Cut And Run - Friday

Back to the traditional barber shop for the five-week maintenance chop. Nothing worse than those ageing men who insist on growing the remaining top of head hair longer, in a vain attempt to hide thinning thatch a-la-Bobby Charlton – an ancient footballer for those with a career shorter than mine.

There’s something comforting in the familiarity and the chummy male camaraderie of the hairdresser’s establishment. The only women venturing in are the young mother’s clutching their boys’ hands and hoping the clipper-cut won’t be too severe.

‘Just a gentle trim please.’ Pleads the yummy-mummy ahead of me in the queue, as the barber places the booster seat in the chair and begins to finger the coloured clipper guards. ‘I want to keep the blonde bits for as long as possible.’

‘Yeh make the most of it love,’ chuckles some wag further down the bench, face buried in The Sun newspaper around page three. ‘Before you know it he’ll be looking like me!’

The joker is as bald as a coot on top and I can only imagine he’ll be demanding some sort of follicle-challenged discount when the barber gets round to trimming his nape hair. Not that I’m feeling any happier as I gaze into the unforgiving mirror opposite. And to compound matters while the hairdresser begins buzzing around the little guy’s hair, as the mother winces and hovers just stopping short of collecting the falling locks for prosperity, he asks loudly.
‘How’s the property market then?’

Every waiting punter turns towards me, faces a mixture of distaste and eager expectation.
‘He’s an estate agent,’ clarifies the grass with the scissors, as I feel the jovial atmosphere vanish faster than cakes in our office kitchen. And now even the little kid having his locks done, is turning in the chair, smock riding up as he spins expectantly, presumably seeking news on early-adopters first time buyer initiatives.

‘Get off the fence pal.’ Calls out a muscle-bound guy two down from me after I’ve waffled about mixed signals and a shortage of quality property coming to the market keeping prices underpinned in the better areas.

‘You lot are responsible for the whole mess anyway.’ Announces the mother suddenly showing more interest in average selling prices than her kid’s haircut. ‘Always shoving prices up when it’s sunny and cutting them down when things turn sticky.’

‘Thanks for that.’ I mutter angrily to the barber when I finally make the chair and the queue and the animosity has subsided.
‘Just trying for a bit of banter.’ He says defensively as I contemplate stiffing him on his usual tip, then think better of it as I’ll be back in just over a month.
‘I don’t make the market,’ I whine as the clippers do the same. ‘I’m just a barometer for it.’
‘Barometer,’ Laughs the barber manically. ‘Some of those people were thinking more along the lines of bastard!’

Don’t blame the messenger I think mournfully, as the hair begins to fall and suddenly I’m the just departed child’s age again. Sitting in a long dead barber’s chair in a converted garage, watching the hair fall onto the smock with a comforting distraction. The buzz of the electric clippers, the faint smell of lubricating oil and the almost restful movement of the blades across skull, as the dark brown locks tumble and I daydream about what I’ll be when I grow up.

‘How do you want the bit where it’s thinning?’ Asks a suddenly twenty-first century voice harshly. And I tumble back into the chair, greying cast-offs falling into my lap like fallout from a summer bonfire.
‘Can you leave it a tad longer?’ Asks a familiar voice and suddenly the Charlton brothers are dancing mockingly on the pitch in front of me where the mirror should be.

‘That looks nice.’ Announces negotiator S as I skulk back into the office, fallen bits the paper towel didn’t catch already itching underneath my shirt collar. And I look at her suspiciously, the sort of look I was receiving only twenty minutes earlier as I painted a rosier picture than entirely accurate to my property market interrogators.

You never really know if you’re getting the bald truth.

Happy Clappy - Monday

Pull up outside a Victorian terraced house and feel an immediate sense of disappointment. The sparse front garden has been allowed to go wild with unidentified plant-life running riot, it could be ragweed it could even be cannabis if it wasn’t for the north facing elevation and the lack of any heat-and-light lamps. B in lettings is still negotiating with group legal over the house she rented that turned out to have a loft full of grass growing and a unfeasibly low electric bill - until the police found the direct plug-in to the street’s main circuit.

