Darkness On The Edge Of Town - Tuesday

‘See that field on the edge of town is in the news again.’ Says assistant manager T.

‘The one they’ve been trying to build on for years?’ Asks negotiator S, with a shake of her pretty head.

‘Yep. They just haven’t bribed the planners enough yet.’ Replies T, dryly.

T is joking, I think, but there are plenty of rumours of local government employees with unexpectedly large villas in Spain, on a meagre taxpayer-funded salary. If a few scruffy acres that can, at best, bring a sparse income from grazing spoilt-girls’ ponies, can turn into a goldmine at a stroke of a planner’s pen, it’s no wonder money is believed to change hands for the privilege.

If your acre of farmland is worth about £15,000 without planning permission and up to £1m with it, it’s not hard to see why any Willie Wonka will consider corruption and bribes, if it means they could get the golden ticket. 

‘The local NIMBYs will be up in arms.’ Predicts T. ‘They’ll be arranging meetings in the Scout hut, with an average age of sixty-five.’

‘Yes, it’s always the old people who complain about new housing.’ Says educationally-challenged trainee F. ‘They’ve done alright, but they don’t want my generation to live anywhere.’

I don’t think he’s looking at me, as I still have a mortgage a third-world country would struggle to service. And if I have to once again remind my younger staff I once paid 15% on my home loan, there’ll be more groaning than an overloaded lift at a weight watchers convention.

F’s comment is an over-simplification - but then UK housing is nothing, if not complicated. It’s why successive ministers and governments have failed to get to grips with the crisis of too many people and not enough homes. The ridiculous cost of land - once it has that elusive planning permission - doesn’t help, as it makes up about a third of the cost of the final new build price. I’ve often thought if permission was conditional on a lower land price and final unit price, that some progress could be made, but like the Right To Buy (at a big discount) scheme, it would end up being abused.

‘Do you think they’ll get planning permission this time?’ Asks S, earnestly.

‘The wind is in their favour.’ I tell her.

‘Do they have to check for that, like a flood report?’ Asks F.

I know. I know.

‘They’ll be over-priced once they finally build them.’ Predicts T, sourly. ‘ Not sure me and my girlfriend will ever get to own something.’ Not if you keep taking out expensive phone contracts and wind every holiday on to your credit card, I think angrily. They imagine I was born with a detached house. The only silver spoon I ever owned was a cheap christening set that turned out to be pewter, when I tried to pawn it.

‘Prices need to get back to reality.’ Suggests B, from her lettings’ desk, before adding with a grin. ‘Although all the time they’re silly money, it keeps the punters coming to me for second-class rental properties.’

You can see why the public love us.

‘The problem is,’ I pontificate. ‘No government has had the balls or the vision to put in place a long-term planning strategy.’

‘That’s because they are long gone on a cushy pension, once the shit hits the fan.’ Says T.

‘The last lot to sort out inner-city housing issues was The Luftwaffe.’ I say with a smirk.

‘Was that an architect firm?’ Asks F, seemingly genuinely.

Until I shave, I often forget how old I am.

‘We could do with a major property crash.’ Says T. ‘Get prices down by a half and everyone would be ok.’

He’s forgetting I’ve lived through several price meltdowns and it comes with a lot of pain. Repossessions, negative equity and estate agents closing faster than the shutters at a bank, come lunchtime.

‘Will they build it?’ Asks S, later when we cross at the kettle. I’m starting to steam, she’s just hot.

‘Eventually.’ I concede.

‘Will I be able to afford one?’

Probably not.

---------

My Back Yard - Friday

I see the earnest-looking woman making a bee-line towards me, even as I navigate past the less pressurised lunchtime shoppers. I’ve already dodged the wino in the empty shop unit doorway, and swerved the Big Issue salesman, who in truth has almost given up pestering me with his entreaties. I’ve told him at least once that I already help the homeless. It didn’t go down well.

There was a time when my wife used to lovingly pack me sandwiches, so I could keep going through the working day - after all many people want to view homes in their own lunch hour. But she tired of making them, just as I tired of eating them and I now welcome the chance to stretch my legs and walk to the shop for a meal deal. Of course I have the dilemma of the healthy eating - taste-free range - or something with flavour and big numbers on those nutrition information panels. Fortunately my close eyesight is failing, in line with my resolve.

My resolve to dodge street surveys and charity-chuggers trying to sign me up on a direct debit to support abandoned donkeys in Greece, hasn’t faltered though.  I can sidestep faster than a rugby wingback, even with my battered back, so I’m already dummying left, before zig-zagging right past the bloke in the disabled scooter, as the woman with the leaflets comes closer.

