Five agents pitch for my business. Or was it the other way round?

It's been a long and stressful day.

Five agents have viewed the house, and opening the front door for the first time to the critical gaze of these professional appraisers is akin to exposing oneself in public.

Of course they're going to be polite. Of course they're going to find something (however small) to pick on and praise. Of course they're going to say how keen they are to market the property.

But what do they really think?

Occasional glimpses of their true opinions are there, if you pay attention.

"Perhaps a little more storage in the second bedroom wouldn't go amiss" means "christ, that room's bloody small and there's absolutely nowhere to put anything."

"It's an interior design that covers almost all potential buyers" means "it's incredibly bland".

Translating their views on the market requires similar interpretative skills.

"It's getting softer" means " It's pretty awful out there and prices are actually falling."

"Buyers have slightly more choice at the moment" means " Nothing's bloody selling so the market's stuffed with similar houses."

"There are still serious buyers out there" means "we met someone last week who actually seemed keen to buy."

This may be funny. But it's no laughing matter when a very significant part of our personal wealth (ha ha) is tied up in a single property.

Without naming names (sorry about that, but I actually might need these people), here's a quick sketch of today's visitors.

Agent 1: This single office agency is tres fashionable. (Or at least likes to think it is.) I actually quite like the main guy. Although I'm much older, we have a few acquaintances in common. Others in the industry have warned me off him, but I can't help admiring his tilt at the old school networks who dominate his patch. Today he arrived looking unusually depressed and downbeat. This is very rare for agents who are normally so falsely upbeat they remind you of American waiters. It turns out he'd lost a large sale the previous day when a celebrity buyer had walked away at the last minute without explanation. His visit was also clouded, I think, by the fact that he didn't think I would seriously consider appointing him. Sadly, after his performance today, he's right.

Agent 2:  A smart double act on the doorstep this time. In the past I've resisted appointing this agent as their people can be frighteningly haughty and a touch condescending. Not this time however. Just the right mix of upmarket confidence and intelligent insights means that this enormous global agency brand goes shooting up in my estimation. Without patronising me, they make me feel good about the house while at the same time managing my expectations on price. A clever and difficult trick to pull off.

Agent 3: This is the sort of bright young woman any agency would be pleased to employ at a senior level. But she and her agency don't feel quite right for this job. It's a well known multi-office London agency working in all the hot (well, not so hot these days) areas. I admire their attitude. And know they are not full of bull. I feel, however, that our house needs a bit of bull to maximise its potential.
I also feel their office (even in these portal dominated days) needs to be a bit more on the doorstep. Her office is the other side of the Cromwell Road in a land more populated by flat dwellers, transient international investors and Ferrari driving wide-boys. Our street, on the other hand, is full of families that actually live and work here. Eat at The Abingdon. Say hello to each other. And care about their neighbours. It's just too different.

Agent 4: This double act is old school from the tips of their polished brogues to the cut of their sub-Saville Row suits.  Henry Snr is very considered, clearly a very successful equity partner, much smarter than his 'toffish' manner implies and able to remain thoroughly charming while delivering bad news. Henry Jnr is all smiles, enthusiasm and optimism. They make a good, if slightly imbalanced team. I know that on a daily basis, however, I'm going to be dealing with Henry Jnr. And even though I respect this agency, I'm not sure that's going to work.

Agent 5: This is the small agency I bought the house through. They are practically neighbours and have been incredibly helpful throughout the process of buying and renovating. I like them. I would love it if they sold our house, but I'm not convinced they have enough clout to be our sole agent. They will however get their chance alongside a bigger name. Because not only are they hardworking and nice, they also know the streets around here better than anyone else. Nothing (and nobody) moves without them knowing about it. And that's invaluable.

_______________________________________________________________

Although the agents were technically pitching to me, it didn't always feel that way.

Having lived and breathed this house for 18 months it actually felt more like I was pitching my taste and limited development skills at them. But perhaps that's just my own insecurity coming out.