I scan my valuation sheet, not much detail there to tell me what to expect behind the garish patterned curtains that might actually be some sort of Bolivian rug. As I approach the door my hay fever early warning system starts to twitch. The neighbours might be glad the owner, a Ms according to my notes – not a good sign – is thinking of leaving, but trying to shift the shabbiest house in the road is going to test my team’s marketing skills.

As I bang loudly on the tarnished brass knocker for the second time, I finally hear footsteps as one of those irritating wind chime pipes spins by my ear emitting a dull ringing sound – something I get more and more, tubular hanging arrangements or not.

‘The agent yah?’ Questions the wild haired woman who answers rhetorically, as she gazes at my proffered business card with a barely disguised look of distaste. Necessary evil, she’s obviously thinking. Unnecessary evil I’m thinking, as I step inside to an unpleasant herbal pong and nearly slip-up on some sort of dead sheep’s carcass strewn over the parquet flooring. Health and safety zealots would love this, I chuckle to myself as we move to a front room with more throw rugs than a wig makers Christmas party.

A brace of grubby looking children of junior school age, are sitting on a lop-sided sofa, clad in homemade jumpers. The sort of tops that still give me shivers nearly forty years down the line. I told my mother I’d pay for a school jumper out of my pocket money if necessary, but she still insisted on knitting grey monstrosities she never managed to get the v-neck collar quite right on.

‘Kids off school today?’ I query, looking for a non-contentious line of conversation to break the ice with.
‘They’re having a home day.’ The born-too-late hippy announces mysteriously, as I think don’t let my youngest get wind of this wheeze. Meanwhile, the two urchins eye a man in a suit with the sort of suspicion usually reserved for those soapbox street preachers exhorting you to repent before it’s too late.

As we exit the kitchen back door and walk to the rear of the house my heart sinks further. The whole garden area has been given over to some sort of feudal farming strip. Wild flowers, unidentifiable vegetables and a chicken run with another unpleasant pong emanating from a crooked coop, assault my senses. The first sneeze arrives, shortly before I notice the flea-bitten cat winding itself round my trouser legs.

‘How did the valuation go?’ Asks assistant manger T when I return to the office. He’s half hoping I won the business and doubtless half thinking if I haven’t, he’d have done better. So I tell them about the new age family and their caring and sharing values. One’s that ended pretty abruptly when I recommended an asking price. Capitalism returned with a vengeance then.

‘Think the kids went to one of those Monty-something schools,’ I say in mitigation trying to move away from the failed appointment discussion.
‘Monty Python?’ Asks T with a grin, as I begin to wonder if it was actually one of those alternative Waldorf establishments the children attended. Curiously they too have a nebulous John Cleese connection from my salad days.

‘It’s Montessori actually,’ sniffs B. ‘A friend of mine sends her kids to one.’
Turns out they get no formal qualifications - but can knit a bomb shelter out of goat hair, given enough warning.

Think I may have missed a trick. But it’s too late to ring my mother now.

Old School - Wednesday

Assistant manager T bounces through the door on the balls of his feet waving an offer sheet and announces gleefully. ‘Incoming!’
Negotiator S and I look up with welcoming smiles, retarded trainee F ducks momentarily before giving a cheesy grin of apology, and mortgage man M pauses mid-munch and begins waddling towards his next feed.

‘Multiple flipping bids,’ crows T gleefully, waving the paperwork triumphantly. ‘The recession is officially over!’
‘You couldn’t be further from the truth.’ Snipes B from her lettings desk sourly. B is pissed-off as opposed to pissed, as her latest fleeting boyfriend has dumped her unceremoniously, proving conclusively that one swallow doesn’t make a summer.

‘Ignore her,’ I tell T waving him across to the desk I’m perched at. ‘Let’s see the details.’ And T hurries over, face flushed with excitement and I have to physically stop myself from reminding him hastily issued offers are a long way from an exchange of contracts and some commission being banked.

I knew there’d be bids forthcoming anyway as I listed the cracking little house with a super south facing garden, and realistic, motivated vendors. T has three bids in the space of an afternoon of viewings, each one documented, each one doubtless with a different set of circumstances.

