Close Shave - Friday

Back to the traditional barber’s shop for my four-weekly cut. You can’t afford to look scruffy with the amount of competition in our town. On-line agents with their call-centre set-ups might be able to look like extras from The Walking Dead, if all they do is take an up-front fee over the phone, pop a listing on a website, and get back to trawling Tinder. But at the cutting edge of property sales, they have to like you - and the look of you.

As I walk in, everyone turns as if a complete cowboy has entered a saloon bar. Admittedly there are plenty of cowboys in this, under-regulated  business of mine, but I’m not one of them. Although by the look of distaste on the assembled blokes waiting their turn for a trim, a few might have clocked me for an estate agent. Who else, other than an undertaker, wears a suit and tie in this day and age?

Reluctantly everyone shuffles along the bench seat to let me sit. All the barbers’ chairs are occupied and more worryingly there’s no sign of my usual man, the one who knows for sure what I do and is usually discreet enough to whisper when he inevitably asks about the property market. I can feel the looks of dislike on the back of my neck, if he does let people hear what I do, and with the mirror I can see them too. They don’t like estate agents but they sure like to know how much their home is worth.

‘He not in today?’ I say to one of the ladies, as she looks my way. She’s cut my hair before and in truth does it better than my missing mate.

‘On the golf course.’ Replies the trimmer , brushing hair from her top and unfolding the lethal-looking razors they use to trim your nape. 

The last thing you need when a barber has one of those in their hands, is to have a heated discussion about the vagaries of the UK housing market. Its a cut-throat business.

Golf is one of the few sports that leaves me cold. Probably, because after a lifetime in sales, I’ve never been able to justify half a day spent looking for a lost ball in some tic-infested undergrowth, while my competitors are signing up deals I am missing.

I nod and settle in to read the free newspapers. The choice isn’t great, just The Sun or The Daily Mail. One features radical opinions and scare stories penned by complete tits - the other….

‘Who’s next?’ Says a woman I’ve not seen before. She has the only spare chair available and I’m in a dilemma. If I say I’d rather wait for her colleague who I know can cut my hair well, it looks like I’m being impolite, or judgmental, or maybe even sexist. It was a lot simpler when I was a lad and the old bloke who operated out of his garage, only did clipper-cuts and favoured young boys, was the only choice. Come to think of it he disappeared in a hurry one day. Nowadays he’d be on some sort of register and I could sue for unwanted follicle-fondling, but at the time that sort of thing was brushed under the carpet.

‘How do you like it?’ Asks the woman, after I’ve reluctantly settled in to the chair. I seem to remember the old pervert in the garage had a similar line, and that’s before his tired old gag, about something for the weekend and a nod to his dusty display case of condoms and unsettling-looking lubricants.

I tell her the preferred grade, with a scissors on top finish and hope she doesn’t screw it up. A month of ridicule in the office and at sales’ meetings I can do without. Plus, I’m not sure I can afford the weekly cost of that Regaine hair restorer, if too much is removed. 

And then it comes, just as she starts long sweeps of the clippers.

‘So what do you do?’

It’ll grow back.

---------

Lambs And Slaughter - Thursday

‘Lambs to the slaughter.’ Says assistant manager T, as the first batch of bright-eyed, naive punters start to arrive.

A gaggle of fresh-faces have been peering nervously through the office window, waiting for the appointed start time of our First Time Buyers’ Evening. In truth they could come in anytime, we’re really quite welcoming - obviously we soon stopped the free coffee machine after the deadbeats and vagrants started turned up for a warming drink, on us. Bad enough they sleep in the office doorway, without providing gratis hot beverages. Don’t want to encourage them - unless the come in to a big legacy from an ancient aunt.

‘Welcome, come on in.’ Encourages negotiator S, ushering in several couples, some even heterosexual ones. Very old school.

I’ve placed S on the door as she’s the most photogenic and with her décolletage she appeals to all but the gay men. Trainee F is on standby in the kitchen, to cater for that market. We welcome all persuasions, casts and creeds, as long as they can leverage a big mortgage, or have inherited cash.

‘Going well.’ Comments T, as the office fills with eager, want-to-be buyers. We’ve brought in a couple of local, user-friendly solicitors, to give a quick legal consultation. If they get the conveyancing business, they can put some probate work our way if we get a nice cold winter.

T is right. The office hasn’t been this busy, since we sold off some ex-MOD houses at knock-down prices. Pretty sure the Government undersold those, but as with the Help-To-Buy scheme, propping up unsustainable new homes’ prices, big business will always run rings around career politicians who’ve never had a proper job.

