Property Addict

Property Addict has a new home!

2011-10-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Property Addict has joined forces with Planet Property and is now airing news and views at

http://www.planetpropertyblog.co.uk/

Come and see us!

Grand design runs aground

2011-02-04T03:37:00.000-08:00

It looks like the so-called 'curse of Grand Designs' has outdone itself this time.

Usually the curse means the homeowners - who have conveniently forgotten that we all watched the shambles that led to the creation of their masterpiece - finding that their house is worth little more than any similar home that hasn't been sprinkled with the fairy dust of celebrity.

After all, when we've seen the corners that are cut when the budgets run out, the nasty neighbours, and the 'innovative' technology that failed to deliver, why would anyone want to pay over the odds to buy a house, albeit one whose foundations are saturated with the slavering architectural enthusiams of Kevin McCloud, or damned with his faint praise - whichever is worse.

But this week comes news that the barge, featured in 2007, and planned as an environmentally-friendly home for Chris Miller, his wife, and two children, has washed up on an Essex beach - abandoned, vandalised beyond repair and, as the Guardian put it, the ultimate post-modern architectural salute to futility.

So I was wondering if the creators of the Facebook Grand Designs drinking game need to add a new section to their downloadable scorecard in addition to such classics as:

One shot:

Homeowners decide to project manage themselves.

A Kevin-to-camera monologue ends with him pursing his lips or biting lower lip.

Homeowner cries.

Two shots:

Kevin speaks flawless Italian, French, Mandarin or Swahili.

We see footage of pouring rain pooling on a concrete slab.

The homeowners are forced to make an unplanned move into a caravan.

Three shots:

Something collapses.

Kevin has a swim in the homeowners new pool.

Project is left unfinished.

How about...

Four shots:

The house ends up as a giant sandcastle bucket for Essex holiday makers.

Or even...

Five shots:

The house gets finished on time, on budget, no one has a heart attack/serious accident/gets divorced, and, with all the publicity garnered from the show, the deliriously happy couple sell it a year later for a handsome profit.

Now that would be worth seeing.

Smell the coffee

2011-01-18T03:30:00.000-08:00

It doesn't take a genius to know that olfactory factor is vital in selling houses. No one wants a house that stinks.

In fact, bad smells top the charts of undesirable features, beating even misted aluminium double glazing, toilet carpets, and, yes, even partially-melted polystyrene ceiling tiles.

At the moment we have a rather unusual zoo fragrance emanating from our living room. Not a big zoo, you understand, not London, or Whipsnade. Perhaps more of a petting zoo, or if you're not downwind, the small animal section of a garden centre.

Because in a box in the corner of the room are nine lovely 11-day-old puppies. And though the box is regularly changed, and pups kept clean, I can see the look on visitors' faces as the doggy smell hits them when they walk into the hall.

It's a perennial problem for estate agents; the house is in a good location, the pics look great, the viewers swarm (well, OK, at the moment a few buzz past). But as they step over the very promising threshold the stench of smoke/cat pee/socks hits them, and they spend more time considering the guttering from the back garden than imagining themselves entertaining the boss in the open-plan kitchen.

There are solutions, apart from the obvious one of cleaning, including special air purifying machines (but not air fresheners - as one agent put it, nothing says, 'my house stinks and I'm trying to hide it' like air fresheners).

But I would love to hear the conversation between embarrassed agent and appalled owner as he tries to broach the problem.

'Lovely house, sir. It would be worth £500,00 if...'

'If?'

'If my eyes didn't water and my gag reflex weren't activated by the noxious smell coming from years of slovenly living and that box of puppies in the corner.'

The thing with smells is that they can permeate to the extent that new carpets and a complete redecoration are the only answer. So I'm nipping the odour of my lovely puppies in the bud, and have bought a ton of bicarbonate of soda - which, according to Kim and Aggie will clean everything from a blocked drain to a blocked artery.

And when, in the spring I try to sell my house, I hope the only smell will be the sweet fragrance of success.

Twelfth night

2011-01-06T03:06:00.000-08:00

Twelfth night is here and, though, like the rest of the country, I'm sick to death of picking pine needles out of my socks and wrestling baubles off the cat, the streets around my home look dreary and depressing.

I hadn't really noticed how dowdy my area of Brighton was looking until everyone simultaneously unplugged their fairy lights and threw the Christmas trees, stray strands of tinsel still attached, into their front gardens.

And it made me wonder why we only dress up our homes once a year (or twice, if we're trying to sell). We slouch around like Jack Duckworth for eleven months, then plaster on the slap and the flashing earrings like Bet Lynch just for the last couple of weeks.

Maybe it's because in cities people don't tend to linger on their doorstep, and the only time we look up is to see how bad the leaking gutter has become.

