A journey from plain looks to property porn

The property boom turned us all into experts: we were a nation obsessed with other people's houses - and the price of our own

FOR A WHILE there, no radio discussion was complete without some superior-type harrumphing about property porn. And it was always said in such an over-familiar way that you just knew that their Thursday mornings were spent leafing through this supplement like the rest of us, resisting the temptation to whip out the magnifying glass to identify exactly who were in the silver frames on mantelpiece.

There wasn't much to see in the early years. The pictures of houses for sale were sober black and white affairs - a plain looking exterior, probably photographed during a light drizzle, and maybe a kitchen shot to show off the waxed pine units and Nicholas Mosse pottery.

By the time the property porn tag was in circulation we'd gone full colour - like Hello!but without the cheesy celebs getting in the way of a forensic examination of the fixtures and fittings. More colour photos of amazing houses than any glossy monthly interiors magazine; swanky gardens that reflected the growing trend of getting the landscapers in and on a really good week more bling than an episode of Cribs. We were a nation obsessed with other people's houses - and the price of our own.

After a while there was no need to get out that magnifying glass. Dedicated readers could come to expect a shortlist of features that seemed to be in all the smart houses. If it was the home of tigerish thirty-somethings, you could be sure that the tasteful snap on the mantelpiece had been replaced by a large black and white professionally taken shot of the couple with their kids, all in matching white teeshirts and slouchy blue jeans. Like a suburban GAP ad.

If the landscapers had been in, there was enough Indian sandstone to make you worry about denuding the quarries of the subcontinent - ditto the great slabs of Portuguese limestone in halls and kitchens warmed by the obligatory underfloor heating.

Trend spotting got easier. The ghastly era of stencilling and marbling paint effects gave way to the era of Farrow Ball-inspired heritage colours with names like String, Stone and Elephant's breath. Dedicated readers notice such things.

There are no figures available - well who'd admit to such downright nosiness - but a sizable percentage of Propertyreaders have absolutely no intention of moving anywhere. There's the forbidden thrill of nosing around someone else's house - especially if you vaguely know them or if it's a house you pass every day on a road you know; the chance to shriek "they want a million for that tiny kip" and the opportunity to dissect someone else's taste. Viewings increased dramatically once a house was featured - in 2002 almost 500 people showed up at a house in Dalkey to view the French style interior.

Then there was the dream factor. Those Lotto ads kept plugging away promising a life-changing dream when everyone knew the jackpot would just about buy you a post war semi in a nice area but the overseas and the country pages were the real dream fodder. A farmhouse in Tuscany for the price a two-up two-down in Ringsend; a handkerchief-sized patio in Dublin 6 for a paddock in Meath.

There's a theory in car advertising that the people who pay most attention to those glamorous, wildly expensive ads aren't would-be buyers at all but rather people who have recently bought a car and either want to dream about the next one or feel a bit smug about their own set of wheels. Apply that theory to Propertyand it goes some way to explaining the huge readership and why so many dinner parties were dominated by property.

It seemed as if everyone, knew the price of their own house. For a nation so famously reticent about money matters, we were suddenly well able to tell all and sundry what our house was worth now and what we paid for it. Not that it was professionally valued or anything but because it was here in black and white in the auction results or in the asking prices.

"Eighty-five thousand - but of course that was in punts, we'd get close to a mill for it now" - all said while trying to sound as canny as Warren Buffet but deep down knowing it was a simple case of right age at the right time.