A Week turns into months and months and months: The London Property Week diaries.

Across from me at Brasserie Zedel table was a man I'd known for years. What I didn't know was how he'd react to my idea.

He's a very successful man in the property world. An ex-CEO of one of the grandest family owned property estates, a director of a major developer and an adviser to others.

I knew he wouldn't be a soft touch, that he wouldn't be anything but rigorous and honest in his assessment. He isn't the type to be approving out of politeness.

The niceties of meeting up swiftly over, we got to the point of our all too rare lunch. I presented the idea for London Property Week. And waited for the response.

It wasn't good. He was sceptical, questioning and seemingly very unconvinced.

As we chewed our cheap steaks an embarrassing silence descended on the table and it was clear we both wondered where the conversation would go next.

Just as I was about to jump in with the usual small talk about family and friends, however, he suddenly started to talk to me about his experiences with his own children and their first property purchases.

How they'd seemed naive and ill-informed in the world of mortgages.

How he'd struggled to work out how best to help them.

How he'd tried to ensure that any financial help he gave was properly structured to protect all parties.

How amazed he was that even the bright, successful children of a senior property executive could find the whole business of finding and buying a property daunting and confusing.

By the time our plates were cleared and coffee ordered, the atmosphere had turned on its head.

And London Property Week had become, in both our minds, not just a genuinely good idea but an essential tool in helping the next generation get on the homeowner ladder.

Emboldened at this outcome, by the time I'd walked to Piccadilly the next phase was in motion. Setting up meetings with some of London's biggest and best residential developers.

Helping me in this was a towering figure in the industry (I love that phrase, don't you). He's a well known ex-estate agent from Chelsea turned proptech visionary (those in the industry might be able to work out his name, but I couldn't possibly say).

Between us we arranged meetings with senior directors at Mount Anvil, Native Land and, biggest of all, Berkeley.

Although I felt confident the idea was good, I didn't expect theses clever, busy people to fall over with enthusiasm when a couple of characters turned up touting some outlandish proposal that would cost them money.

True to form, they didn't.

Almost universally, their first reaction was "isn't there a London Property Week already?".

No. There's a fashion week, a craft week, an art week, a design week and lots of others, we explained, but no new build (or old build, for that matter) residential property week.

Gradually, as we went into detail about our vision and the real need for LPW, the value of it became clearer to our audiences. And with varying degrees of enthusiasm, they all came to see it as a positive and potentially very valuable idea.

Even more helpful, perhaps, were their ideas.

None wanted just another boring old exhibition. They'd stumped up for these in places like Dubai and China and weren't entirely convinced they offered good value.

What they wanted was something new that would appeal to a younger audience through the use of technology, that would translate into real viewings and that would burnish their not always glowing public reputation.

By now we knew that potential buyers want it. Developers can see the opportunity. Mortgage and legal firms understand the need for it. Even the Evening Standard told us it is perhaps a timely idea.

All people wanted to know was when and where the first LPW would take place.

But it's at this point that things started to come to a grinding halt.

To make it happen we needed, I thought, a partnership with an exhibition specialist.

Although I have been heavily involved in large scale events such as London Fashion Week and have helped create and market various other trade and consumer fairs, I have no experience operationally. It needs a range of specialist skills and experience to set up something like LPW.

So I approached various large independent organisers. Several of them ( names available) didn't even deign to respond. With one I had a personal connection to the owner, and could at least get to talk the idea through in some detail over several weeks.

Nothing ultimately came of these meetings, other than the realisation that the exhibitions industry is perhaps a little out of touch with the modern world.

So there we were. A good idea. Great connections into the property world. A proposition that is undoubtedly appealing and needed. And even some investment funds available to kick start things.

Months went by. Summer passed. Nothing.

At one point, I thought seriously about starting a small series of seminars aimed at educating/informing young people on how to buy their first property....just as a way to keep some momentum going.

I even hired a young consultant recommended by a private equity house to prepare a plan for these events. But the hopelessly inadequate work she produced set me (and my finances) back to such an extent I put everything on hold.

Then, a few weeks ago, I had coffee with an old friend, and told him in passing about LPW and how difficult I had found it to make anything happen.

"I know just the person you need", he said, "if he has the time, he can make anything happen."

Fortunately he does have the time, as well as enormous enthusiasm for the idea.

So, we're off again. Thinking, planning, reshaping and working out how to get this off the Powerpoint page and into reality.

It looks like we're better putting the event on without one of the old-school exhibition companies involved. But need to raise about £1m to do so.

Perhaps we can get a mortgage.

From Doer-Upper to Starter-Upper: The London Property Week diaries.

I don't like risk.  And, believe me, I can see risk in almost anything.

The centuries old bridge I'm crossing will surely choose that moment to collapse. The truck hurtling down the road will have a brake failure and swerve into my path. The bloke coming towards me in a hoody is a knife wielding mugger who fancies my iPhone.

It's a hard life when you're this paranoid. That's why I don't go out much.

Seriously though, I can't afford the financial downside or take the day to day stress of too much risk, which is why I've kept out of the doer-upper market for the last year or so.

So what do I decide to do instead - try and start up London's biggest property show, that's all.

No risk there, obviously.

_______________________________________


The idea for London Property Week was born out of disbelief.

Disbelief at how little there is to help young buyers find a new build property, buy it and even furnish it.

Oh there's lots of talk about the Bank of Mum & Dad or Help to Buy or even normal mortgages, and we all know there are are thousands of new flats going up all over the metropolis.

But when I started asking around I found that both young buyers and their parents were at a loss to know where to start.

The portals like Rightmove and Zoopla are wonderful things. If you know what you're looking for and roughly where. But people don't.

Estate agent offices are all well and good. But each one only has one or two new developments on their books.

The Evening Standard and Metro have lots of ads and interesting articles. But they are hardly comprehensive, certainly not on a weekly basis.

Of course you could take a tour of Show Apartments (if you know where you want to buy) but they can be a bit like car showrooms - full of sharp suited sales people out to entrap you into signing on the dotted line at almost any cost (may not be true, but it's how people feel).

In the end, it's all a bit of a nightmare.

So we did a survey and asked young professionals in London who want to buy whether they'd attend an event where they could find out about dozens of different developments and thousands of apartments. Over 40% said 'yes, please'. They also overwhelmingly wanted to meet mortgage people in a neutral location and attend seminars on how and what to buy.

Unbelievably, there is no major consumer event celebrating, promoting or informing people about the huge number of developments going up all over the city.