I could of course have dozens more agents round. Many of whom would almost certainly flatter my ego rather more than those above. But ego doesn't pay the bills and I think we've seen the right mix of agents.

Now we just have to wait for their valuations and think about who we'd like to work with.

The valuation is of course driven by market forces such as local comparables and the dreaded 'price per square foot' index. I doubt, therefore, that their numbers will vary that much.

Who we'd like to work with, on the other hand, is a much tougher question. And one to sleep on.

Night, night.

Bloggers Block and the W8 on my shoulders.

While you were busy slapping on the sun block this summer, I was suffering the frustrations of 'bloggers block'.

I must have started and abandoned at least six different blog pieces. And with my last effort published way back in July, friends and followers have begun pushing for an update.

It's not easy, however, to explain the combination of excitement and extreme apprehension I feel as we near completion of our W8 project.

What will be the next disaster to delay us?

Have I spent too much? Or not enough?

By how much have I blown the budget? Will it ever get finished?

Will it sell? And what's it worth, in today's less than bubbly central London market?

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When we finally started work on the house earlier this year, the tiny kitchen was so old the look was a retro fashion trend. 

The semi-basement was a damp, dark, inhospitable space fit for little more than rats. 

The flank wall was a 40ft x 30ft maze of frighteningly wide cracks. 

The bathroom (well, it had a bath in it) was a lethal little cubby hole with an electric heater circa 1955. 

The roof leaked like a watering-can rose. The beam holding up the 'V' roof was so rotten you could have pulled it down by hand.

The place was a disgrace. And Lady or not, I think the wealthy owner should never have been allowed to let such a pretty little house in one of Kensington's best streets fall into such disrepair - dangerous disrepair.

Seven months later, it's basically a new house.

New roof. New floors. New electrics. New Plumbing. New flank wall render. New steel cage supporting the whole house. 

What it doesn't have yet, though, is a new kitchen or mains gas or a basement floor. Yet we moved in three weeks ago. 

To say I'm a little stressed is the understatement of the decade. For weeks now I've only had about four hours sleep a night. 

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The builders have been magnificent. I can usually find fault with anyone and anything (as my wife will enthusiastically testify) but Victor Build has been almost faultless.

Even as I sit here with a half finished kitchen, a ply-boarded floor and mice running rampant round the feet of my daft dog, I can't really blame Vic and Tomas for the problems.

There is however a product I do hold responsible for causing me to age ten years in that many weeks, and I'm embarrassed to say that it's a product I chose, that I championed here in my blog and that I desperately wanted - Dinesen Douglas Fir floor boards.

These solid, extra thick boards look indestructible. But within minutes of being laid on to our underfloor heating system they curled up like cabbage leaves. 

We thought it was damp in the sub-floor causing the problem, so ordered more of these expensive lumps of timber from Messrs Dinesen. Two weeks later they finally arrived and a small army of fitters worked over a weekend to rectify the problem. Only to find exactly the same thing happened.

I don't want to get into a libellous rant about Dinesen but I would urge extreme caution to anyone thinking of choosing this currently fashionable wood. Read and then re-read the fitting instructions. We've had to throw out almost £7000 worth of planks and pay several thousand pounds for a, hopefully, more stable Douglas Fir floor from a different supplier. It's not just the money that's galling, it's the waste of time and wood.

The finish?
A pretty London cottage rises from the rubble.

Normally, of course, these problems with the floor would just be irritating delays to the project. For us, however, they've been far more disruptive.

In the middle of the 'crisis' we moved in. And have now been camping in the house for about three weeks.

The kitchen has a working oven, a cold water tap, a fridge....and little else.

We have three knives and forks, six plates, a few cups and glasses....and little else (the rest went into store for what we supposed would be a few days).

From the outside, our neighbours think we're living in bijou luxury. From inside it feels like a builders yard we've been forced to live in.

