Diary of an estate agent

Nick Scott5 April 2012
The Weekender

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MONDAY

An early call from a tenant who had just arrived at her office from the one-bedroom, £360-a-week flat off Finsbury Square that she moved into last November. She was complaining that the shower didn't work, so I grabbed the spare keys and shot round. When I arrived, the shower worked perfectly. Very odd. This afternoon we had a block viewing on a twobedroom flat in Charterhouse Square. It's in an awful condition, having had a longstanding sitting tenant and it hasn't been decorated since the 1930s. It needs a new bathroom and kitchen at the very least, yet, despite this, 30 people turned up to view it and we had nine offers on the spot. We'll have to go to sealed bids. Returned to the office and received a call from the tenant who had complained about her shower. It still didn't work, she insisted. Then the penny dropped: "You are sure that you turned on the power switch in the hall, aren't you?" "What switch?" she asked. Could she really have lived there for eight months and never once used the shower?

TUESDAY

My first valuation of the day was in John Trundle Court, named after the 17th century stationer who had his business in what is now the Barbican and who, with Nicholas Ling, published the first quarto of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The Barbican has been described as "a brutalist housing estate" but it has huge gardens, almost like having a private park, and more than 200 families with kids live there, so it's not all city singles. The appointment was a bizarre experience. I could barely squeeze into the flat as it was stuffed with everything the elderly couple living there had ever owned. The kitchen was crammed to the ceiling with pots and pans and crockery; the sitting room had only a single space of about 2sq ft left where we could sit, facing stacks of old magazines, and tack. As for the bedroom, it had three packed wardrobes in addition to the built-in ones, and no floor space at all. I suggested to the couple that they had better have a bit of a clear-out if they wanted to put their home on the market.

WEDNESDAY

Had my 15 minutes of fame when I was interviewed by a TV crew about micro pods, the fashionable name for new bedsits: small but well-packaged homes aimed at key workers, that start at around £100,000. We began filming at Florin Court in Charterhouse Square, where episodes of Poirot have been shot. A studio apartment there, with use of the communal swimming pool, starts at around £155,000, though it would be another £25,000 for parking.

THURSDAY

Off to show a pair of young investment bankers around a £1 million penthouse in Shoreditch. It's in the process of being converted from an old warehouse and the builders were on site, singing cheerfully - and tunelessly - in the background. As I swept an expansive arm across the sitting room, a large rat emerged from a stack of plasterboard and paused, his whiskers twitching. Trying to hold the couple's eye, I sidled round to block the rat from view and spent the rest of the visit casually drumming my umbrella on the floor. I think I got away with it.

FRIDAY

The bids on the Charterhouse Square flat were opened this morning to reveal a variation of £50,000 in the offers over the £299,000 asking price. The last viewing of the day had the prospective buyer taking a leisurely stroll around the small one-bedroom flat in the Barbican, for sale at £185,000. After half an hour - how long can you look round a small apartment? - he turned and asked if he could have the keys so he could stay for the weekend, to judge noise levels. Regretfully declining, I suggested he book into the hotel in the next street for a local experience.

Nick Scott is sales manager with Frank Harris and Co in the Barbican (020 7600 7000).

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