The trade (or perhaps I should say profession) has endless events. From MIPIM downwards, there's an opportunity for agents, developers, builders, banks etc etc to get together and do deals most weeks. There are awards shows, lots of 'summits', lots and lots and lots of talking (and a certain amount of drinking, of course).

The blurb for these events usually includes words and phrases such as strategic key stakeholder investment-led future regeneration summit.

Nothing wrong with that. I'm sure it's enormous fun.

But where's the 'end-user' (or buyer, to you and me) in all this? Where do they find out about all thats available to them?

There's a show for buy-to-let investors, there's a show for luxury property buyers keen on places like Dubai, there's even a small show for young people desperate enough to take on the complexities of a Shared Ownership mortgage.

And that's it.

Which is a shame because as I delved deeper into the London new build sector I realised just how much it has to offer.

London is being transformed. Across the city, new communities, new homes and new lifestyles are fast replacing the old. Regenerated and re-energised, London's once neglected areas are being reborn for a new generation. And, contrary to what you hear, it's not all about multi-million pound penthouses for money launderers.

Property Week will be an event that celebrates this and helps the young, the downsizer, the incomer and the city itself understand the scale, the ambition and the sheer variety of what's available out there.

___________________________

Next time....we talk to developers and a few 'movers and shakers'.

___________________________

A postcard from Paris.

171, rue Saint Jaques, Paris V. 

Rue Saint Jacques is unusually wide and straight for a pre-Haussmann Parisian street. It runs south from the tourist magnet of Notre Dame uphill past the old Sorbonne and the even more imperious Pantheon until it narrows and enters a mess of medieval streets at the heart of The Latin Quarter.

Where the buildings either side begin to close in on each other, you will find the usual neighbourhood services essential to French life. The butcher, the baker, the wine shop, the greengrocer, the traiteur and the inevitable hairdresser.

There are chickens rotating on spits, fat butchers with bloody aprons, students grabbing a sandwich between lectures, little old ladies scuttling about for their daily supplies and one of the oldest (and cheapest) restaurants in the city, Perraudin.

It was here, in the Vth arrondisement, back in 1999, that we took our first foray into overseas property ownership.

Our top floor garret at 171 rue Saint Jaques was no more than 350 square feet, built in the17th century and arrived at by climbing 84 narrow, worn, stone steps.

It had a sitting room/kitchen, a bedroom and a terrifying balcony.

From the tiny back bedroom there was an almost Disneyesque view across Parisian leaded rooftops towards the towering cupola of The Pantheon. From the front you looked down on the bustling narrow street.

It had original tiles and an old fireplace, walls that had probably never been straight or square and a charm that felt terribly foreign and yet very homely at the same time.

If I appear to be waxing lyrical, it's because the whole experience was pretty good.

We found the flat through a couple who were friends of friends and ran an estate agency in Paris.

It was in a terrible state, of course, but Issy and Olly, the agents, took charge of the renovation and within a couple of months or so there was a new kitchen, a new shower room (well, cupboard) and crisp clean white walls.

We 'lived' Parisian weekends as often as we could cajole our two youngest children onto Eurostar. At
3 and 10, they weren't really into strolling around The Left Bank looking at the shops and stopping for leisurely lunches. Anything we did had to be 'sweetened' with long trips to the nearby Luxembourg Gardens for ice creams and carousel rides, the occasional day at EuroDisney or lunches of roast chicken and mashed potatoes brought home from the Rue Mouffetard market.

We didn't rent out the flat (no Airbnb back then), it didn't seem worth the bother. The flat had cost us €100,000 plus notaires fees and taxes. And the annual service charges and local taxes were pretty negligible on such a small place.

After so many years, my memories are of course rather rose-tinted. But it can't have been that bad - our son and daughter seem to have grown up sharing our love of the city. Indeed, one of them just spent a happy year there as part of her French degree.

Eventually we sold the flat (much to my regret now) and moved south in search of somewhere our young family did want to go (which, of course, was the beaches and, as they got older, bars of St Tropez).

Why am I reminiscing about this now? Well, not long ago we went back for a weekend to visit our old Paris haunts and pass by our apartment building.

We've been back numerous times since we sold the garret, but this time I wasn't working, we didn't have our daughter to see or friends in tow or anyone other than ourselves to please.

It gave me the chance to properly compare it to our own capital. And reflect on what has changed in both London and Paris.

We had a wonderful weekend. We ate well enough, visited the extraordinary Louis Vuitton Fondation and possibly the smallest concert hall known to man on the beautiful Ile St Louis. We stayed in a great little hotel and wore out our shoes walking all over the Marais, St Germain and the Latin Quarter.

I can't remember a much nicer weekend, if I'm honest.

But, and it's a big but, the city itself looked a bit frayed at the edges, a touch run-down, a tad down-at-heel.

When we first bought the flat, the Metro seemed such an improvement on our own Tube. Today it's the other way round. The Metro looks old, tired, unloved, full of unhappy, slightly shabby people.
Our Tube looks newer, feels faster and seems full of people wearing better clothes, earning more money and with energy.

Above ground, the architecture of Paris is of course (and quite rightly) unchanged. But it's dirtier than before, scruffier when you look closely, and just feels poorer.

Arriving back in London, the opposite is again true. Gliding to a halt in St Pancras is like arriving in the new world. Our gleaming arcades of safe, bright, new, jolly restaurants and shops are a welcome relief after the Gare du Nord's sense of menace and dreadful Eurostar facilities.

London pulses with an energy and style Paris cannot even imagine. Of course we have our poor, our destitute, our marginalised and many, difficult social problems. But London is vastly bigger and hugely more cosmopolitan. It absorbs races, cultures and religions in a way our neighbouring capital never has.

While Paris has atrophied, London has seemed alive to the future.

Wherever you look, whether it's the restaurant scene in Soho, the hipster cafes of Hoxton or the swathes of new developments regenerating run down areas, we are a city of tomorrow whereas Paris has clung to an outmoded and crumbling edifice, both architecturally and socially.

But is that all about to change once again? Is it the turn of Paris to move forward and London to go backwards?

It is certainly beginning to look that way.

Brexit, of course, will almost certainly cast our city adrift from its continental neighbours far more effectively than the English Channel once did. Perhaps the droves of creative, hard working, well-educated young Europeans who have been drawn to London in the past will now head for Berlin, Paris or Amsterdam instead. It will be our loss.

Macron could well be the Blair France so desperately needs. Already he is giving the country a confidence, a swagger and a relevance that it has seemed to lack for so long. If he can translate that into economic reform, Paris will be revitalised.