Perhaps even more unsettling is the fact that we aren't the only ones who've moved in.

A colony of mice have taken up residence too.

For a few days my son and I were able to hide this fact from my wife. But when the scrabbling sounds and movement from the waste sack became louder than the TV we had to come clean.

Not surprisingly, Julia freaked. So we abandoned London and went to Somerset for some respite and some proper meals.

This went well until I discovered a bat flying around our bedroom. Even I freaked at that.

So, short of decamping to Fleet Services on the M3 and sitting out the works to both houses, we have nowhere to go that doesn't mean living with builders, delays, problems and payouts.

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Bye,Bye Saint Tropez. Bonjour Somerset.

Back in March I wrote about my hunt for a bargain in Saint Tropez.

We had found a perfect little doer-upper project : a small vineyard close to the beaches that could be redeveloped into a cute little holiday home complete with a few vines.

We agreed a price with the owner. We drew up plans for a modest expansion and redevelopment of the falling-down house. The notaires started off on their snail-like paper-trail.

Then the French shot themselves in the foot; they banned all development of agricultural property. No consultation. No exceptions. No discussion. Banned.

Now, lets get something clear. The redevelopment of this tiny property was not going to deprive some poor, EU subsidised vigneron of a living. It is so small its wine output couldn't support an alcoholic mouse let alone a local family.

The current owner is 93, doesn't live there, and just wants to raise some cash to bequeath to his daughter.

After some discussion, and a very substantial price cut, we still thought it might be worth a punt. A smaller punt on a very small house. But maybe still cute enough to be a good project.

Then the French took a machine gun to their foot: they said we probably couldn't build a pool or even enclose the property. It had to stay exactly as it was. An awful house on an uneconomic, unloved vineyard.

Like so often in France, the local Mairie and its planning department has a blinkered determination to maintain the status quo. However pointless and regressive that status quo might be.

The haughty arrogance and petty insularity of local bureaucrats would be hugely irritating if it wasn't actually terribly sad. The result of these seemingly irreversible national traits include high unemployment, zero growth and a general sense of malaise across the whole country.

Foiled by French Nimbyism. Not in my back (vine) yard. 

I genuinely love Saint Tropez and its surrounds. After 20 years holidaying and property owning there, it's like home to me. But without a lottery win of Euromillions proportions or the patience of a saint, it no longer seems a feasible place to lay my head.

So it was with renewed interest that I looked at the regular Rightmove alerts for properties coming to market in north east Somerset. This is an area we had identified as one we'd like to try for our first UK country home. The countryside around Frome is fast becoming fashionable, prices are rising and there are new shops, restaurants and hotels popping up all over the place.

Most of the alerts that arrive are for large old farmhouses that I sadly can't afford, or box-like new-builds that remind me of prison camps.

Then two days before we're due to visit some friends in a nearby part of Wiltshire, up pops the first interesting property I've seen in six months.

Amazingly, we have to beg the agents to let us see the house. They are too busy to show it the first Saturday it comes on the market!

Still, I'm glad we persisted against the negative attitude of a hopeless agent and persuaded the owners to show their house without an agent present (God forbid)..

The house turns out to be just what we've been looking for - next door to beautiful Mells, close to Frome and Bruton, and only ten minutes from the famous hipster hangout at Babington. It's big enough. Old enough. A bit eccentric in its layout. And, most importantly, has potential as a doer-upper.

With a bit of bridging while we complete another project, it is even affordable.

What's not to like (well, there's a few things, but general euphoria over-rules such practical stuff) ?

Not exactly the South of France. More West of Frome.

In truth, of course, I'd rather be in the South of France by a beach than in a very quiet English village by a lake. But the reality is that without actually moving to the continent we'd get very little time in a French house. With Somerset, on the other hand, we can be there most weekends.

Also, we've never tried our hand at an English country doer-upper. So it's out with Cote Sud magazine and in with the Cabbages & Roses catalogue.

