Talking Property

Cold reality is now biting hard for sellers, writes ISABEL MORTON

THE OLD adage, “the day you buy is the day you sell” was barely heeded during the boom years; such was the rush to purchase property.

And having bought in haste, many unfortunate property owners will now have to repent in leisure, as the saying goes (although, the term “leisure” may not be considered entirely appropriate).

There is a distinct feeling about that a number of properties have recently been put on the sales market with unseemly haste.

Regardless of what estate agents would like us to believe, in the current property climate, few would voluntarily actually choose to attempt to dispose of what for many people is their main asset.

Sadly, most of those selling today are reluctant vendors, with their moneylenders hovering in the background. The property market, such as it is, has a strange reality about it. There is little pretence surrounding the business and few games are being played. Obviously, those selling property in today’s market, urgently need to sell. And those in the lucky position of being able to buy are well aware of that fact.

In the past few weeks, a number of properties appear to have been launched somewhat earlier than their owners may have originally intended – properties which were obviously customised to suit their owners’ specific needs, but would not necessarily be suited to the needs of many other potential buyers.

Having, for more than a decade, been bombarded with television programmes covering every single aspect of the property business, one would have imagined that we might have picked up the odd hint or two in passing, but apparently not. Such was the confidence that our passion for property would never end, that many chose to ignore even the most basic of rules of the property game.

Had we even remembered the old mantra “location, location, location”, we might not now have a glut of unsold homes in remote and far-flung places.

But there were many other rules which both homeowners and small-time investors repeatedly ignored. Like keeping a sensible ratio of bedrooms in a house. Many large family homes had the number of bedrooms severely reduced in order to accommodate en suites and dressing rooms. This action, while providing a couple of luxury bedroom suites, made the properties bottom heavy, with far more reception areas than bedroom space, therefore not suitable for most families. Some homeowners spent untold amounts of money adding gargantuan extensions to their very ordinary homes, whose scale and proportion were out of keeping with both the house or even the neighbourhood.

For those who have to sell, it’s a double blow to find their improvements may have been nothing of the sort. And many, who during the boom years, decided that they were particularly talented at DIY and decoration, indulged their passion to their hearts’ content only to find that today’s ruthless buyer is not impressed with their handiwork, and is certainly not prepared to pay over the odds for décor they intend changing.

Property brochures these days, like time capsule images of a bygone era, feature remnants of another life – and, somehow, look predictable, sad and dated.

Once much-coveted extras, such as smart-home technology, now seem strangely irrelevant and ridiculous. (How vital was it to be able to close or open our curtains at the press of a button? Or that we could enjoy surround sound in every room of the house?)

Long gone are luxuriously presented beds dressed with crisply ironed linen and decorated with an architectural arrangement of pillows and cushions. Gone too, are the fluffy new bathroom towels, expensive scented candles and the single stem blooms, which once adorned the trademark line-up of three (no more, no less) Kelly Hoppen-style vases.

Today’s vendors have their backs to the wall and no longer have the money, time or inclination to spend on any unnecessary nonsense, so what you see is what you get these days, minus frills and bows.

Viewing property is no longer an entertaining social occasion – in fact, it feels almost like an infringement of people’s privacy, as though the vendors had been given no more than a few seconds to vacate their homes before the doors were opened to the public.

You can almost smell the burning toast, hear the radio belting out the morning news and feel the warmth of recently vacated beds. You can imagine water droplets running down the walls of steamed-up bathrooms, half-eaten plates of food abandoned mid-forkful and lives rudely interrupted with little warning.

There is a disconcerting feeling of urgency, immediacy and panic surrounding the property market these days, with sellers’ nerves frayed, as they wonder will they ever find someone as gullible as they once were, who are prepared to buy their folly.

• Isabel Morton is a property consultant