We on the other hand have perhaps the worst set of political leaders I have ever seen.

The Conservatives seem bereft of ideas, leadership or direction. Riven by endless angst and anger over Brexit, they may retain power but seem powerless to move us forward.  Labour, on the other hand, is now controlled by an ultra-left, near Marxist faction (hidden for much of the election) committed to bribing its way back into power with undeliverable goodies for the young.

It's a choice that makes you long for the country to magic up its own charismatic, progressive and inclusive leader. Someone who will take us forwards rather than return us to the catastrophic 70s.

(Where are you, David Milliband, when we so desperately need you?)

But that looks as unlikely as a reversal of the Brexit decision.

What doesn't seem so unlikely, however, is a reversal in the fortunes of these two great cities.
Paris on the up. London on an almost suicidal spiral downwards (in the hands of either party currently).

And that's a shame. I was just getting used to boasting about London.

Little Englanders and Tricky Trots: The only hot properties in town.

Its been a funny old summer. And I'm not just talking about the weather.

As the thermometer see-sawed, so too has my view of the property market.

One moment I think it's probably the best time in years to buy something. The next I worry that everything's on the point of collapse and I'd be better investing in a one way ticket to somewhere far removed from both the Brexiters and the Corbynistas.

Little Englanders and Tricky Trots dominate the political landscape and are busy exploiting a population now hooked on xenophobia, entitlement and blame.

That's not exactly an environment that encourages confidence in the future.

It's all a bit depressing. To say the least.

But where does it leave the property market? And, in particular, the Prime London market?

The so-called experts seem to be suffering from a particularly extreme form of schizophrenia.

One minute they tell us prices are tumbling across prime areas and nothing is selling. The next we are being told that the fall in the pound is spurring a new influx of cash rich overseas buyers looking for a bargain.

My guess is that neither view is entirely accurate. Or entirely false. It's just a bloody mess. And nobody really knows whether it's going to get even worse or gradually start to improve.

Which just leaves me feeling confused and wary.

Although I recently extolled the investment virtues of family homes in deeply middle-class areas just outside Prime London like Barnes, Kew and Putney, I can't help, even now, being pulled towards the parts of town I'd prefer to live in myself.

We've just started renting a place close to Chelsea Green that I think was built for The Borrowers. It's the smallest house I've ever lived in. Although a bit run down in parts, it is a perfect pied-a-terre (as the agents would say) for the few days each week we spend in town.

On one of these days I wandered past a small house in one of Chelsea's classic, colourfully painted little streets between the King's Road and the Green. It is perhaps the last house on the street still unmodernised, and a little flyer in the window announced that it was For Sale.

Bingo. Just what I was looking for. That's what I thought, anyway.

A visit with the agent confirmed everything I'd hoped for : you could extend this very grim and near derelict little place upwards and outwards, making a perfect small 3 bed 'cottage'.

It had been to 'best and final' bids before the Brexit vote. But one by one these buyers evaporated after the unexpectedly disastrous referendum result.

Given the state of the market and the property, an offer of maybe 10-15% below asking seemed a reasonable starting point. At that level, the numbers might just stack up.

The owner, however, refuses to even consider offers and is sticking with his original asking price.

At this level, the young agent explained, there is no upside for a 'developer'.  (This endearing, upfront honesty did not go unnoticed.)

To give you an idea of how unrealistic this seller is being...here's some numbers.

Just to break even on the project (after stamp duty, realistic renovation costs and, of course, the owner's silly asking price ) the 'done up' house would have to be worth about £3000 per square foot.

The market value for houses on this particular street, however, has rarely exceeded £2500 psf. Even at its peak. Even renovated to the highest possible level.

So, unless there's a Prime idiot wandering around, this house is dead in the water.

On the other side of Chelsea, close to the river, we visited a very different property. A rather grand 2,000 square foot mansion flat.

It is perfectly proportioned for a kind of living that seems long past. Wandering from room to room, I could imagine an Edwardian 'gentleman' of slightly rakish inclination dressing in faded black tie, taking an early snifter from a well-stocked trolley, calling the porter for a cab and then heading off into the night for dinner at his club.

It's not that everything is old and run-down. Far from it. The bathrooms are traditional but almost new and exquisitely fitted out. The kitchen has a vast, and hugely expensive, French range cooker. The wallpapers are a masterpiece of faux antiquity. The ornately framed pictures hint at an aristocratic pedigree.

At first glance, in fact, it's all highly seductive. Then reality kicks in.

The flat is actually all wrong. For today's market, at least.

It's on the ground floor with no view of the river across the road.

Most rooms look out onto a central core that's more Victorian workhouse than Edwardian glamour.

The living space is small by today's standards and not easily reconfigured.

Flats on the opposite side of the common parts benefit from being corner units with light from two sides and, from the first floor upwards, fabulous views of Albert Bridge and the river.

For these reasons, I think, the flat failed to find a buyer at its original asking price. (An apartment in the same building had quickly achieved almost twice this price because of its top floor views, its light filled rooms and a modern makeover.)

A couple of years ago, this flat would have been snapped up. It would have been a small developer's dream. Today, however, the few buyers there are will do the numbers, look at the negatives and move on to somewhere else.

Even with £500,000 off the original asking price, I doubt this place will easily find a buyer.

It's a shame. I'd be thrilled to try and bring either of these properties sensitively into the 21st Century.

Both are, in their way, London classics and what living in our city is all about.

The endless over-priced new builds may appeal to the lock-up and leave buyer or 'stack-up' for the buy-to-let investor. They may even suit a 'wealthy' first-time buyer.

But it is this older stock that makes London a uniquely attractive world city, and defines the capital's many 'villages'.

As the Corbynistas and Brexiters fight it out for who can take our country backwards fastest, I fear that prime London and properties like these are going nowhere soon.

And that leaves me going nowhere as well.

The Big Lemon: Letter from Amalfi.

Two days after the referendum result, we flew to the Amalfi coast to meet up with a couple who come from Hong Kong and Seattle.

As we tried to digest the chaos we'd left behind in the UK, their Asian and US perspectives were both invaluable and depressing.

To cut a long discussion short, they just couldn't believe the British people could be so short-sighted, so narrow-minded, so xenophobic.

They looked at us pityingly and, no doubt, felt sorry for us personally.

How awful is that? The world actually feels sorry for us.

Truth is, I also felt sorry for us.

In the 48 hours following the Brexit result, we withdrew an accepted offer on one property, and declined to participate in a 'best and final' bid for another.

