A landlord's life

"Free!" shouted the leaflet in the hallway, inviting me to a seminar. "How you can give up work and be a property millionaire".

Well, er, no actually. I like work, I am a property millionaire and I got there by graft and bottle, not by responding to insulting mail-shots. Like most property millionaires I am asset-rich and cash-poor. (To charitable readers of The Irish Times, my address is with the editor.)

The leaflet addressed me as "Dear Friend". I have about 15 "friends" I would go to the wall for so, sorry London sender, you will not get on my closed list. Especially when I glean the type of person you think I am.

"Friend. Are you sick and tired of the daily grind? Sick of never having enough to make ends meet? Have you noticed how ordinary people are getting wealthy through property? How even your taxi driver and window cleaner mentions 'buy-to-let' flat. How did he manage to buy investment property?"

How, indeed, squire, does this mail-shot manage to insult two hard-working professionals in one sentence. Taxi driver and window cleaner, in our current world, stand a better chance of buying investment property than, say, teachers or nurses. With steam coming out of my moral radiator, I read on, hoping to reach Richter Scale.

I do. "Eleven years ago," the writer says, "I was broke, toiling for a pittance, massively in debt with credit cards, bank loans, Hp. . .drifting into old age and poverty."

"Friend" asks me for my opinion, on a philosophical matter. "Is the purpose of life to slave for 45 years, pay off a mortgage on a pitiful little house and then huddle in front of a one-bar electric fire, struggling on a government pension? Well, squire, now that you ask, frankly, no. . .but "no" does not mean I fall for a piece of poor scripting to lure me into a hotel at the weekend, to be harangued by the kind of mind that drums up images of old people in front of one-bar electric fires, and gives not a thought for the possible dignity of their past life.

The storyteller (bad scripture) gives me a fable: how he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and learned some property secrets.

How he used OPM (Other Peoples Money) to make himself rich. "It is hard to believe that a few short years ago I was a humble wage-slave with zero prospects. Now I even buy and sell football grounds."

Oh dear, oh dear, squire, you struck a bum note there. De Mammy always warned me against men who buy football grounds.

So, I'm outa here, then. Sensing my leaving, he writes: "I am willing to share these property secrets you and thousands of others, for free! Really, must be a holy man in disguise then. He will be coming to a hotel near me.

All I have to do is fill out the form, book my place and, when I make my millions, you will charge me "a small commission from properties we introduce to you".

Well now, squire, I have, as you may glean, a problem with all of the above. I happen to know many of the properties are worth very much less than the price you offer to gullible Irish buyers.

You see, I have been here before - the properties are usually in a poor state of repair, in the kind of area that suffers, to put it mildly, from severe social neglect, with the kind of dysfunctional tenants that keep police and socials workers - and yes, taxi-drivers - in fear of their lives.

Neither will you find too many window-cleaners in those areas, as broken glass tends to be shuttered or boarded up.

I was at a seminar of the kind you mention. It was an appalling experience: we were not allowed to ask leading questions. One of the "secrets" was that potential buyers sign up for five or six credit cards and instantly borrow from them to get their first deposit - against all the advice of the current financial regulators in Britain and Ireland, concerned with consumers "borrowing above their capacity to repay".

The attendance wanting "property secrets" summed-up, for me, much of the ignorant greed of the new Ireland. I think I'll give this one a miss, squire, because you see, I met you in another life. You are not the kind of person one should spend few minutes with, never mind a few hours.