Lots of checks. But no cheques.

If you're rich you can't borrow. If you're poor you can't borrow.

Only if you're a dull worker bee with a penchant for frugal living and a steady, going-nowhere job can you be pretty sure of securing a mortgage.

That's the apparent outcome of the recent tightening of lending checks.

It's absurd, it's counter-productive and it's not going to end well.

Over the last few days, I've listened to three of the wealthiest people I know complain that mortgage lending just doesn't exist for them any more.

Even though they might own a string of homes, a portfolio of equities and various business interests, their personal circumstances don't exactly fit the profile required to qualify for a loan.

The 21 year old Oxford Brookes sociology graduate with a clipboard and biro who they are forced to discuss their mortgage requirements with has a list of banal questions designed for a 30 year old supermarket deputy manager looking for a first home loan.

There are no experienced bank managers (high street banks can't afford real bankers any more), and there is no discretion, no variation, no common sense.

You might as well fill in the application online. There's nothing human about the process any more.

Even the so-called posh banks are little better.

By some peculiar accident of a previous life, I bank where the Queen banks. For 25 years I have borrowed from them against homes I have bought. I have always repaid these loans, always paid every monthly interest payment. Never once have I given them cause for even a flicker of concern.

For most of those years, they've never given me cause for concern either. If I was moving home or renovating a home, a quick chat with my manager was all it took to secure the funds required. Once, they even added an extra £100k to the mortgage offer just in case I needed it.

Their managers were always good sounding boards, providing reassurance or caution when appropriate.

I was in love with my bank, in fact. And took every opportunity to tell anyone who'd listen what a fantastic operation they were.

When I recently asked for a bridging loan however, the answer was an immediate no.

They didn't have a reason. There was no discussion of the case. Just a NO.

Eventually they did come up with an emailed reason: I was too old. They don't lend to people over 65, apparently. Trouble is, I'm not 65. Not for a few years, anyway.

Now, I accept that I don't fit the usual mould of borrower. My regular income is insignificant. I have neither an employer or a business with a track record.

What I do have though is a long history of financial stability, a couple of decent unencumbered prime property assets and a plan that would repay any bridging loan within 12 months.

I was asking for an LTV(loan to value) of only about 10-12%. So even in a catastrophic crash, the loan would still be well covered.

The risk involved was almost non-existent. But there is no longer any human process by which risk is assessed.

In its place there is now a facile fits-all check-list that permits no flexibility, no history, no individuality.

I'm sure the new guidelines will help prevent the granting of unrealistic mortgages, stop abuses of the system and slow the runaway train that is house prices. But at the same time won't it also curtail ambition, deter individuality and encourage conformity.

I am reminded of someone I once worked with who, in the 1980s, bought a house on a Chelsea square. At the time, even though he ran a hugely successful ad agency, the mortgage he had to take out frightened him. He wondered if he'd ever be able to repay it.

That house is now worth around £6m. His mortgage, I think, was for about £100,000.

The Search for a Margin: Mission Impossible?

Bargain Terrace, Opportunity Avenue and Doer-Upper Gardens. As far as I can see, these are the lost streets of London.

We have money sitting unprofitably in bank accounts. There are people who would happily help finance the right project.

We have trusted project managers, builders and all the other people required to turn a renovation round efficiently.

What we don't have are the opportunities.

Prime Central London and its bordering boroughs seem bereft of value.

Doer-uppers are going to best and final bids and achieving done-up prices. There's simply no margin for the likes of me.

It's a worry for me, of course. But it's also a potential disaster for the whole market.

If someone pays the done-up price for a doer-upper, they are basically assuming that property values will continue to climb.

They are gambling that the money they invest on top of an already excessive purchase price will soon be recouped by ever spiralling values.

I wouldn't be so sure.