It didn't seem like we had any choice.

As I sit on the terrace of our small and basic, but very hospitable, hotel looking out across laden lemon trees to the glamorous speed boats buzzing up and down this beautiful coast, London seems a place to forget.

A place that's had its day in the sun and is now fading fast.

I hope that's not true, but fear that it may be the outcome of our isolationism and pig-headedness.

Like many, we're battening down the hatches. Renting rather than buying. Hoping that this mistake isn't as bad as it seems. Wishing that the bitter resentments of certain sectors of our country hadn't defeated the vitality, optimism and ambition of our youth and many of our immigrants.

As yet another over-sized lemon drops onto the terrace tiles, it seems there is only one way to describe London today : The Big Lemon.

In for a penny......

Oh no! It's finally referendum day. Decision time.

Nobody with a brain above their shoulders wants to be even partially controlled by some ageing bureaucrat from Luxembourg sitting, oh so comfortably, in his Brussels lair.

But on the other hand, nobody can deny that we are Europeans, that we have enjoyed the fruits of a common market and that we have far more in common with a hard working German than a bible belt American with an automatic rifle.

Coming to some sort of decision, therefore, is more than a bit testing for the old brain cells, as Wooster would have said to Jeeves.

But, rain notwithstanding, a decision must be made. Votes cast. An X plopped in the appropriate box.

I don't like Brussels anymore than dear old Nige, but I do like Europe.

I feel more at home in France, frankly, than in The Lake District. And far more content in Barcelona than somewhere like Glasgow.

My daughter just spent a year working in Paris, my son worked in Austria for a couple of years; their horizons are way beyond the little channel 'Leavers' seem to set so much store by.

I'm pleased to see that our children simply don't recognise borders in the same way we used to. And nor should they if we ever want the world to be a better, safer place.

So I'm in.

I hope most of you are too.

Letting themselves down.

We are between homes in London.

Truth is we are unsure what to do next. And as the weeks slip relentlessly by and we need to move from the temporary flat borrowed from my stepson, I am beginning to panic.

Although we've had an offer accepted on a new doer-upper (more on this another time), we won't have sealed the deal in time to move directly into it.

We could just move to Somerset for the summer, but for numerous reasons that doesn't quite work. We and my daughter, newly returned from Uni, need a base in town.

A rental is probably the answer.

But should it be an Airbnb for a month or so? Or a proper rental for 6 months or so?

Unlike everyone I've ever met, I absolutely hate the Airbnb website. OK so it's clean and neat and nice....but it seems such a random tool. I don't feel at home with its search system. It's just as likely to send me a one bed new build in Hackney as it is a two bed garden flat in Kensington.

No, sorry Airbnb, you may be cool, but you just don't cut it with me.

So we turned to conventional agents. First I contacted a Chelsea agency who we've worked with before. Their lettings team acted incredibly quickly and, on the face of it, were really, really on the ball.

The trouble was the agent they sent us out on viewings with was so oily in his sycophancy I was worried for the environment.

Where do these people learn this kind of behaviour? Is there a school called The Academy of Grovelling Creepiness?

In the end I just didn't believe anything he said, and the intensity of the pressure he applied on us to take one (very nice) flat was just too much.

It almost put us off the whole idea of renting, frankly.

Next we decided to try Barnes, close to the area we hope to buy in. I contacted one of the larger independents in the village and gave them a specific brief. 2 beds. Outside space. Must accept a dog. Preferably in what agents call 'Little Chelsea' off White Hart Lane.

Within a few hours an email pinged up saying the agent had attached several properties for our consideration. The trouble was there was no attachment.

I emailed back asking for the attachment. No response. Nothing. For 24 hours nothing. So I call and leave a message.

Finally another email pings up, this time with the promised attachments but no apology.

All the properties were 3 instead of 2 beds and significantly over the budget I had given them.

So I email back again. Nothing. 24 hours later and still no response. I give up.

I really like the sales teams at most agents I've worked with, but there seems to be something about the lettings market that attracts a very different breed. If the sales department is Waitrose, lettings is often more like Tesco Local.

Licking my wounds in the country.

I love doing up properties.

Seeing a tired, neglected and badly configured space transform into something desirable, comfortable and usable is immensely satisfying.

Of course there are always going to be problems - disputes with builders, unexpected expenses, inefficient suppliers, jobsworth planners, chippy tradesmen, unnecessary delays - but these bumps in the road are nothing to the pleasure of seeing a finished project.

I remember coming downstairs day after day at our Putney house and marvelling at the vast opened up space, the beautifully engineered Bulthaup kitchen and the sheer luxury of it (by my standards, anyway).

The same was true when we transformed a dull, dark beach-front apartment in St Tropez, a crumbling villa in the Var vineyards, a neglected semi in Fulham and a tiny garret in Paris. Each one has left a deep impression on me.

More recently, of course, there's been the flat in Egerton Gardens (recently marketed as London's most expensive studio flat) and the little house in Kensington.

I don't think I can ever completely give up this part of my life. But whether it's still a viable way to make some kind of a living is another question entirely.

Not only has the smug draper's son, our friend Mr Osborne, turned into a modern-day Sheriff of Nottingham with his unwarranted tax raids, but prices across the board in London do seem out of kilter with real incomes.

When very ordinary, small Fulham houses are over £2m and deeply unattractive flats south of the river are £1m, it's not just me that's priced out of the market. It's most people. Even very successful people.

All things considered, therefore, I'm taking a bit of a step back. Still looking at the market. Still keeping

an eye on what's out there. But rushing into nothing. And focussing instead on the work we need to do at our house in Somerset.

We have a lot to do. Both inside and out.

The house is currently very top heavy. All bedrooms and little living space. So we need to knock through a couple of walls. Take out one of the staircases. Put in some new windows. Fit a new kitchen. Revamp a boot room, guest loo and a bathroom. And completely rethink a small lower ground floor room that's destined eventually to be my 'study'.

Outside we need to move a 2000 litre oil tank, scrap a second tank, dig trenches for new oil pipes, complete a new 'mediterranean' garden on a terrace, manage a 3/4 acre walled garden we now rent and lay about 50 metres of brick paved paths.

All of this needs to be done while thinking up ways in which I can earn some money to be able to afford it all.

And on that note, I think I need a little lie down....

Sold. (Down the river?)

I should be celebrating. I should be over the moon. We finally sold the little house in Kensington.

So why are we less than jubilant, feeling only relief?

Well, it's taken forever to sell the house and required some pretty dramatic price drops to get a deal done. That's why.

