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.)

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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.


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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.