Views from the Property Ladder

Weekends are for house-hunting! Brian and I have been amusing ourselves in this fashion for the past 4 months, livening up what might otherwise have been some lack lustre leisure time. We are not idle nosy parkers because we do need to find a new permanent abode for ourselves and Sir William but in the present economic climate are in no great hurry. Estate agents, however, are falling over themselves to get us inside some of the myriad properties on their books. As unencumbered buyers with cash (a position for which I, with Brian's agreement, take full credit having exercised some hitherto uncharacteristic financial foresight) we are something of a hot property ourselves and rather enjoying our VIP status. Since the advent of Rightmove, Prime Location and house price websites, estate agents are largely redundant - they just haven't caught on yet. While I am happy to be kept informed of property so new to the market it hasn't yet made an appearance on the Web, I don't take quite so kindly to being rung up at 8.30 am with "news" of a house which has been languishing in the property media for weeks, if not months. Nor to we need to be accompanied round a property by an agent eager to point out "fantastic features", ie. a perfectly average staircase with a bend in it or "double" bedrooms which might just accommodate a 4'6" bed if you don't mind clambering over it to open a window and never close the door. And, despite the insistence of one particular gelled and spotty youth, a grotty shower cubicle in a cupboard is NOT an ensuite bathroom! In turn, I rather enjoy giving my art history lecture on the differences between Victorian and Edwardian architecture - always a tricky one for the "property professionals" and pointing out that a reproduction Victorian fireplace in a 1950's house is not actually a "lovely period feature". Sadly, some would-be sellers (embarrassingly, for all concerned, sometimes ancient work colleagues or the father of one of Daughter No 1's less delightful boyfriends) have not cottoned on to the change in the market either and are still expecting exorbitant prices for very average or frankly unattractive property (which, we are assured, some buyers, with presumably more imagination and less sense "will be able to see beyond"). Unbelievably, some homeowners have apparently still not seen any of the ubiquitous house make-over programmes and think it is fine for prospective buyers to be greeted by racks of smelly trainers, stained carpets and dirty bathrooms. None of our previous 4 properties were on the market for more than 2 weeks before a sale was agreed and between 1976 and 2002 all our sales and purchases were conducted by very satisfactory private agreement. Estate agency is not, in my book, a "profession"; it is a parasitic, opportunistic and unnecessary business and I for one will not shed any tears over what looks like inevitable redundancies in that over-populated sector.

Having said that, I dare say we will be making someone's day sometime in the not too distant future although perhaps not as soon as we initially anticipated. Extensive investigation reveals that modern house design is not an art that has been mastered by all developers. We have seen huge kitchens which are in effect corridors with a cooker (I beg your pardon, range, top of) on one side and sink some 12 feet away on the other making domestic life not only difficult for the cook but dangerous for passing family members. Under worktop fridges and freezers may look neat but are a pain to use and never big enough; shiny floor tiles are also not the safest floor covering and almost impossible to keep smear-free. Palatial kitchens are, strangely, usually complemented by disappointingly under-sized "public" rooms , often accessed via grandiose double doors which means there is no suitable wall against which to position a 3 seater sofa, especially if you hope to watch TV whilst lounging thereon. The most attractive and practical designs tend, surprisingly, to be on the Gazeuponafactory -style gargantuan developments which is not where we want to live long-term. And, naturally, the houses in the, admittedly few, areas where we might like to live have high maintenance original wooden windows and no on-site parking, defects which instantly render Brian blind to their many other charms. Hey ho - we are not in a bad position, after all, and the longer we remain renters, the weaker the home-owning imperative seems to get. We both, nay all, because I can also include Sir William despite another run-in, or off, with the pesky Yorkies, very much enjoy the convenience of our present style of living, all the more so, I suspect, because we are free to make the change whenever the time is right - or the market rises.