By my reckoning, the state of the market has cost me at least £250,000. (And that's just me. I only own half the property.)

I'm not basing that figure on an aggressive initial price expectation. Indeed, I've allowed quite a decent discount to the original asking price in my calculations.

So you can see why I'm not exactly popping the Bolly (apart from the fact that I don't drink).

We haven't lost money. We've actually made a reasonable, if smaller than expected, return. Deduct the opportunity cost however and we probably move into negative territory. All thanks to George Osborne and his new confiscatory SDLT rates.

Fortunately we bought very well, poured money into rebuilding a near derelict but ultimately very pretty property and put enormous effort into the project.

In doing so we risked a very large proportion of a lifetime's accumulated pennies only to have these savings threatened and ultimately diminished by a smug draper's son.

Forgive me if I sound more than usually bitter. Actually I don't care whether you forgive me or not. I think I have every reason to feel the way I do.

The current inhabitant of 11 Downing Street has proved an arch exponent of knee-jerk political expediency.

In one sound-bite-friendly tax change he single-handedly brought chaos to the £2m+ end of the London property market. All because he was afraid that a much less onerous Labour 'mansion tax' would sweep him out of office.

He has gone on to compound this by strangling the buy-to-let market with more new taxes.

The end result of all this: the complete opposite of everything he was supposedly trying to do.

Prices for young first time buyers have continued to soar. Rental property is becoming harder to find and more expensive. And the world's wealthiest are opting to put their money anywhere other than London.

For the sake of a few votes, Osborne has chopped London off at the knees. Thanks George.

Can't wait for today's Budget.

If tax doesn't kill the market, red tape will.

As the rather derisory offer for our house stutters somewhat lifelessly towards a still very unpredictable conclusion, it's no longer Osborne's rip-off tax-take that's likely to kill it. It's the unbelievable volume of red tape.

Like most things, property has become mired in a bog of meaningless paperwork designed, apparently, to protect a feckless population from its own common sense.

Obtaining a mortgage is now a Kafkaesque farce (or should that be nightmare). Even successful city types with bonus-pots to die for face a wall of inane enquiries utterly irrelevant to their ability to maintain the monthly repayments. These are people who on a daily basis probably invest multiple millions, but are not trusted to know their own position well enough to borrow even a relatively small percentage of a property's value.

Things may have been in need of a slight tightening after the 'crash', but this is murderous strangulation.

When it comes to the property itself, the level of paperwork sought by ever more zealous lawyers is bordering on the insane.

I would not be in the least surprised to be asked to guarantee my buyer's happiness in the house.

Asked for a warranty on the whole heating system (bear in mind that this is a small, two bed house) I simply replied - yes, I guarantee that it has one.

I've heard of insulating a property, but now it seems the buyer must be insulated too - from every known risk, every known potential problem, every known unknowable.

We have supplied planning permissions, building regs certification, electrical safety certification, gas safety certification....and still the requirements keep coming in.

"Did you have Conservation Area permission to replace the roof?". Well, you pointless box-ticking robot, I've given you a 10 year roof guarantee and, if we hadn't replaced it, the thing would probably have collapsed on your buyer's head. So, what would you prefer? I bit of A4 paper, or a rather beautiful new roof?

In truth, our transaction is not remotely complex or fraught with too many problems. There is absolutely nothing that a conversation face-to-face between myself and the buyer could not iron out.

But no, that's simply not the 'done thing'. So we'll keep bouncing bits of digital paperwork around the global servers of Google until some sort of conclusion is finally reached.

What that will be I have absolutely no idea. And it certainly doesn't come with a guarantee.

Here's one I made earlier......

Complete with the same furnishings and decor as we sold with it, our first Doer Upper comes back to market as a resale and the UK's most expensive studio flat. (According to The Daily Telegraph.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The UK's most expensive studio flat could be yours... for £1.175m

The apartment in London's Knightsbridge comes complete with a loft bed and is smaller than a Tube carriage

The petite apartment in London's Knightsbridge costs £2,300 per square foot, and at 510 square feet is smaller than a Tube carriage.

And with nearly £2,000 of service charges and ground rent to pay per year, those precious square feet do not come cheap.

Described by estate agents as being "an ideal pied-a-terre in one of London's finest addresses", the bedsit has access to the neighbouring communal gardens. The lease has just 85 years remaining.

When ready for bed, go upstairs to the bedroom - which is actually a loft bed on a mezzanine above the kitchen.

The ground floor flat has an open plan kitchen and living room, with a shower room nearby.

The exterior of the studio flat in Egerton Gardens  Photo: JLL

Simon Godson, director at W.A.Ellis, part of the JLL Group, said: "The position of a property can really add to its value.

"The position of this Egerton Gardens property, south facing over the stunning crescent, really adds to its appeal and there are people who would rather be in a grand studio than a one-bed flat that doesn't have such an exceptional outlook."

All I want for Christmas is....

Dear Santa,

I like to think that I am one of your most undemanding customers. Not only have I been reasonably good all year (considering the turmoil in the property market), but I really don't ask for much at Christmas.

You can re-allocate the cashmere V-necks, the Aqua di Parma smellies and even the swanky new MacBook Air that I covet. I'd forgo almost anything if you could deliver on just one or two of the following:

1: A Sense of Humour.  My family would probably tell you that I've never had one. But in the current property market I feel it's now an essential. I'm not sure that anything can help me see the funny side of a Conservative Chancellor's tax raids on property that have so far cost me at least £250k. But with your help, Santa, I can try.

2: A Time Machine.  I just need one little journey back to Summer 2013 when an agent promised he'd get me over £2m for our then unmodernised little terraced house...and greed got the better of me. I wasted months on offers via this agent that never went anywhere, and that's why I'm now stuck with a modernised house that won't sell for much more! I promise, Mr Claus, not to make the same mistake again, if you just let me go back in time and change things.

3: A Crystal Ball. I don't know about you Santa, but I don't rate the highly paid teams of analysts and forecasters that work for the top estate agents. Their crystal balls seem just that - balls. So could I have a proper, real, working crystal ball so that I can find out whether or not to take the offer that's currently on the table for our house. Knowing my luck, without your crystal ball, I'll sell at a low price just before the market turns upwards.

4: A Few Quid. I am feeling poorer than at any time since I was in my 20s. So a modest lottery win wouldn't go amiss - anything with seven or, preferably, eight figures in it will do. This sudden wealth would not, I promise, ruin my life. Far from it.

