‘Booked you a valuation this evening.’ Says trainee F
with puppy dog enthusiasm. I decide not to remind him it should be called a market
appraisal now. I still think of the exercise as a valuation myself as do
the public. It’s the lawyers who advise against calling a price recommendation
a ‘valuation’ to stop litigation when some of the more disingenuous players get
called to account for absurd price inflation, just to get homes on their books.
‘Well done.’ I tell F as he basks in my, praise in public
criticise in private – or at least on an anonymous blog – management theory. I
stroll to the diary, hoping he hasn’t booked me in after hours. I often think I
was born too late for this industry. In the seventies some tool decided
Saturday working would be a good idea for a momentary marketplace advantage.
The opening days and hours mushroomed faster than house prices after that. Then
all the partners sold out to Insurance Companies, Banks and Building Societies
in the eighties and while I learnt how to flog dodgy endowment policies and
payment protection, they grew fat on the golf course. Not that I’m jealous, I
have other handicaps…
‘Oh no not them.’ I say body sagging audibly as a couple
more discs collapse on to vertebrae.
F looks at me as if I’ve just ravished his girlfriend
over the franking machine. It’s an act M our fat mortgage man picture-painted
the other day and an image I’m trying hard to shake. Those financial services
boys know all about disturbance selling.
‘Do you know them then?’ Asks a crestfallen F. I can see
S my well endowed negotiator looking sternly at me behind F’s shoulder. She
knows I’m always cajoling staff to book valuation appointments, the first step
to fresh business. I’m in danger of falling in to that bad manger trap of
expecting people to do as I say, not as I do. Plus a much more entrancing image
of S looking sternly at me, only without that nearly superfluous blouse, is
doing its own disturbance routine.
‘They have been looking to move for the last ten years.’
I tell F as gently as I can manage. ‘They refuse to put their own house on the
market until they’ve found something.’
‘They said we could have theirs if we get them a bungalow
at the right price.’ Continues F doggedly. It’s not his fault. It’s mine for
having stayed this long. I know to about 99% certainty that these time-wasters
will never move. And in the unlikely event I find a bungalow at the right
price, in the right location, they’d either want too much for their house, or
someone in a stronger position would beat them to the punch. But there’s still
that nagging 1% chance - even with a 6.45pm appointment.
‘Good evening.’ I say pointedly, as the door opens and
the familiar weasel face greets me, mousy wife just behind his shoulder and the
soon to be serial killer oddball teenage son, lurking in the background.
‘You’ve been before haven’t you?’ Asks the man. He’s had
more agents round his house than friends visiting in the last ten years I’ll
warrant and the creepy son has probably never had a live girl – or boy – in his
sterile, no wall posters, room.
‘We told your man in the office we won’t be bounced into
putting our house on the market until you find us something suitable.’
Reiterates the charisma-free owner, as his wife trails behind faithfully. I
have to physically stop myself from turning regularly to check the son isn’t
stalking me, with a knife and a bin bag.
The house is dated but spookily tidy and after seeing the
garage with individual hooks for each tool, the outline of the item drawn on
the wall around each place, I get an unwanted vision of the man stencilling the
missionary position on the bed sheet and checking his wife’s buttock placing
with a spirit level, before he commences the act.
‘Just need one more beer mat under your right cheek
before we get going love.’
I finished late with no happy ending.
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