CityLiving: Do estate agents really have to stick to a code that hides the truth, wonders Edel Morgan.
There aren't many estate agents who will call a spade a spade - or an inhabitable dump an inhabitable dump. Deciphering estate-agent speak is all about cracking the code that glosses over the unpleasant, unpalatable truth.
Househunters who have waded through a ton of property brochures and ads will know the codeword "charming" roughly translated means "poky and dilapidated". For "keenly priced" read "owners desperate to get out" and for "awaits fresh thinking" substitute "only fit to demolish and rebuild".
Would great property empires collapse if estate agents were to dispense with "the code" and say it like it is? One estate agent who did, managed to maintain a business for decades until his death in 1971.
His name was Roy Brooks, a South London estate agent who insisted on telling the brutal truth not only about properties on his books, but about their location and occasionally their owners. A collection of newspaper ads placed by his agency in The Sunday Times and Observer during the 1950s and 1960s called Mud Straw and Insults , Confessions of an Honest Estate Agent has been published by John Murray (£9.99 stg).
Brooks wasn't interested in pussyfooting about with the code. In fact he often played up a property's faults for comic effect but there was method in his madness. The ads drew the reader in by being witty and caustically entertaining - if slightly bonkers - and then invariably whetted their appetite at the end by saying the property was going cheap or the vendor was either open to offers or someone frightfully important.
An ad for a house in Chester Square, Belgravia reads "under its mantle of dust & dirt this is a very fine house; there is even an air of aristocratic decay about the broken passenger lift." The price is £19,995 "but try any offer, owner might take a low price from a deserving, but impecunious young couple. Viewing Sunday 3-5. Knock four times."
An ad for a small modernised period residence in London W1 with "three decent enough bedrooms" and "a small paved garden", goes on to say "The outlook - the backside of Woolworths - might be considered a little Fustian, but, good enough for our clients (Her grandpa & uncle are Peers, descended from Duchess of Devonshire, He, decent upper middle class . . ., STIRLING CASTLE was "Home.")It's probably good enough for you. £8,550 FREEHOLD."
In another he describes a three bed maisonette on Wimbledon Park Road SW18 as "not fearfully attractive . . . The best advice I can give on this property," says eminent surveyor, "is demolition." But what on earth can one expect for £2,995?"
About a six room Chelsea House, he says "Whilst not wishing to gloss over its slum-like qualities we ought to mention that our clients will only sell to a person with the taste and means to restore it properly. A foul little garden at the back, only £6,500."
"Fashionable" Chelsea comes in for a bashing in another: "It attracts predatory businessmen, with their awful wives & poorer envious detractors. All being poisoned by the filthy effluvia of Lots Road Power Station, the Gas works and a strong whiff from Battersea Power Station."
He wasn't always scathing, describing a sunny luxury flat overlooking lovely ancient trees as "well fit" , another top floor flat as "WIZARD", in capital letters for full effect, and the bathroom of a former Archers actress luxury Mayfair home "an ablutionist's dream".
But while the London property market might be big enough to make room for a character like Brooks, would such a straight-talking estate agent last long in Irish market? Would clients stand for having their house called a grubby old ruin or the area they live in dismissed as "fashionable but sordid"? Probably not, but surely there's a case for telling the truth without taking it to extremes.
One estate agent with a thriving business has done just that. Steve Symes of Green Valley Properties, which specialises in finding and selling remote rural properties in Co Clare, Co Cork and South Galway, prides himself on his no-nonsense approach.
A look at his website confirms this. An ad for a €12,700 site in Co Cork says it has "a pile of stones, vaguely house-shaped, covered in briars with a tree growing out the middle on circa 1/3 acre in a very quiet hilly location on Cork/Kerry/Limerick border. Neglected for decades." A €300,000 house in Killaloe, Co Clare is a "large proportioned 'no frills' bungalow with two large bedrooms in elevated location . . . ". A €55,000 house in Kilrush, Co Clare is "a good example of one of the few remaining mud houses still standing in West Clare. Over 150 years old . . . This is a property for the dedicated enthusiast who wishes to restore, and is not for sale to anyone who has notions of demolition and replacement." So if a property really is charming and keenly priced , who are you most likely to believe? The estate agent who tells the truth or the one who constantly forgets to mention details like rat infestation or an adjacent high security prison?