Of course, there are streets nearby which look lovely all year round, and they're not in the millionaire's neighbourhoods. I'm talking about the rows of multi-coloured tiny terraces, where owners not only keep their fronts pristine, but also cultivate award-winning floral displays.

And I suspect that the effort put in pays dividends, not only in terms of community pride and cohesion, but also in the value and saleability of their properties.

So perhaps, instead of settling down to another year of grumbling about falling house prices, and ignoring the guttering, I should set a good example by making my house look as nice for the other eleven months of this year as it did at Christmas.

Now all I need to do is tidy up the back garden so I can find the ladder.

Cold comfort

2010-11-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

I've just remembered why people like modern houses.

It's a revelation that usually occurs in mid January, but this year the reality of living in a house with the insulating properties of a paper bag has come early. And, although you can't actually see your breath in the morning (the norm during the winter months of my childhood), shuffling around on chilblained feet, wrapped in blankets like Apache Indians, to the constant refrain of 'shut that door!' is becoming tiresome.

Incredibly, we have actually carried out tons of work to raise the temperature of our house to slightly above freezing. I have the regulation depth of rockwool in the loft, polystyrene stuff between the roof joists, a load of double glazing, and I've even just paid for someone to line the sloping attic ceiling with insulated plaster board. Despite all this I think I've just spotted a polar bear on the landing muttering about the draught.

It is, of course, possible to bring a period property up to modern insulation standards. There is a wonderful end terrace Victorian home nearby which has had its emissions reduced by around 80%
(http://home2.btconnect.com/eco-refurbishment/) but it doesn't come cheap. Not as cheap as jumpers, hot water bottles and sausage-dog draught excluders anyway.

But, though my fingers are stiff with cold typing this, would I really like to live in a modern house? No, well, not one that I could afford anyway. The lunch-box quality of the air in the average new build has never appealed, but a Huf Haus would do nicely. Though even Hufs have their drawbacks.

When I interviewed the lovely couple who built their Huff on Grand Designs the only complaint the lady had was that, as there are no draughts, the mobile which her artist husband had made for her didn't move. So, I suppose the polar bears and I should consider ourselves lucky. And, in the spirit of the saying, 'if life gives you lemons', I am off to buy a mobile. Let's hope the shop is nice and warm.

Poetic licence

2010-11-16T02:32:00.000-08:00

Poets can sleep at night since news leaked that Bonnett's Estate Agent in Brighton is writing its property details in the form of a haiku. This isn't, apparently, something the agents are doing to keep themselves busy until the next boom. The company have employed a real live poet to encapsulate their properties in three lines.

So, the description of a 3 bed newbuild in a development near the station is given as:

"Views! 'Up on the roof...'
With the City all around,
Walk to the station"

And how's this for a one-bed flat on the city's hilly Elm Grove?

"Autumn golden grove
Shading tidy City pad
Walk into Brighton"

All good fun, and it keeps poets off the streets. But I'm not sure they've taken it far enough. I'd like to challenge one of their rivals to start advertising their properties in the style of, say, Wordsworth, or John Hegley. Or, what about in the form of a limerick?

I'll get them started:

A beautiful flat in Hackney
This is one you really must see
Two beds, separate loo
And an obscure park view
Don't delay, view ASAP.

Are you lonesome tonight?

2010-11-09T04:24:00.000-08:00

I'd love to say that Presley is alive and has been spotted just outside Tunbridge Wells, but, since her recent decampment to the Kent countryside Lisa Marie and family have, apparently, been immune to the delights of the local facilities.

Not for her a movie and popcorn at the TW Odeon, a bit of culture at the Assembly Halls Theatre, or even last weekend's fireworks extravaganza at Dunorian Park.

Since, allegedly, trying to make her staff sign a confidentiality agreement that makes the highest teachings of Scientology look like a press release, word is that she has not been seen out and about once. Her 11 bed, £8 million home is a bit like Willy Wonka's Chocolate factor: No one goes in, and no one comes out.

If we rule out the use of oompa loompas for entertainment, we must deduce that Ms Presley, who has twin toddlers, is going stir crazy. And she has, apparently, decided that the fault lies with Tunbridge Wells, if not Kent and the UK too, and she's heading back to LA.

Relocating is hard. Expat websites suggest that as many as 50% of people may give up and go home within the first five years, when the novelty wears off and they realise that their friends, and decent coffee, are a long way away. But Lisa Marie has hardly given it a chance.

Maybe, if she would just go out for a nice pub lunch, have a game of Pooh Sticks in nearby Ashdown Forest, or even introduce herself to the neighbours, she may just find that there's more to this country than just the lovely rain (yes, she apparently moved here for the rain.)