‘Excuse me sir.’ She calls stridently, before showing surprising agility and sidestepping to block my path. ‘I know you don’t I?’

This isn’t great. Telling a past client I haven’t recognised to push off, isn’t going to foster repeat business and if they are a buyer, or tenant, I might still be jeopardising office revenue. Reluctantly I stop.

‘Aren’t we near neighbours?’ Presses the woman waving a black and white, home-printed leaflet, in my face.

We might be, my wife tends to know the names and occupations of people in our road, I prefer not to intermingle. You never know when you might be repossessing their house. Fist name terms don’t always go well, when the locksmith is drilling through the front door and the kids are sobbing on the lawn….

The woman confirms her address - next road down - and smiles triumphantly.

‘Then you are just the sort of person who will want to support this.’ She says, handing me her leaflet. I scan the piece of clumsily edited A4 and my heart sinks. It’s an objection to a big new development, planned for a green space not far from my home. The stern-faced woman is looking at me challengingly. She’s a NIMBY - not in my back yard - protestor. They are all late middle-aged and have the glassy-eyes zest of converts, without any of the naive charm.

‘This is a scandal.’ She continues, blocking my path completely. ‘ There’ll be no green fields left in this area if they get away with building this monstrosity.’ I know all about the proposed development - it’s my job - and I’m conflicted. People need homes to live in, my two sons will need sensibly priced homes themselves. But I also know if planning is granted, the landowner will become a multi-millionaire overnight, and the prices will be astronomical too. Paradoxically, the social housing element the planners will insist on, also conflicts me. There are some people you’d rather not live in the same school catchment area.

‘We’ve put all the links on our leaflet and a draft objection letter template,’ Continues the woman, forcibly handing me the leaflet. ‘And it has the email  addresses’s of the local councillors, so we can make our feelings known’ She’s presuming she knows my feelings. Big mistake. Better not let her know I sell houses for a living. I’m hoping she’s unaware, or surely she wouldn't have stopped me?

‘I trust we can count on your support.’ Says the woman forcibly, as I make to leave. ‘We can’t let these people ruin our lifestyle.’

I know the developer won’t use an agent to sell the homes. I know they won’t put in sufficient flood prevention and the schools are already overflowing. I also know the prices will be unaffordable to most.

It’s objectionable.

-------

An Ill Wind - Monday

‘You’ve been around for, like, ever haven’t you?’ States trainee F rhetorically.

It’s not the best opening gambit I’ve heard, but as it’s pissing with rain and I don’t fancy a leaflet drop, I decide to humour him.

‘And?’ I reply, thinking fleetingly he might want to quiz me on interest rate prospects, the way the housing market is going to run this year, or even the best bet for the 3.30pm horse race at Doncaster.

‘Well, how long is this weather going to last?’

F never fails to disappoint. A plethora of pithy replies run through my head, most with the sort of expletives attached we’re no longer supposed to use in a mixed sex, mixed race, mixed-up work environment. In the end S, my big-hearted negotiator, comes to the rescue.

‘How is he supposed to know?’ She tells F primly. ‘Anyway he’s not that old.’

You’ve got to love her. Only it’s best to do so solo, if you know what I mean…..

‘I didn’t mean that.’ Blusters F. ‘I just thought you might know if it’s going to continue. And whether it’s that global warming business.’

‘The jury is still out on that one.’ I tell F to his obvious confusion. Before he asks about a court case I’m not even aware of – unless the summons is in the post – I tell him nobody can say for certain if the storms, rain, floods and winds are a recognisable pattern, a biblical punishment, or just a plague on those with houses built near water.

‘Yeh, you wouldn’t want to be living in Riverside Walk or The Meadows development.’ Speculates assistant manager T joining the discussion as the skies darken again and a deep bass roll of thunder shakes the ceiling lights, unless fat finance man M is in the gents’ toilets again.

‘And guess what will happen if they get planning permission to sling up those units at the end of Lakeview Drive.’ Says B from her lettings desk. ‘I wouldn’t want to put tenants in there when some naïve buy-to-let virgin gets one because their pension is screwed.’

‘Complete washout.’ Suggests T with a chuckle.

The point is a moot one. Nobody disputes we need more housing and if the majority of my staff, and my two sons, want to own their own home it needs to be built where there are jobs and at an affordable cost. And I’d be happy to have more housing stock to flog on my patch, even though inevitably several new estate agent operations would blossom like mushrooms overnight, most of them probably toxic. The problem is, nearly every conurbation in this overcrowded island evolved around a port or a river and the land the NIMBY (not in my back yard) objectors don’t want built on, is often low-lying and hasn’t been used because nature set it aside as flood plain.

