Home is where ........

It’s been the busiest week of the year so far. Four days working and an audition and casting on the fifth so at this point I feel for the first time for ages I have earned my weekend.

Monday was a further day of rehearsal for the Ronald McDonald House Charity dinner and we were joined by the deliciously gorgeous Miss Julie Peasgood. Miss P, the voice of Glade air fresheners to the world, and I go back a long way. We shared the stage of The Other Place in Stratford in 1983 in “A New Way To Pay Old Debts” and we have bumped into each other over the years and always giggled. It was so good to have her as narrator of this piece and she did a fabulous job. As did all the actors concerned. A joy to work with and the Thursday evening performance at a dinner that raised over 400K for the charity was a triumph for all of us and the audience too.

I speak in terms of 400K as Richard and I have been foraging into the world of house hunting this week. We’ve been here in Sydenham since Jan 205 and though we love our flat and have been very happy here, we feel it is time to move on.

So simultaneously we are getting our flat valued and trying to decide which agents to go with and yesterday we made our first trip out to view some other properties – and quite frankly God help us!

Estate agents on both sides of the equation have been useless. E mails to agents to request valuations don’t get answered – and let’s name names here. Yes that’s you, the Forest Hill office of KFH, and request to view properties are not answered by an e mail saying it might be possible  - yes that’s you KFH of Beckenham. By 4pm yesterday I understood what KFH stood for – Konsistantly Fucking Hopeless.

You request details and pictures and they don’t arrive. Home may be where the heart is but more importantly – Hart (of East Dulwich),  where is the home….brochure I asked for?

The agent who turned up for our viewings yesterday managed to leave us locked out of the building, and then attempted to show us the wrong flat!

One who visited to give us a valuation on Friday– different agents, same twattish attitude- spent 45 minutes of my time, in my home, talking to me and never asked me a single question other than how long is the lease. He just did his presentation and sweated – visibly through his shirt.  One of the three little piggies this time hoping to sell a house. No questions as to what improvements have you made, what price would you like to achieve, what is your timescale? As one who teaches pitching skills to lawyers – and it’s not hard- he’s got a lot to learn and fair to say his agency wont be getting our business.

Why are estate agents composed of the dross of humanity? Is the business entirely composed of people who cannot find a job elsewhere? And it’s not just the men! The woman, the Arabella’s, the Daniella’s the Fenella’s are just as bad in their own offhand airheaded way sounding as though they really hate you for interrupting the impromptu day long manicure they were performing on themselves.

In times like these where the market is difficult, why aren’t agents doing more to make us feel like valued customers? Why aren’t they asking us what we want and delivering it? Why are they still acting like eighties wide boys and girls, in flash suits with too much gob and not enough listening?

The divine Mary Portas recently turned her sights on to the whole dammed pack of them and the results were very enlightening. The way they conducted viewings changed and for one small chain of agents there seemed to be hope. I don’t think the ones we have been in contact with saw the programme.

I suspect that before Mr Howle and I find our new domestic paradise I will have cause to return to the subject at some point, but in the meantime let me give the last word to the national treasure that is Stephen Fry….Oh Stephen how right you are!

“Estate agents. You can't live with them, you can't live with them. The first sign of these nasty purulent sores appeared round about 1894. With their jangling keys, nasty suits, revolting beards, moustaches and tinted spectacles, estate agents roam the land causing perturbation and despair. If you try and kill them, you're put in prison: if you try and talk to them, you vomit. There's only one thing worse than an estate agent but at least that can be safely lanced, drained and surgically dressed. Estate agents. Love them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.”