‘Keep them coming.’ Slavers obese mortgage man M, as he takes a quick waddle to the kitchen. He’s had a stream of bushy-tailed youngsters, funnelled to his desk for free financial advice, but of course nothing comes for free. I still abide by the old-fashioned Caveat Emptor motto, but luckily not many schools round here teach Latin. Just hope he hasn’t started mis-selling again, those commission claw-backs are a bastard…

‘Some of this lot aren’t exactly in the first flash of youth.’ Comments lettings lush B, as she sulks at the back of the office. She’d rather people stay locked in to renting, but it’s dead money and you can’t easily remove generations of yearning to own your own home - although ten incompetent UK Housing ministers in a decade, tried.

‘Some of this lot must be forty, plus.’ Continues B, with obvious distain. It’s partly the market, and sky-high prices driven by lack of construction and a burgeoning population. And partly over-indulgent parents, who feed, cloth and iron for giant-sized children, well into their fourth decade. Change the locks or move to a one bed flat, folks. If your daughter is fat and frigid and your son bald and still playing an Xbox, it’s time to be cruel to be kind.

I’ve had great success with first time buyers’ evening over the years. Back in the early nineties it was a terrific vehicle for gaining fresh stock, ahead of the event, then flogging endowment policies and dodgy payment protection schemes, along with the homes. I was never comfortable with the insurance and finance side of the deal, too many conflicts of interests. But needs must, and I had a big mortgage too - not an endowment one, mind….

‘That went pretty well,’ Says T as the last couple leave and we say goodbye to the tame lawyers, with a reminder that they owe us some reciprocal business, once the icy pavements arrive.

‘More than well,’ gushes M. ‘I’ve signed-up over ten couples, with a another dozen to follow up. Got to love a naive first timer.’ He really has no redeeming characteristics.

‘How about a last-time buyer event next?’ Says T with a grin. ‘Shift some of those vacant retirement flats with the piss-stained carpets.’  

‘You’re horrible.’ Says S, with a pout.

‘We could do a bog-off double-deal tie-in with the local undertaker.’ Continues T, laughing.

Burn one, get one free.

Enfranchise Me - Thursday

‘Fancy a valuation later?’ Asks assistant manager T as I return to the office. I’m immediately on my guard. T wouldn’t give away an easy instruction on a new property, so I’m sensing a curve ball. I sometimes wonder if pooling commission in the office is the best method. It’s less divisive and means fewer bust-ups over who won the business/sold the home, but it can benefit the lazy ones.

‘Where is it?’ I ask. T looks more sheepish than a Welsh shearer and negotiator S just looks down at her keyboard - which must be difficult with those huge breasts.

‘It’s somewhere naff, isn’t it?’ I say tersely.

‘Not exactly.’ Counters T unconvincingly.

‘Cough.’ I instruct. T tells me and I groan inwardly.

Now, you’d think any new home to sell on your books would be welcome and in general that’s true. You can’t sell it if you haven’t got it and a shortage of units to sell is the perpetual problem for most agents - until the market really turns. But T has just named a crumbling block of flats, with a short lease and a notoriously difficult absentee freeholder. Leasehold is a secondary form of tenure endured primarily by Londoners and flat owners. Only they don’t own their flats, they lease them for 99 years or more and in theory have to give them back at the end of the term.

‘You know they’ve got short leases don’t you?’ I tell, rather than ask, T.

‘Yeh, but they can use the legislation to extend.’ Counters T.

He’s right. Leasehold Reform laws offer a route for lessees to compel freeholders to extend their lease, or sell the freehold to a collective of residents, but it’s arcane, complicated and expensive. Particularly with a reluctant landlord intent on milking the building for all the income he can extract.

‘Isn’t that the block where there’s a huge hole in the sinking fund?’ Asks S. She’s right, the maintenance has been neglected and rumour has it a new flat roof is required at a six figure sum. A sum to be divided between the luckless owners.

‘And you won’t get a mortgage any more if there’s less that fifty years to run on the lease.’ Adds financial services man M, as he waddles towards the kitchen. ‘Cash buyers only.’ He adds, as I hear the kettle being filled with just enough water for one.

‘Is it even worth having on our register?’ Asks S after some protracted discussion on the inequities of leasehold and the number of rogue freeholders we’ve dealt with over the years.The shitesters who have separate building companies under a hidden ownership, that always get the overinflated maintenance work needed on the building. Not to mention the slyly written leases that have inflation-busting rises in ground rent designed to milk lessees until they are dry. And it’s usually the elderly.

