoring and the wasted money on a private education. You can try to polish a turd, but it’s still crap at the end of the day.

‘I want the pleasure of taking the cash to the bank.’ I tell F.

‘It’s not cash though is it?’ Interjects B from her lettings enclave. ‘I get plenty of low-lifes bouncing cheques on me.’ She also had a Czech bouncing on top of her last year, if rumours about that tenant from Prague were true - but that’s another story.

‘It’s as good as.’ I tell her, my enjoyment slowly being sucked from me, in a way I wouldn’t normally let B do.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever written a cheque.’ Ponders F dreamily.

‘They’ll be consigned to history before long.’ Says T dismissively. ‘Everyone will bank on-line.’

‘No, this is tangible.’ I argue, waving the cheques once more.

‘Analogue man in a digital world.’ Retorts T pithily. It’s not an original line, but he deploys it well.

‘Don’t know why they can’t open a few more counters.’ Says the woman behind me in the long queue at the bank, later.

She’s talking to me, despite my body language screaming, leave me alone everyone. I glance at the array of tellers’ positions, most with their irritating little pull-down blinds deployed. I nod in agreement.

‘All too busy flogging policies nobody wants or needs, or out repossessing some poor businessman’s home.’ Sneers the woman, with the sort of venom that can only collect from being bitten personally.

I nod again, in what I judge to be a tacit agreement without the need for further discourse. It’s pleasing to note that bankers are below estate agents and jostling with politicians on the public hate list - it won’t last. To be on the safe side I clutch my company paying in book closer, I don’t want her to see who I work for, she might have had a pleasant moving experience but the odds are against it.

‘Sorry for the wait.’ Says the banker from behind her glass protection, when the cretin ahead of me - who seemed to be paying in the clattery contents of several stolen charity tins - has gone.

She doesn’t look sorry, she certainly doesn’t sound sorry, but that might be because I can’t hear her properly - despite the sound loop sticker that maintains her insincere corporate mutterings are allegedly audible to the deaf and the desperate.

I watch as the woman robotically stamps the counterfoils and processes the cheques. Eye contact lady, I think angrily, at least try to engage. But the armour-plated glass acts as a personality barrier as well as a physical one. Perhaps branch banking is as doomed as my staff maintain, I think dejectedly, as I trudge to the door only to walk in to the hobbling banker coming in. Damn he’ll want to talk reciprocal business.

‘How are things?’ He asks briskly.

Changeable.

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Court Order - Monday

‘I need a man to come with me.’ Announces loose lettings lush B to an awkward silence. I stifle my inappropriate reply and by an act of immense projected will - and a warning scowl - manage to ensure that nobody else taps in the open goal.

‘Difficult appointment?’ I eventually offer after running several potential answers through my head as a precautionary measure. I don’t need a sexual discrimination claim, no matter how spurious. With the amount of booby-trapped legislation swirling round employing people I really should have paid more attention at school and studied to become a lawyer. On reflection, I’m glad I didn’t say booby-trapped out loud, too.

‘I’ve got to do an eviction for a landlord at eleven o’clock.’ States B, shaking her head. ‘And there’s no way I’m going there alone.’ Momentarily a mischievous inner self wonders if the fact she’s asking for a man to come with her isn’t a tiny bit sexist, but laws often work on the pendulum principle. Correct one injustice and the over-compensation creates another one. I’ve see enough matrimonial home sales to know that.

‘Are you expecting trouble?’ Asks assistant manager T warily. He’s already manoeuvring not to go with B. Those designer glasses and his penchant for expensive suits don’t lend themselves to a filthy flat and a punch to the face.

‘Single Mum, two kids by different Dads, aggressive men friend visitors and a viscous looking dog.’ States B taking up a whole days news content for The Daily Mail.

‘She’s had notice of eviction I assume?’ I ask, knowing already I’ll have to go with B. Some things you just can’t delegate - unless you’re my spineless bean counter boss.

‘Of course.’ Replies B dismissively. ‘But she is holding on to be formally kicked out so she can get re-housed by the Council.’ There was a time when I felt sorry for everyone losing their home, but after seeing some of the deliberately wrecked properties and the way some people abuse societies' safety net, my liberal left leanings have become a bit tarnished.

‘This has to be it.’ I state rhetorically to B as I pull up in the car, at 10.45am. We are nearly opposite an unloved terraced house in the “cheaper” part of town. The windows are peeling, a gutter is at a crazy angle and an overflow pipe is pumping water on to the crowded forecourt. Most of the neighbouring homes have cars squeezed on to what was once a small front garden before boundary walls were demolished. All except the property we are visiting. It has an array of rusting white goods dumped outside and a small mountain of overspilling bin nags. I’m starting to itch already.

‘You got rubber bands?’ Asks B, ferreting in her handbag, past the pepper spray and the rape alarm. I sigh heavily and shake my head. Schoolboy error. ‘Too bad.’ Says B leaning down and fixing a pair of those thick red rubber bands the postman sheds, around her trousers. Now I know why she didn’t wear her usual short skirt and jacket combo. I can almost sense the fleas sensing me, and the itching returns twofold.

‘Is she going to be difficult?’ Asks the bailiff when we are all at the front door bang on 11.00am. The court official has the look of a nightclub bouncer, head shaven and gym-pumped frame straining to escape his clothing. I take a half-step back. He’s the one being paid to take the hits, I think, as the muscled man bangs the door loudly then stoops and yells through the letterbox. A dog starts barking rabidly and I bump into B awkwardly, as she too positions herself behind the bailiff.

‘Wasn’t too bad.’ Says B once the woman, dog and two kids have gone straight to the Town Hall,without any resistance.

‘More than I can say for this place.’ I answer as we survey the spitefully trashed house, detritus everywhere, walls crayoned over in a juvenile hand.

‘I’ve seen worse.’ Replies B with a heavy sigh. ‘You start to hate these people after a while.’ Before I can disagree something bites my ankle sharply.

Sadly, you do.

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