The market up to £2m seems hugely over-heated. UK incomes simply aren't growing quickly enough to support today's prices let alone further big rises. And although the supply of cash-rich foreigners may still be strong, many prefer new-builds to tarted up old-stock.

Lets take Fulham as a near-Prime example of where prices are out of sync with reality*.

This area's role historically has been as feeder to Prime Central or to family-oriented areas such as Wandsworth's Nappy Valley. Young, aspirant, newly qualified professionals would buy their first homes in Fulham, or house share with friends from Uni. Now it's rapidly becoming as expensive as the better parts of Notting Hill. Horrible little houses needing renovation are going for the best part of £2m in roads most of us wouldn't have been seen dead in a few years ago. And a house in a perfectly unexceptional road near Stamford Bridge is on the market at an astonishing £3.5m.

I just don't see where the money will come from to justify further hefty rises. How many young people can afford £2m for a house?

Then there's Battersea, an area that might define the term 'mixed'. Close by the faux-smart Prince of Wales Drive, for example, there are housing estates that taxi drivers refuse to enter and police only venture into mob-handed. Yet the so-called middle-classes are pouring cash into the area like it's the new Belgravia, and overseas buyers are snapping up off-plan flats in that desert of any area around the Power Station. Yuk!

Others talk of Vauxhall as a sort of nascent Notting Hill. Have they ever been to Vauxhall, I wonder? Somehow I doubt it.

Even in areas such as Streatham and Brixton friends tell me the market is just as frenzied, with very ordinary flats attracting multiple bids over the asking price. (And those are asking prices that would have seemed absurd only a year or so ago.)

In Clapham extremely dull areas such as Abbeville Road have become hotspots just because (it seems to me) they've opened an over-priced, trendy new butcher on the street. I'd rather shoot myself than live in the anonymous streets around this area's 200 yard long oasis of uppish-market shops and restaurants.

More importantly, I just cannot see who will have the income to justify mortgages of over £1m to buy into the area. Especially once interest rates start climbing again.

Putney perhaps offers a few opportunities but the downsides include Nick Clegg as a resident and the appalling "poundlandesque' high street.

The house I sold on East Putney's Upper Richmond Road a few years ago has just gone back on the market at almost double our sale price, and six or seven times the price I originally paid. (And, by the way, it looks worse now than when I moved out!)

Wandsworth is basically already done-up and yet prices still keep going up. There's hardly a side-return, damp basement or mansard extension left to develop in the whole area. And if I see another set of Elephant's Breath painted plantation shutters I'll throw a brick through the window.

Back north of the river, West Kensington (or Baron's Court to the rest of us) seems to have discarded its itinerant residents as more and more people realise how close it is to Kensington proper. I paid under £20k for my first flat at Queen's Club Gardens. I'd need £500k+ for the same tiny top floor bolt hole now....and it still has no lift.

Now, I'm not the sort of publicity-seeking property commentator who drops the word 'bubble' at the first sign of a few homes being sold but even I think things are getting out of hand.

I've lived in London for 40 years, and owned a variety of properties across numerous parts of SW London. But I now feel priced out of the market both as a small-time developer and, more importantly, as a resident.

I reckon I'd need to be earning (at the age of 35) at least £300k a year to live the way I did in the 1980s, and afford the property we bought back then. (Especially if interest rates today were as high as they were then.)

About the only place I can afford to buy now is Pauper Place. Wherever that is.




* Fulham asking prices are apparently up 18% year on year. And you still think I'm being OTT?

£10,000 a square foot? Sounds reasonable to me.

A flat at One Hyde Park has apparently sold for around £140m, a price equal to about £10,000 per square foot.

It seems insane. But is it?

After all, it's almost certainly a very, very nice apartment. (The Candy brothers have an unerring eye for spaces that suit the aspirations of the super-rich, and there aren't many buildings by the legendary Lord Rogers that you can actually buy a flat in.)

It's slap bang in the middle of what is arguably the world's most desirable place to own a property. (Disregard those cynics who say the building overlooks a noisy road junction.)