The trick with the luxury of more than one offer is to establish who is in the best position to perform, taking into account their chain status, their finances and their motivation. Sadly it isn’t always the punter with the highest bid though. And ever since the banks, insurance companies and building societies became involved with front-line estate agency the original duty to your principal – the owner selling – became a little blurred.

‘Who needs finance?’ Salivates M leaning in and shedding a dandruffy snowfall of sugar from his half-masticated doughnut across the desk. M’s piggy eyes are alight with expectation as he trawls through the information T has managed to collate. There still needs to be some more research and calls to other agents involved in the chains to verify status, but M has already decided whom he wants to buy.

‘These look the best bet,’ concludes M, podgy finger with a hint of jam on the tip, prodding at a couple that need a chunky but findable mortgage and doubtless some nice bolt-on insurance policies. I’ve scanned the data too, and I disagree with my traditional estate agents hat on. I can already feel the inherent conflict of interest a financial services office target imposes on me. The bean counter is never far from my thoughts – some of them carrying high-tariff prison sentences.

In law we have a duty of care to establish the position and finances of the three parties interested, in law we must also not discriminate against any buyer if they are unwilling to use our ancillary products. M with his broking service, tame local lawyers, or crummy group tie-ins with centralised conveyancing battery farms, even the removal firm that drop in a wine-box every Christmas, if we shovel some business their way.

‘I’ll speak to them all and see what’s in it for me,’ proclaims M before hastily correcting himself. ‘I mean us.’
‘Best buyer for the owner remember.’ I caution to deaf ears as M’s roly-poly gait migrates towards his office, his buttocks chafing moistly with excitement.

Two hours later there is a bidding war unfolding and a potential lose-lose situation. M has rather pleasingly, failed to coerce any of the punters to use his services and reluctantly confirmed their status and ability to me, like a petulant schoolgirl.

‘What should we do?’ Asks the owner when I tell him the embarrassment of riches we’ve contrived to present him with. In the background I can hear his wife prompting in a stage whisper. ‘I told you it was too cheap Martin.’

And before the situation spirals out of control I tell the owner how I’ll now endeavour to obtain best offers from all three parties and we can then make an informed decision on the basis not just of the numbers - but their ability to perform. It is a tricky balancing act and needs polished negotiating skills not to alienate everyone, but then that’s what the vendors are paying me for.

Suddenly I’m enjoying myself again.






P.S The link below has just been brought to my attention - stick with it, it's not what it seems....




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YM9Ereg2Zo

Can You Feel It - Friday

‘That was a surprise wasn’t it?’ States fat mortgage man M as he arrives through the door shortly ahead of negotiator S, both with breasts heaving.

Momentarily I’m distracted by the incongruous juxtaposition of alarming and alluring body parts sported by the first two arrivals, as assistant manager T hurries in behind closely followed by a slightly wobbly B from lettings. Could be her over-high heels, or she could still be sloshed. Just as the clock hits start time imbecile trainee F scuttles through the door with a sheepish grin of apology.

‘What was?’ I ask, finally responding to M’s opening gambit, as I wonder just how to make the morning meeting stimulating yet challenging too.
‘He means the dead celebrity I think.’ Offers T as M repeats his question.

And I almost say Farrah Fawcett Major, another icon from my childhood who has shuffled off this mortal coil leaving a transient back-catalogue legacy and a pissed-off agent, but of course M means Michael Jackson.

‘I preferred his early stuff anyway,’ continues M distractedly as he eyes the biscuit tin he left on the filing cabinet last night. I preferred the dark-haired one in Charlie’s Angels, as it happens, I think wistfully as I remember those surreptitious erections on the sofa and the uncomfortable shared family experience fostered by one television per house and just three channels to choose from – coupled with raging hormones. ‘He went a bit weird towards the end.’

And instead of a rousing motivational morning meeting priming my team for another day scaling the foothills of the sales Alps - all minus oxygen and ability - we discuss the merits of the sadly deceased and deeply troubled singer.

‘I never really knew much of his music.’ Pronounces F with a gormless look, as I realise once again that I have nothing much in common with my colleagues other than a shared satellite navigation postcode. And M, B and myself real off a list of Michael Jackson’s hits to nods of recognition from T and S but mostly blank looks from F. I start to feel really old as I realise Jacko has croaked at fifty, an uncomfortably close number to mine.