‘We’re hoping to move into one of those nice new retirement flats.’ Says the ancient husband as I sit in the run-down block, later. Endearingly the old couple are holding hands and looking at me earnestly, as they perch on the saggy sofa.

Out of the frying pan into the fire, I think glumly. Assuming anyone will buy there cobwebby home, they’ll sell low and buy high at an overpriced retirement block and the extortionate maintenance charges will still be with them. I’m getting a stair lift and staying put, when my time comes.

‘I don’t understand.’ Says the wife, eyes rheumy and watering, after I’ve explained how lenders won’t advance funds until the lease on their flat is extended, or the freehold owned by the residents.

Neither do I grandma.

‘But we can’t afford to pay him any more.’ Says the husband angrily. ‘There’s already a huge bill coming for the communal boiler.’

Shit, I didn’t know that. I only just stop myself from looking at my watch - a cardinal sin. And I assume the impoverished pair don’t even know about the roof replacement.

They’ll be staying - until the undertaker comes.

--------

Happy Valley Court - Wednesday

Back at another sheltered retirement home development, with that growing sense of foreboding I’ve been getting ever since I valued my first one, about twenty-five years ago. In those days the minimum entry age of fifty-five seemed an age away, and about right for giving up on life and playing Whist in the communal lounge until the undertaker came. Now I’m not so sure…..

‘You can’t park there.’ Croaks an elderly woman, sitting astride one of those bulky motorised wheelchair-come-quad bike things that force you off the pavement and clip your ankles in supermarkets. I swear most occupants aren’t disabled, just too fat and lazy to walk.

‘I’m visiting number forty-two.’ I tell the nosey crone, who in fairness looks wrinkled and wobbly enough to justify her Blue Badge, allowing parking outside my office where I’m not permitted to stop.

The hag’s eyes twinkle. ‘Marjorie’s flat?’ She enquires with a gummy smile. I consult my clipboard and confirm the identity of the elderly owner, who is now in her third month blocking a hospital bed. I’m meeting the son in five minutes, so I need to shake off this old woman with all day to spare.

‘I knew she wouldn’t be back.’ Says the old girl with an unsettling chuckle, before engaging some sort of drive mechanism and whining across the car park towards an open ground floor flat door. 

I want to shout after the gloating woman, and tell her re-sales are really tricky on low-level units, but in truth it will be her beneficiaries who’ll have that problem.

‘Come on up, I’m on the fourth floor.’ Says a male voice, after I’ve buzzed the communal entrance doorbell. The door clicks and I grab it before the cut-off locks again. I’ve spent too many awkward minutes trying to re-establish contact with a hard-of-hearing occupant upstairs, when I’ve not tugged the door in time.

‘You here on business?’ Demand a disembodied voice, as I enter the gloomy foyer and get the first whiff of stewed cabbage that invariably inhabits the halls of these blocks. I see the house manager is in her little cubbyhole-come-office. There was a time when these places all had a live on-site warden to help the residents and to justify the sky-high management charges. Then the bean-counters took over.

I show the sour-faced woman my card and she begrudgingly nods acceptance, before adding curtly. ‘Don’t give them a stupid price. I know what you lot are like.’

I offer my well-practiced false smile and push the lift button. Nearly five minutes later the doors wheeze open. More bean-counter cost saving, I think, as I notice the cheap lift manufacturers logo and begin to wish I’d taken the stairs.

New build has often fetched a premium, but the prices elderly folk pay for these shrunken square footage flats has always disturbed me. During my first property crash I used to sell the second-hand, slightly soiled units, for about half what the parents had paid for them less than eighteen months before they went to the nursing home. Most of the blocks used to be called Something Court. Totally caught would have been more appropriate.

‘That you on the mantlepiece?’ I ask the late-middle aged son of Marjorie, as we try not to step on each others toes in the cramped flat. As usual, the furniture is way to big and dark for the living room/kitchen.

The man looks at the collection of faded photographs on the mock fireplace, wobbly-balanced above an electric fire. 

‘Yes.’ He answers with a self-conscious grin.

‘Mid-seventies?’ I enquire, looking at the shot of him with wrinkle-free skin and a disastrous mullet hair cut, but thinking about a suitable price for his mother’s flat.

‘Afraid so.’ He answers with a sheepish grin and a sweep across his bald pate, where time and genetics have robbed him of his locks.

‘Do you know how much Mum paid for the flat?’ I ask gingerly. Sometimes they say, sometimes they don’t. Then I hit him with the price.

Fortunately, he couldn’t tear his hair out. 

------

Download the ebooks while you still can - links on the right.