And, of course, it's really not so crazy when you consider how much an Oligarch or Sheik will happily shell out for a yacht that starts losing value the moment it hits the water.

No, in a mad, mad world it's not such a daft price.

Of course for the likes of you and I (assuming my readership demographics haven't taken a dramatic upward swing) it's still absolutely bonkers. But so is spending £1m or so on a Bugatti Veyron, or £100m on a Francis Bacon triptych.

It's silly money. Like a kind of super-sized game of Monopoly

A few minutes along the road from the billionaire housing estate known as One Hyde Park, we are in the midst of renovating (more accurately, rebuilding) a sweet little cottage in a charming road off Kensington High Street.

By any normal standards Abingdon Road is also expensive. Current asking prices on the street are in excess of £2000 per square foot. Which is at the very top-end of Prime Central prices.

As the eagle eyed mathematicians among you will have noticed, however, this is dirt cheap compared to a 12"x12" patch of Candy coated construction.

So why the vast differential? Why is one worth FIVE TIMES as much as the other?

Buggered if I know.

Houses on Abingdon do of course lack several features that come as standard at One Hyde Park.

There are no smartly dressed, headset-equipped ex-SAS squaddies holding open the door for you. The Mandarin Oriental does not offer room service. There is no underground car park in which to store your fleet of blacked out limos. Harvey Nichols make-up department is not just across the road. And it's a bit of a slog to the nearest McLaren car dealership.

These disadvantages aside, though, Abingdon Road's not such a bad place to live.

Even though many of the houses are now worth a great deal of money (by the standards of us mere mortals), it still feels like London. It was built on a human scale. It has a sense of community. It's pretty. It's got two very good local restaurants (Kitchen W8 and The Abingdon). Waitrose is round the corner. Holland Park is across the road.

And at £2000 a square foot it's clearly a bit of a steal.

Perhaps with a bit of branding work, some canny international marketing and a few top-end connections into the Middle East and Eastern European elites we could raise this street's desirability levels.

It has to be worth the effort. After all, at £10,000 a square foot our little house would be valued at around £15m.

I'll take that.

The Doer-Upper Gossip Column......April

Further bite size chunks from the life of a small-time renovator in prime central. Not so much gossip as outpourings of ill-informed nonsense.


48 Hours in Barcelona

Many, many years ago I lived in Barcelona for a while.

I worked as an untrained and rather hopeless private English tutor (the untrained and hopeless bit seems to have been a common element in all my jobs) and met some interesting people.

There was the very wealthy couple I had conversation classes with each week who once took me to the city's most fashionable restaurant. The occasion was only spoilt by my extremely bad Spanish which resulted in me ordering, rather loudly, a roast prostitute!

One of my other students was an old school fascist and the Franco appointed boss of the City's port. His vast wood panelled office contained little sign of work but several large and elaborately framed photos of himself and the dictator. I always felt lucky to leave his office without being arrested for impersonating a teacher.

But, forgive me, this is a property blog. Not a history lesson. Where are the insights into the local market?

Well, I don't have many. Just one. I popped back recently for 48 hours to see an old friend, and it looks to me as though Barcelona is a busted flush.

Even this, the most prosperous of Spain's cities, is now a sad and disheartened casualty of the country's very painful recession.

The beggars look as though they used to be bankers and lawyers. The airport feels eerily quiet. The car parks are half empty. Trains carry almost as many buskers and hawkers as they do passengers. The people still working look far less well dressed than they did back in Franco's day. And everyone complains of rampant corruption in the government.

The nail in its coffin, for me, was the number of dreadful stag parties roaming the Ramblas and taking advantage of the cheap booze.

Of course, this probably means it's the perfect time to pick up a bargain at the estate agents. But only, I think, if you're prepared to stay in for the long haul. And I'm not.

Wood you credit it?