Meanwhile, there is no house big or beautiful enough that it won't feel like a prison if you are stuck in it 24/7 with young kids. As her dear old dad would have said:

Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

The £1 house

2010-10-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

Lender valuations have always been a mysterious thing. In my experience, as long as they see you as a good bet, valuations usually come in magically at the amount you want to borrow.
My current home was expertly valued, at our agreed price, by a man who drove PAST the house to ensure it exists. No wonder he didn't mention the damp in the bedroom. If I hadn't shelled out hundreds of pounds for him to carry out his 30mph expert estimate, I would have found his technique funny.
But those were the halcyon pre-credit crunch days, and valuers in the current market are an all together more timid bunch. And while I understand that, with fears of a double dip still causing sleepless nights, caution should be king, the valuer sent to put a price on a Victorian end of terrace near Durham may have taken things too far.
Because, according to the Daily Mail, in a move that has to struck fear into the heart of house owners, a Nationwide valuation officer has given the house a valuation of just £1.
And, unlike other newsworthy £1 valuations from the last few years, it's not teetering a couple of inches from the edge of a Norfolk cliff, doesn't need millions spending on it, like Brighton Pier, and is not trailing in the football league tables and up to its eyeballs in debt like Chester City. No, the Durham rental house, which had previously been valued at £120k was deemed worthless because of rising damp and a possible dodgy roof.
Now, unless Poundland is planning to follow Tesco into the querulous mortgage market, such a valuation can only be seen as provocative. Why couldn't the report, which almost certainly cost many hundreds of times as much as the £1 valuation, simply say, 'we are unable to provide a mortgage until x works are carried out.'
Or, alternatively, they could be honest and say, 'Sorry, money lending is so last year. We'll give you a tenner for it though.'

Other people's builders

2010-10-21T03:35:00.000-07:00

Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson's recent hissy fit over their neighbour's building work just goes to show that it doesn't matter how loaded you are, other people's whistling builders are enough to make you want to drop a scaffolding pole on their £50k marble tiles.
And it emerged this week that, on top of the scaffolding saga, another neighbour has put in planning permission for a basement which will, according to a DM Eton Square source, take a couple of years to complete.
I re-read this, and it definitely said years, not months. Are they planning to excavate it with teaspoons? Even the 'Great Escape' tunnels from the Stalag camp only took about a year, and the men had to bring the soil up in their socks.
So, Charles and Nigella are packing up their cupcake moulds and looking for a new homes. Which got me thinking; this could be a good strategy for people looking for a house in a popular location. Simply scan your favourite streets for homes with skips in the front, and leaflet the houses on either side.
You may find that the neighbours, rather than being driven to tear down the scaffolding à la Charles themselves (OK, I know he got his builders to do it, but you know what i mean) might agree to sell their home to you.
And, of course, by the time the torturous conveyancing process is completed the renovations will be done.
Unless it's a basement being excavated by teaspoon that is.

Dead expensive

2010-09-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's not just me that's obsessed with property.

Yesterday's Daily Mail featured a very sad story about a woman who was found dead by an estate agent showing potential buyers round her £800,000 Notting Hill home.

As you might expect, the story caused a great number of comments. But, to our shame, readers' thoughts were not with the unfortunately deceased, nor even with the unlucky estate agent.

No, Angry of Tunbridge Wells was on the warpath about the price of the house.

It's enough to make me ashamed to be unhealthily obsessed with the property market...

The time is right

2010-06-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently the time is now right for first time buyers to tear up their tenancy agreements and start to climb the slippery rungs of the housing ladder.

Santander has said that it is now cheaper to buy than rent in every area apart from London. But does that necessarily mean that it's the right time to buy?

No, it actually means that for the next month at least it may cost you marginally less, but once you've subtracted the removals costs, legal bills and the £3,565 that Santander has also told us that people in the South East spend on average kitting out their new London nest, you're unlikely to feel better off. In fact let's hope you really love your new home because it's doubtful you'll be going out much for the next year or so.

So when is the right time to buy? It's obvious really: it's the day the bell rings to indicate the bottom of the market and Santander and co offer a fixed rate at 0.5% for term. Oh, and they throw in free curtains and carpets.

Of course that didn't stop me buying my first home, a top floor flat in a London Victorian terrace, with a crack dealer next door, a prostitute below and an axe-proof front door - all mod cons in fact, and the only thing i could stretch to. Oh, and no curtains because I couldn't afford them.

And did I regret it? Yes, almost immediately, but by then it was too late and it took me six months to sell, at a loss, to someone with more stamina for the late night shinanegans of South London's crackerati.

It was a lesson worth learning - don't buy because the market says you should. You can bet your axe-proof front door that the economists telling you to buy won't be living on your street.