It's a short list, Santa. And although perhaps not entirely typical of the requests you receive, I think it's all well within your gift. I certainly hope so. Especially since I'm having the fireplace reinstated just so you can drop in.

Happy Christmas.
The Doer-Upper

My latest visit to a parallel universe: The free property magazine.

A hefty thud on the doormat signalled the arrival of yet another glossy, free property mag.

This one was the 'original' London Magazine. But it could have been The Resident (countless area versions) or Absolutely Kensington (also available in endless slightly different versions).

Flicking through the December issue is the usual bizarre experience. Like entering a parallel universe where everyone's a Euromillions rollover winner.

The first property advertised is in Highgate and £14m. There's something hideous south of the river for north of £8m. And then Phillimore Gardens (£17m), Chelsea Square (£18.995m), a W14 flat (£13.5m), Lyall Street (£15.95m).

By now I'm only halfway through the magazine.

I've skipped over the 'low-end' £5m houses, and some pretty boring looking £7-8m ones. Hardly worth the bother when just over the page there's a £16m mansion in W11. Or a £12m house virtually next door to the office where I had my own ad agency in Weymouth St, W1.

After a while, I can take no more of this extreme property porn and flick back to the editorial for a break.

Interior designers you've never heard of show us their homes, the super-rich show us their wine cellars, there are children's toys for Christmas priced at up to £20,000, and a guide to dumping your bonus in St James's....you get the picture.

As the person once responsible for re-launching Harvey Nichols, I am not averse to luxury goods and spending money.

But this world of ultra-excess is just unreal.  Who are all these people that can afford £10m or more on a house? OK, I've met a few people who've made serious amounts of money. Some could certainly afford something like this. Not many, however.

Yet London is awash with homes at these astronomical prices.

Even more ridiculous is the idea that someone is sitting around somewhere searching through magazines for a £17m house.

Anyone with that kind of money is far too busy to waste time studying The London Magazine, or indeed waste time looking for a house themselves. They'd have people looking for them.

Just like they have people walking their dog, picking up their kids from school, reserving a table at Sexy Fish or keeping the Range Rover ticking over outside.

So why are all these agents wasting their money on glossy ads in these waste-bin mags?

They'll tell you that it's really about marketing themselves to potential sellers. You or I see they have homes like ours to sell...so we think they'd be right for us.

Well, maybe. But it still seems a pretty roundabout and expensive way to go about it.

Especially when they're also wasting their money by putting properties on OTM (onthemarket.com) where virtually nobody will see them.

Hey, ho. What do I know? It's all a parallel universe to me.


-----------------------------

nb: I've just been reminded that in fact The London Magazine is owned by a group of agents who are therefore contracted to advertise in it. Agents also, of course, own OnTheMarket. Perhaps they should stick to what they're good at - being agents.

The Private Member's Club Effect. A bit like the Waitrose effect....only cooler.

As 150,000 well-heeled festival-goers descended on Worthy Farm earlier this year, a few miles down the road a far smaller group of even better-heeled punters were turning into the long drive up to Babington House.

This luxurious Somerset outpost of the Soho House Group is a rather quieter but no less vital contributor to life in this corner of the county.

Indeed, this private members club, hotel and spa has arguably done much more for the local economy than the Glastonbury Festival.

When the first media-types made the long hike from Notting Hill to the newly opened Babington a decade or two ago, the surrounding area was still 'undiscovered' by weekenders and, in property terms, an under-valued gem.

Small villages such as Mells, Batcombe, Pitcombe, Witham Friary and Brewham, as well as towns like Bruton and Frome, were in decline. Agricultural jobs were disappearing. Local industries such as printing were closing. Even the many Mendip quarries weren't exactly booming. And the once bustling industrial hub of Shepton Mallett was turning into a ghost town.

Soon, however, a steady stream of Babington converts wearing brand new Hunter wellies were knocking on the doors of local estate agents. All of them looking to buy something 'authentic'. Something to do up, somewhere to splash the Farrow & Ball (as well as the cash).

Even now, years later, estate agent details for a certain type of property will include not just the distances to a local pub, station, village store and school...but how many miles it is to Babington!

And no, they never tell you how far the house is from Mr Eavis's farm.

Ironically perhaps, some of these incomers haven't even kept up their Babington membership since buying a weekend place or moving here full time.

They no longer need its protective, familiar, metropolitan environment. They've created their own. And it's centred on Bruton. A small town previously best known for its boarding schools and an Elizabethan auditor called Sexey (!), but now lauded by the likes of Vogue magazine as the place to be.

The most recent addition to Bruton's growing fashion credentials is the Hauser & Wirth gallery - created by the couple recently voted the most powerful people in the art world! It's a sort of mini Saatchi Gallery based in a lovingly converted old farm, with a garden designed by the creator of New York's High-Line.

On any Friday or Saturday night you'll find the gallery's Roth Bar six deep with youthful 4x4 driving weekenders. Look more closely and their number will include a smattering of minor celebrities, fashion designers, architects, impresarios, actors, film & TV directors and the occasional school parent slumming it before picking up little Toby from school.

It's quite unlike any other 'scene' you're likely to come across this deep into rural England. In the courtyard a seriously good DJ operates from a converted horsebox. There's an outdoor mojito bar that looks like a village fete stall. And the diners packing out the restaurant wouldn't look out of place at Club 55 in St Tropez (although their wardrobe might look a little different on the beach).

In reverse, it would be as if a bunch of young farmers, all with broad Somerset accents, had taken over the Electric on Portobello Road. Permanently.

Glasto has almost certainly had some long term impact on the local economy. In the town of Glastonbury itself you can get kitted out like an old hippie, learn how to get in touch with your spiritual side or buy a whole library of books on ley lines. But it's only since the arrival of the Soho House outpost that the area really took off.

House prices have risen steeply. Brilliant little hotel/restaurants like The Talbot Inn in Mells have opened up. Frome has created one of the most innovative independent retailer streets and monthly markets in Britain. The building trades have never been so busy. Online businesses are popping up everywhere. And there's a real sense of creative reinvention across this whole part of north east Somerset.

An expensive private members club can't, of course, take the credit for all of this. But it can maybe take more than Mr Eavis's rather middle-aged mega-rave down the road.

Indeed, perhaps the opening of a place like Babington is now as clear a sign of rural revival as the opening of a Waitrose is of urban gentrification.

I wish I'd snapped up an old photography studio.

This week the property that once housed the studio of photographer Terence Donovan went on sale for an eye-watering £18m.