‘Beat it?’ I try in desperation towards F, as a fleeting thought of applying the title to his head with the hole-punch, flits enticingly by. But F finally smiles in recognition and I’m briefly encouraged - until he informs the room he thought Alien Ant Farm penned the song.

‘He must have been about your age wasn’t he?’ Questions T brutally, as I try to duck the question and avoid S’s inquisitive gaze. My joke about not needing plastic surgery falls on fallow ground, so I grab the viewing book and attempt to change the subject. Only I can’t stop thinking about the singer’s untimely death and how life choices drag you in previously unimagined directions.

In truth I was more upset when Joe Strummer of The Clash pegged-it, occasioning another bout of soul-searching for a week or two, as I realised time had done that sneaking up on the rails trick again. Of course I never learned to play the guitar and I never wrote anything more than a few juvenile poems until this blog began, but I sure as hell didn’t set out to be a disillusioned estate agent – it sort of crept up on me, like slowly choking arteries.

‘Bloody good career move mind.’ Says M, bringing me back to the present, with a voluminous chuckle.
‘Not sure it would work for me.’ I counter to confused looks all round, just as the first off-colour text joke about Michael’s demise hits my mobile.

‘I remember the day Elvis died like it was yesterday.’ Pontificates an elderly potential vendor as I sit in his lounge later. The lunchtime news is blaring at high volume and re-runs of the King of Pop’s videos are flitting across the screen. I’m tempted to ask the old boy to turn the television off. Pitching for business against a backdrop of dancing zombies isn’t the easiest sell, I think, before reconsidering as I look again at the crumbly cadaver before me.

I press on quietly humming – Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough.

Hear No Evil - Tuesday

‘What are you doing in the bathroom?’ Queries my wife, voice heavy with exasperation, if a little muffled.
It’s the sort of question you can do without at the best of times, but now I’m about to be caught out, mid-fiddle.
‘You’ve got one of those cotton buds in again, haven’t you.’ She states, rather than questions.

And despite the fact I know I shouldn’t, I give the mini-dumbbell a further, almost orgasmic twist and receive a sharp stabbing pain for my troubles. And the throbbing returns, re-doubled. The container carries all sorts of dire warning about not inserting the sticks into your inner ear canal, but why else have them? Anyway, they must know there’s a certain transient satisfaction in excavating a clinging clot of earwax, at least until you smell it.

Exiting the bathroom with a feeling of guilt and a disapproving look, I find the relief is indeed temporary, as now I really can’t hear out of my left ear, and it still feels as if I’ve been swimming and have some brackish, piss-flecked pool water, lodged inside the drum. Then my wife issues the sort of command I dread, announcing.
‘You’ll have to go and see the doctor.’

‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’ I apologise to an irate vendor later, who blames the economic meltdown on me personally as his overpriced home isn’t even attracting viewers, let alone offers he would consider derisory – but might welcome with open arms in six months time. Only he’ll have swapped agents by then, of course.
‘We could try trimming the price a little,’ I venture cautiously. ‘Re-advertise and try and stimulate fresh interest.

I know this suggestion will be falling on ears deafer than mine, as the parsimonious prig even argued over whether we should have a £995 ending to his price, rather than a £950 when I listed it. True to form, he confirms my thoughts by launching a rant about not wanting to give his house away, and how wretched agents pushed all the prices up and are forcing them down again. And now my diminished hearing comes in handy, as I swap the phone handset across to the impaired side while he blows himself out.

‘Just wait over there.’ Instructs the receptionist with a stifled yawn. ‘And the doctor will call you through when they’re ready.’
Gloomily, I shuffle to join a disparate band of grey haired, wan faced coughing and spluttering pensioners, a smattering of heavily pregnant mother’s-to-be and one nervous looking schoolgirl, still in her uniform. Soon to be pregnant as well, I think uncharitably, or here for a morning after pill.

‘Hello sir.’ Announces an elderly well-dressed man wearing a deerstalker-style hat. I don’t recognise him and anyway the greeting is far too courteous to come from a property-based contact. A fact confirmed, when he starts ranting about his missing wife and the fact that they’ve all killed themselves - every last one.