My wife gets immensely frustrated when we visit the Saatchi Gallery because my eyes are usually fixed on the floors rather than the walls.

I think Charles Saatchi's use of Dinesen Douglas Fir wide board flooring throughout his gallery is truly inspired. And I genuinely go just to drool over these majestic planks. (The art I am not so sure about.)

I have always wanted to install these amazing boards in one of our properties. But until now I've had neither the right property nor, I thought, a big enough budget.

This floor would be perfect in our W8 'wreck'. And much to my surprise it turns out my fellow ex-ad man is not the fool with his money that many seem to think.

At around £90m2, it may not exactly be a snip. But compared to the other floor I've always lusted after (which has the daft name of Lunar Larch), it's a veritable bargain. The Larch, you see, is an astonishing £163m2.

I once turned down the chance to work for Mr Saatchi, and I've always slightly regretted that decision.

I don't think I'll regret copying his choice of floor.


Merde! They said 'yes'.

In my previous blog piece, Le Bargain Hunter, I talked about a little place near St Tropez. Well, I eventually talked myself into making an offer (along with my old business partner, Murray).

And, after some negotiating about the conditions, it's been accepted.

In France this means the property is pretty much ours. Having signed a proposition d'achat, the sellers cannot consider another offer and we have until the end of April to sign proper contracts.

Given that our offer is a good 20% less than the property's original asking price, that's a result.

We've also managed to make it a condition of completion that we first get planning approval to redevelop and expand the property.

All sounds too good to be true....and I'm sure it is. This is France and ' le stuff ' happens. Watch this space.


Under Offer. And over the top?

On April 9th the BBC started broadcasting a fly-on-the-wall series about estate agents called Under Offer.

If you'd seen the trailers, you might have anticipated a bit of a roasting for the agents involved.

The excerpts shown didn't exactly seem to paint the profession in the most flattering light.

The programme itself turned out to be somewhat kinder than expected and a couple of the agents came out of it pretty well - especially the bright spark from Exeter called Lewis. (The guy from Birmingham was the only particularly unpleasant character.)

What's surprising is that Ed Mead, the much admired head honcho at Douglas & Gordon, agreed to be involved. I know this to my cost as he asked me to take part in a bit of filming.

The trailer for next week's episode showed our doer-upper in Egerton Gardens....where I had been filmed discussing how one room could be worth £1m.

Ed is one of the main, featured agents in the series and I do hope he comes out of this looking the genuine, intelligent, honest broker that he is.

For myself, of course, I just hope I don't appear at all.


Box Sash Rip-Off

We had a quote the other day to replace a few windows at the 'Wreck'. It's a small house. Not many windows. Three box sash, two or three very small French windows and a couple of tiny ordinary ones. £16,000 the quote said. Plus VAT.

Now, I don't know whether these idiots live in some kind of La La Land populated only with Oligarchs, Bankers and Premier League footballers...but this price came close to giving me coronary event of terminal proportions.

Frankly I'd rather spend several weeks renovating the existing windows myself than hand this bunch one single penny.

They may make brilliant windows, they may offer an unrivalled service, they may even offer me a thousand year guarantee...but even I can see when someone is taking the p***.


We want your business. But only if you'll wait 15 weeks.

Talking of windows, we had hoped to install a huge,very stylish, steel framed assembly to the back of the house as a refreshing change from the predictable 'sliding-folding whatsits'.

The trouble is there are really only two companies who make these (Clements and Crittall), so they're about as keen as whatever the opposite of mustard is. They don't need the business.

We were quoted up to 15 weeks delivery time.

That's a joke. These things are manufactured out of steel on a machine, not carved out of solid stone by artists. So why the hell don't they hire some more people, put on a night shift or invest in more kit and cut delivery times to something reasonable.

That's what they'd do in China or India or even the USA. But no, here in the UK, they can't be bothered.

Well, guys, I can't be bothered to wait. Someone else will be getting our business.