It's had a bit of a makeover, of course, and been much expanded. More than a bit if I'm honest, as it was 'done' by the never knowingly restrained Candy & Candy.

In fact, it's hard to believe it's the same place I spent several days in while making a commercial with the celebrated snapper.

His studio, which is round the back of Claridges, was just one of the many wonderful spaces I was lucky enough to visit while working with some of London's top photographers back in the 90s.

There was Lichfield over in Notting Hill, Snowden in Kensington, Bailey up in Primrose Hill and others only slightly less famous with amazing spaces in Chelsea, Belgravia, Soho, Holborn and Battersea. I particularly remember the purpose built artist's studio of Tessa Traeger on Flood Street in Chelsea.

Today, the combined value of these studios, tarted up, must run to well over £100m.

Although I understand why Donovan's old studio has been given an "007" makeover, I can't help feeling nostalgic for the original look.

These wonderful light filled double height spaces were just begging to be turned into spacious, minimalist New York style lofts. White walls, bare bricks, stripped wood floors, simple kitchens, old French dining tables, huge and slightly distressed big comfy sofas, vast modern canvases to occasionally break up the white....that's all they needed to make them into 'creative' homes rather than creative workplaces.

Sadly, for me at least, the market doesn't seem to agree.

So there are acres of Carrara marble, lavish underground pools that will hardly ever be used, vast wine showcases, pile upon pile of shiny bed cushions, etc etc.

I'm sure it's beautiful in its way. And certainly of very, very high quality.

But even if I had £18m to spare (plus The Osbourne Tax), I wouldn't be rushing to put in an offer.

I'd be focussing on finding an original, and snapping that up.

(OK, that's enough of the rubbish puns.)

Neighbours? What neighbours?

In the past I might have been apt to dispute the idea that neighbourliness in London was a thing of the past, but the stark reality of our capital's unfriendliness has been brought home to me by our experience in the country.

A year ago we bought a weekend cottage in a Somerset hamlet. It's on a very narrow lane some way off the village main street. It's detached. There are neighbours. But they aren't exactly next door, if you know what I mean.

Yet since arriving we have been greeted with such hospitality, such friendliness, such a good-hearted welcome that it feels as if one has travelled back in time rather than just a couple of hours out of London.

By contrast, our little four house terrace in Kensington feels glacial in its indifference.

One resident can be excused. She and we tried at first to connect. But when this still stoic elderly lady forgot our names 5 times as we helped her back the 10 yards to her front door, we realised that it was going to be tricky.

The next house along is owned by perhaps the least friendly.  They are very English, they are not much older than us, they are clearly middle-class, and if they lived on our lane in Somerset I'm pretty sure we would at least have had a neighbourly conversation with them.

In London, however, they have never really had a civil word to say to us since our arrival.

I can remember only two occasions when they have spoken to me. And one of those was only because they were forced to.

Most recently, we had accepted (in a neighbourly way) a parcel that someone was trying unsuccessfully to deliver to them. When they popped round to collect it that evening, I sort of expected a smile, a gracious thank you and perhaps even a few words of conversation.

But no. Even the thank you was rather grudging. How weird.

Perhaps they're just shy. Or think we look like the kind of people they don't like.

Personally, I think they are just bloody rude. Or unwell.

The last house is occupied by a slightly younger couple. But we both have dogs so you'd have thought that would provide enough common ground. But no, the nearest they've come to friendliness is when they stopped to rather gleefully inform me that another house on the terrace was going on the market and would compete with my own.

That was it. Well, thanks a bunch.

Not without some cause, my wife often says that I'm an unfriendly old git. So perhaps I come across as badly as our neighbours.

Maybe there's just something about cities that changes our characters, makes us more insular, more self-contained.

Whatever the reason, it's rather sad.

They call them Offers, I call them Pointless.

The next time I go to my local butcher for a couple of steaks, here's what I'm going to do.

When he's cut, weighed and priced them, I'm going to make him an offer.

If he's asking £10 for the steak, here's what I'm going to say:

"Look I know these are two wonderful steaks, probably dry-aged for 35 days and from a farm where you know each animal by its first name, but frankly they're not worth £10 to me. I'll give you £7."

When he looks ready to faint with shock, and repeats the price of £10, I'll offer him £8.

And when he says no again, I'll walk out and see if I can get a better price at Waitrose, even though I know the meat will not be as good.

That's what it's like selling my house.

We've had several offers lately, but they've been from people who seem more determined to get a big discount than a house they appear to like.

Our asking price has already come down significantly and yet there's a perception that the market's so bad between £2m-£3m you can offer almost anything.

Well, you can try.

Like I could at the butcher's.

From Mr Nasty to Mr Nice: How to solve a problem like OTM.

Yesterday I complained about the new, agent backed property portal, OnTheMarket.com. Especially the way in which it has forced sellers to use an ineffectual (so far) marketing tool.

It's easy to knock something (and I should know as it's sort of my stock-in-trade).

So, for a change, I thought I'd put on my other hat. The constructive, hopefully creative one.

My problem with OTM, you see, is that it's really just a copycat site that will only survive and possibly prosper because it has what some might consider unfair leverage within the agent world.

It has nothing new to offer. Does nothing better than its competitors. And adds nothing to the mix.

So, if I'm to be Mr Nice for a change, what could they have done that would have really been exciting?

Well, first they needed a differentiator. Something that would separate the site and its service from the competition.

I think that what the market really needs is a good 'Prime Only' portal covering £1m+ properties. Nobody needs another all-encompassing list of every bloody property in Britain.

£1m is a natural dividing line in the market and buyers and sellers would be attracted to something that focussed on their end of the market. In London maybe the value should be set even higher - but that's a detail.

The name needs to be either a) a brilliant, youthful web brand like UBER or AIRBNB. Maybe something like LATERAL or WOW...or  b) a qualitative expression of the service like PRIMERESI (yes, I know that's taken).

The marketing needs to be original, compelling and very different. Take a look at how the National Lottery are using Piers Morgan to see what I mean. Clever, relevant, humourous, distinctive. (Everything the OTM campaign isn't.)

The website itself needs to tear up the established blue-print adopted by Rightmove and Zoopla and move into the current decade.

Lists are fundamentally boring. But a good designer could rethink the presentation of properties. The site needs to look more like AirBnB and less like a page on eBay. More like the Domus Nova website in looks (if you want an agency comparison). And written more like Crayson's.

People love property. But show me a portal that even remotely reflects that fact.