‘Calm down Mr Simmonds,’ Calls the receptionist disinterestedly. ‘Just wait for the doctor to call you.’

Moving seats and getting a disapproving look from the promiscuous schoolgirl as I shift towards her, I grab a dog-eared local magazine and choke back a laugh. There, two years out of date is a page display of one of our property adverts. I recognise every home and at least one of assistant manger T’s mis-framed shots. But it’s the prices that have me shaking my head, until the fluid shifts uncomfortably. And then a distant fuzzy voice calls me to room two.

As I rise uncertainly, another man, short and elderly, gazumps me and shuffles along the corridor. I follow the ancient mariner, still marvelling at the absurdly optimistic prices in the advert I was reading and the knowledge, unspoken then, but validated now, that the price increases were unsustainable.

‘Excuse me.’ I call, as the old fool in front attempts to pinch my appointment. And I explain, confidence evaporating, that it was my name called. He gives me the sort of disappointed look I see a lot nowadays, as does the youthful doctor when I tell him my profession.

I have a feeling the pain is going to last a little longer.

Closed Shop - Wednesday

H the slightly less cocky but still vertically challenged rival branch manager, rings me to see how things are. The tone in his voice is a new one, as is the experience of finding he’s in reality not the red-hot salesman circumstances and the market convinced him he was. Of course the situation is depressingly familiar to me.

Usually the little squirt only calls to crow over his sales figures but with willing and able buyers disappearing faster than mortgage man M’s lunch, he’s beginning to feel the pressure.
‘You’ve been around for like ever,’ he begins not over-flatteringly. ‘Was it this bad last time?’
And I delight in telling him it was a whole heap worse, which of course it was. Although that’s not to say it won’t match the grim reality of the early nineties if things stay as they are. The repossessions are climbing relentlessly and the office closures continue.

‘You’re not going to believe this.’ He tells me breathlessly and he reveals another long-established name on his patch has closed overnight, windows whitewashed, fascia removed, only the now rather ironic Rightmove stickers left on the door, a clue to the former tenant’s business.

I do believe it, just as I remember the process from before. A familiar foe has just shut up shop on my patch too. The company logo swiftly removed from above the door to poignantly reveal a long-forgotten independent retailer’s faded sign-written shop front, with a curious four-digit phone number. I’m briefly tempted to ring and see if some ghostly grocer answers to tell me he predicted it would end in tears – but that would be ridiculous.

Instead I tell H to think laterally – the other direction might be misconstrued – in order to winkle out deals. To gently suggest presentation improvements to struggling sellers, to reacquaint himself with his dusty register of buyers, and strive to match the punter to the pad. To get a few of the reluctant reducers to drop their lofty price demands, for their crummy loft conversions - after all it’s not rocket science. But like the owners who are in denial, H is too.

‘So you telling me you’re going to be any better than the other crummy lot?’ Snipes the disgruntled owner on my early evening valuation. He’s insisted I come after he finishes work and reluctantly I’ve acceded. Although extended opening hours, like extensive advertising, are already coming under pressure from the bean counter boss. If I remember rightly it will be increase fees, ditch the Sunday opening staff and only print ten sets of property particulars at a time.

‘Only all the others made rash promises and predictions at the beginning,’ continues the owner bringing me back to reality. ‘Then they never rang back.’
Agent hopping is another familiar returning feeling, as desperate sellers, the one’s who have real motivation to move – the job relocations, the downsizers hoping to beat the court order, and the matrimonial break-ups – swap estate agents on a mad merry-go-round of board substitutions.

Another recurring theme is the vendor’s lament about never hearing from his agent. Like the aftermath of one of man-eater B in lettings ill chosen one-night-stands, they feel used and cheapened when the follow-up phone call never comes. I’m the third agent in the last six months and from the way the man is looking at me his opinion of my profession matched the common perception, but then I’m used to rejection.

‘How much?’ Snaps Mr Angry when I tell him my suggested price reduction on the absurdly over-optimistic figure he’s been marketing at. Then another hefty hit of déjà vu hits as he repeats the same incredulous question, as I pitch for a top rate fee from the hit-them-when-they’re-down school of marketing moves.