‘Some of those house with the sandbags against the doors will be uninsurable next time the premiums are due.’ States M gruffly. He’s appeared from nowhere to join the conversation and now I’m wondering if the earlier acoustics were actually his.

‘I wouldn’t buy near a river now.’ Says T emphatically. He wouldn’t be able to buy at all, not with his credit rating and a salary predicated mostly on commission. The self-certificated, liars’ loan, are hard to get nowadays – unless you know the right people and can falsify letterheads…

‘I’m sorry to hear that madam.’ Says S, as she takes a phone call and a mouthful of abuse. ‘But it’s really not my fault.’

I’m listening intently now, despite the door rattling in the wind.

‘No we can’t be held responsible for that.’ Continues S gamely, as outside I’m distracted by another umbrella inverting on a struggling pedestrian.

‘Double figures today.’ Chuckles T, nodding towards the distressed woman trying to re-assemble the brolly without poking her own eye out.

I turn my attention back to S, warning bells chiming.

The manager’s name?’ Repeats S, as I resist the temptation to do that throat–cutting motion.

‘Sorry;’ whispers S, hand over the mouthpiece. ‘One of our for sale boards has blown into her car and she insists it’s our responsibility.’

Of course it is.

----

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Feeding The Machine - Monday

‘Who the f***k invented breakfast meetings?’ Moans H my short of stature, big of ego, rival manager. He’s gravitated towards me at the large rectangular table in this soulless budget hotel we’re in again. It can’t be because he feels superior next to me, at least not until the sales figures are flashed up on the screen.

‘Bloody Americans.’ Replies bulky mortgage man M from across the table. He’s just pocketed a fistful of boiled sweets, from the dish next to the fizzy water that makes you belch horribly, and he’ll no doubt take more than his fair share of the discount brand biscuits when they arrive with the stewed coffee and watery tea. Some mornings I can feel the life force leaking from me like a punctured tyre.

‘Hey my partner is from the States.’ Challenges the woman with the rather too short hair from Human Resources who is due to give a guest presentation on some touchy-feely staff relations issue that we’ll all ignore as soon as the first sale falls-through.

‘Male or female do you reckon?’ Hisses H in my ear, nodding imperceptibly towards the crop-haired people person. Momentary confusion surmounted, I tell him it doesn’t matter as long as she does her job. H looks at me as if he’s stepped in something unsavoury. Not a lot of justice in this world as his office turns over 25% more than mine, irrespective of ill-disguised bigotry - and shoe lifts.

‘Teas and the coffees.’ Announces the eastern European woman in the nylon housecoat as she wheels in a trolley. Her accent is thicker than the dusty tea will be, but she is pretty, in that slightly harsh-featured way borderline malnutrition and a frigid climate seems to breed. Idly, I wonder if she knows my dentist, as she leans across the table rather engagingly and both H and the HR woman check out her rear. That answers one question.

I thank the hotel maid and give her a smile that signals conversation done, but I must have slipped into sales mode, as she engages.

‘You are all the real estate peoples, yes?’ Questions the girl, nodding at me in encouragement. I don’t want to talk property before the greasy bacon sandwiches. And my bean counter boss hasn’t even arrived yet, with a mind-numbingly dull P & L account lecture that would have mathematics geeks trying to fashion nooses with the paper napkins, then looking for sturdy light fittings and volunteers to kick the chair away.

‘Yes, we’re the property experts. Chimes H irritatingly. After several decades I’m still not sure I’d call myself an expert and I’m one of the few to have taken the exams.

‘Yes, he’s big in bungalows.’ Calls M from across the table with a guffaw that is probably masking another of his monumental farts. H ignores M and the Polish waitress ignores H. It seems she want me to say something salient.

‘So,’ continues the woman, whose accent is sounding rather horny in a disconcerting way, after I’ve made a self-effacing comment about knowing a bit about the market. ‘When will people like me be able to afford to buy home?’

‘Come and see me for a financial fact find if you like?’ Suggests M, in between mouthfuls of those not very Nice biscuits. The chambermaid, because that’s the uniform I’m unhelpfully imagining her in now, gives M a look that could freeze vodka.

Several answers race round my head. Replies I’ve toyed with for years. Some serious price deflation, a good round of repossessions, land being released and sold at prices that allows for social housing to be built, the planning process being adapted to make green and brown field site permission conditional on affordable end-unit pricing. But I’m no chancellor. I can’t even work out a sole agency fee without my calculator.

‘Fobbed her off with the usual bullshit then.’ Chuckles H, as the tea-lady exits and the bean counter enters - clutching his laptop and a couple of reams of handouts.

‘First time buyer opportunity?’ Asks the bean counter, nodding at the door hissing shut on the closer.

Not for a while – unless it’s in Krakow.

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