Why not divide properties more creatively into categories such as MegaPrime, Wrecks&Refurbs, LandedGentry, LockUp&Leave, Downsizers etc etc. Wouldn't searching be more fun, more relevant to the consumer.

Of course you would retain the more conventional search methods as well. But clever market segmentation is the future of the web. Curation, not saturation.

As well as lists of property, what the site really needs is unique content. Yes, like many others, I hate the word 'content'. But we all have to move with the times. Even the estate agency world.

What I'd like to see is sections on the site that add real value - like an interior design directory, architect & builder reviews, well written insights into different locations, even reviews of schools, restaurants, etc etc.

There's so much a site like this could contribute to making us want to return time and time again - yet nobody seems to do much more than pay lip-service to these areas. If I see another portal blog about PipofftheTelly, I'll throw myself off the nearest dreadful St George development.

Oooops. That's not very Mr Nice, is it?

Sorry. Can't help it.

On The Market but Off The Radar?

The following blog could be the rantings of a bitter old man who has failed to sell his house. Or it could be the considered view of an independent voice not afraid to critique a major initiative from the country's top estate agents.

You can decide.

If you're an estate agent, you'll be very familiar with the new portal OnTheMarket.com.

For us buyers and sellers, however, the arrival of this new online property search engine has been rather less enthralling.

The fact is most of us don't even know it exists. Or if we have vaguely heard of it...we probably haven't used it.

As a seller, however, I've been forced to list my property on OTM because both my agents opted to ditch Zoopla/Primelocation and go with this new portal and Rightmove (the clear market leader).

It's a condition of using OTM that agents use only two of the main portals.

Yes, I know this is all getting a bit complicated, not to say boring. But stick with me for a few more paragraphs. I can't promise it will become any less confusing, but it is important stuff (I think).

OTM was the idea of a few top agents. And I give them enormous credit for getting it off the ground.

They do actually have some 'previous' in this sphere as many of the same agents actually got together in 2001 to launch the portal called Primelocation.

This was eventually sold (for £48m) and is now part of the Daily Mail's digital stable which includes Zoopla.

Now I don't want to question the motives of those agents behind the new portal, but the fact that they got a mere £48m for Primelocation when Rightmove is now worth north of £3bn may have had some bearing on the decision to start another one.

The founders however claim that they disagreed with the way Zoopla was exploiting data derived from their listings, and also that third party advertising on Rightmove and Zoopla is an irritant for us punters.

Anyway, that's the basic background. Now, what's my issue with all this.

Well, quite simply, I don't want my property on OTM but if I want to use the best agents for my property I don't have a choice.

The reason I don't want my property on OTM is because it simply doesn't work at the moment.

The name is terrible, the consumer marketing is wallpaper and the site itself nothing special (and I'm being generous here).

More importantly, perhaps, it's way off the pace when it comes to Google searches.

I won't bore you, at this point, with the tedious details of how poorly it performs on Google. Trust me, it's crap.

Maybe it's good if you're looking to buy a semi in Hemel Hempstead or a terraced house in Burnley (although somehow I doubt it). But when it comes to selling a little house in Kensington, it is definitely useless.

I would far prefer to be on Primelocation. This is a decent website, the brand has a qualitative edge to it and, even more importantly, my target audience know it and use it.

Now at this point someone will probably bang off a tweet full of stats showing that OTM really is working and that Primelocation is nothing more than a small and quietly dying brand.

Maybe they're right.

But, having worked in digital since its earliest days, I know just how opaque web stats can be.

The fact is IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND MY PROPERTY ON OTM VIA A GOOGLE SEARCH.

Type in London W8 or Abingdon Rd W8 and it will be Rightmove or Primelocation or Zoopla that occupy the top spots on Google....followed by a bunch of agents such as Savills, John D Wood etc.

OTM doesn't come anywhere close to the first page on Google (except when it runs an ad!).

Now, although I don't think the fact that we're not on Primelocation/Zoopla makes much difference to whether or not we'll sell our property, I do think the principle of allowing agents to use only two portals is wrong.

It's surely against the spirit of competition law even if not the letter of the law (I'm sure they had very good advice).

If OTM is any good, it will find a ready market. But it should find a market by being better, not by forcing agents to cut out a competitor.

Right now, though, it isn't better. And in any normal market it would be struggling to stay in business.

Generally speaking, I like the top end London agents I've met. They're bright, hard-working and thoroughly professional.

It's a pity the portal they have to use isn't as good as they are.

Show homes designed for extreme stereotypes, not people.

I've recently had the opportunity to view a number of so-called show homes; where developers furnish new properties to give potential buyers an idea of how they might look when occupied.

Some of them are finished to such an extent there are even designer clothes hanging in the wardrobes, and food and wine in the fridges.

Given that most of us have limited imaginations, it's not a bad idea. Empty 'shell' homes are deeply uninteresting, and rarely have the emotional pull of an occupied house where you can see how living in it might work - even if you want to change it dramatically.

The most interesting thing about the homes I viewed, however, was the way in which they'd clearly been designed with a particular buyer in mind.

When I say "a particular buyer" what I actually mean, of course, is a particular race or nationality.

Whether it's palatial £15m sea view homes in Asia or one bedroom starter flats in Fulham, interior designers seem to see potential buyers as rather predictable stereotypes.

I wondered how this idea might be taken to its logical, if somewhat perverse, conclusion:

American buyers, for example, might appreciate it if you built in not just one gun cupboard but three - and labelled them for Handguns, Hunting Rifles and, of course, Assault Weapons? You should also, of course, install extra large beds to match the extra obese buyers.

Then there's the Eastern European buyer who might need, at any moment, a handy built-in cash counting machine, like those found in banks.

Or the Italian buyer (a man, of course) who might be swayed by finding a collection of V-neck cashmere jumpers in every available colour already folded neatly and ready to wear.

Sticking to the less sensitive racial/national targets, how about doing away with the interior kitchen for any Aussie buyers and simply installing a vast BBQ and accompanying ice machine in the garden. (What more could they want, to feel at home?)

The French are easy. Just ensure that nothing in the property is made in England, and that all instruction books are printed only in their language.

For Swedes, simply furnish with some half-assembled Ikea stuff....and scatter a few loose screws around the place. They'll appreciate the challenge.

The Greeks might like a specific built-in cupboard full of cheap white plates for smashing purposes.

For a German buyer, don't bother equipping the property with anything. They will undoubtedly know better than you what should go in it.

Finally, then, what about that rare beast the English buyer?

I suggest some ragged old sofas and a couple of mismatched lamps bought at a car boot sale; they'll think that's terribly posh.