‘I’ll be in touch.’ I conclude cheerily paperwork in hand, as I briefly contemplate tearing down the just ousted rival’s grubby board from the gatepost as I leave. Only to remember in my company’s straightened circumstances they no longer cough for sullied suit cleaning bills.

‘Just find me a way out of here.’ Pleads the owner, unwittingly echoing my own thoughts precisely.

Do Not Disturb - Friday

Walk into a shabby hotel lobby and in the absence of one of those A-boards listing room venues for the various pale-faced business executives meeting to discuss redundancy plans, I traipse across to the reception desk.

Although I’ve mentally buffed my CV, to date I’ve not physically updated it, principally because seeing almost Olympian under-achievement in stark on-screen Times New Roman will only serve to deepen the depression, but it’s clear English as a first language isn’t going to help much in the hotel and leisure business anyway.

‘No, the estate agents.’ I reiterate, after I’ve been offered the venue for a carpet company and some sort of new age beardy-weirdy seminar. Although on reflection any sort of shag pile, or even a polar bear rescue plan, will top what I’m about to endure.

‘Ok.’ Replies the woman who has a name badge seemingly devoid of vowels. ‘Second floor, you take lift.’ And she points towards a pokey corner where a dull elevator door lurks menacingly. Familiarly, I get the feeling derision for my profession crosses all EU boundaries. Either way, I take the stairs. There are some lessons to be learnt after all this time in property and not trusting poorly maintained lifts is one.

As I make the upper hall, breath shortened, dust motes dancing unsettlingly in my eyes, there’s a ping and a Star Trek-style swish, before H my vertically challenged rival manager appears from the carriage.

‘Didn’t you know there was a lift?’ He asks with a sneer as poorly disguised as the receptionist’s.
‘Don’t trust them.’ I enlighten the poison dwarf, before scanning the pale wood doors for the right number.
‘Always make thing’s hard for yourself don’t you?’ Offers H, as I begin to fantasise about that Land Of The Giants TV programme in my youth, and imagine scooping the little twerp up and stuffing him in my brief case.

‘Right shit-hole this place.’ Opines H, unfortunately from somewhere near my navel, rather than secreted in a secure Samsonite.
‘Cheaper apparently.’ I muse, as we both reach the designated door and enter.

The other managers are gathered around a tightly drawn table, flip chart to one side, making small talk as the bean counter boss fiddles with his laptop VGA connector. Gloomily I gaze at the portable display screen a minion is erecting with difficulty, and I silently yearn for those old fashioned laminate projectors that at least limited the number of slides a verbally challenged presenter could inflict.

One cup of bitter stewed coffee and a stale Danish pastry later, the screen comes to life and a litany of failure begins scrolling to the assembly. We all know the numbers; our commission-heavy salary depends on them. So this monthly group flagellation by PowerPoint doesn’t add anything to the debate.

Thoroughly demoralised by the bean counter’s charmless delivery I begin gazing out of the window and idly wondering if I could grab one of the fire reel hoses and abseil out, Die Hard style, leaving the others to burn. Until I realise someone is talking to me.

‘Well?’ Demands the bean counter, finger no longer on his touch-pad, pointing accusingly at me. ‘Do you want to get us started?’
Blankly I stare back, and all I can think is I haven’t any matches, until my next-door neighbour whispers.
‘Market report!’

Now here’s another unwanted dilemma. Does the bean counter want fact or fiction? Is he after what you might tell a seller, or a buyer? Or should I just take a chance and jump.

Round the table we go with a mixture of blind optimism, stark reality and at least one Hans Christian Anderson style fairy tale of stabilised and gently rising prices. My pitch, needless to say, leans towards the brothers Grimm, before we move onto cost saving and consolidation plans.

‘Do you reckon the cabinet do this sort of thing?’ I ask a sympathetic ear as we leave. After all if offices are expected to consolidate their register and staff then close because we got the sums horribly wrong, surely you don’t need two comedian’s living at number ten and eleven?

I stop off at the reception briefly - but apparently they have no vacancies.