The deserving rich

2010-03-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

I've been writing a lot recently about multi-million pound properties, and one thing has struck me: most of them seem to be either empty or in the process of being refurbished.

I heard a story today about a £3 million Mayfair makeover (you will by now have grasped that we're not talking about the sort of owners who pick up a paintbrush, order about someone who picks up a paintbrush, or even pick up the phone to someone who knows someone who picks up paintbrushes). Anyway, the said designer makeover was, allegedly, enjoyed by the house's owners for a couple of weeks over a two year period before the whole interior was removed, lock, stock and probably gold puking swan taps, sold at auction for a million, and replaced with something else that no one will use either.

It's only the hotel-room blandness of the interior design in so many of these 'homes' that prevents me from giving up journalism and spending my time foraging around skips on Billionaire's Row.

Which is why I was so glad today to hear that the wonderful eco-palace created by Paul Lavelle in the Cotswolds has been bought by the £56 million lottery winners (the lucky couple having given their old home to their cleaning lady). Not only are they unlikely to rip out and replace the fittings, but they might even, revolutionary though it may sound, live in it.

Horrible Hip Stories

2009-10-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

I know I've been here before, moaning on about the uselessness of HIPs. But having now spent 350 of my own quid on one, I have a fresh perspective on the fish/bicycle nature of the beast.
Despite my prejudice I stoically endured the wasted hours spent babysitting the EPC inspector while he counted the number of energy efficient lightbulbs in my house (if they trust us to tell them when we last replaced the guttering and if we have punched our neighbours recently, surely we could do this ourselves?).
I waited patiently for the 'mini-hip' (which sounds more like something sold at the M&S food halls than a nearly empty document) as the window of early autumnal opportunity was swinging shut in the breeze.
And I tried very hard not to think about what I could have spent my £350 on, and the wear and tear to the delete button of my potential buyer's solicitor.
But what I did do is to remind myself that at least no one at all will read it. Which is lucky really because for my £350, the search company have given me comprehensive details on the wrong house. Same number, same road name, unfortunately different town.
Hip Hip Hooray? Hardly.

Heads you lose

2009-07-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

Presenting a property for sale is a delicate balancing act.

As a buyer you want to see a clean space into which you could seamlessly slip yourself, the other half, three kids, the cat, the dog and Uncle Tom Cobley, while at the same time it must have some of the acoutrements of life that make a house a home.

Usually a few neutral pictures are recommended, perhaps a strategically placed Post-it saying something aspirational, like 'Call shoemaker - all four pairs ready', and some carefully picked books on the shelf which suggest that the inhabitant of such a desirable residence would be intelligent, interesting and well travelled.

However, it is vital that you allow no aspect of your real life to show. So the Post-it saying 'Social worker called - wants to discuss court dates', the jumbo pack of flea bombs, and the lifetime's collection of self-help literature must be kept out of sight.

So, of course, must any dismembered human body parts you may have in your home.

My very first purchase, a lovely flat overlooking Clapham Common, was scuppered when, on the measuring-up-for-curtains third visit the owner proudly showed me what he kept in the cupboards above the wardrobe: three shrunken human heads. I suspect the look on my face may have told him that in such situations offering a cup of coffee is acceptable, but offering a glimpse at your mutilated body parts collection is stepping into lose-that sale territory.

The reverse is also true, of course.

On a recent viewing of a 'distressed sale', or, as I was told delicately by the agent, a property being sold by 'one of our corporate clients', my suspicions were raised when not only was the garden gate missing, but the doorbell had gone too. The property had been described as well presented, and offering scope. Turns out that the fleeing previous inhabitants had taken everything that wasn't nailed down, everything that was, and quite a few items that had been plumbed in too. The scope for personalising this property extended to the 'opportunity' to choose a new toilet, bath, garden fence, and internal doors. Luckily they seemed to have left many of the walls and all the floorboards, so not much scope there then.

Every property has its faults, and when the right person comes along they will look beyond the missing sanitaryware and will, undoubtedly make it into a lovely home. And, as for the guy with the heads, I hear he sold soon after I dropped out. I can only deduce that he subsequently decided to keep his unusual interest where it belonged - in the closet.

The vendors' revolt

2009-06-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

It seems an appropriate fate for the much disputed HIP that, according to a report from Spicerhaart, most buyers don't read them, and the majority of vendors are not even bothering to order one.
By the time the Home Information Pack had been thoroughly diluted from the initial idea, which included a potentially useful home condition report, few people, apart from those involved in the business of selling them that is, could really see the point. But, in the political tradition of 'I've started so I'll finish', this turkey of a document, which delays sales and costs us a few hundred quid became fully operational in April.
So now we have to let a stranger into our homes to tell us to get more insulation, a new boiler, some energy-saving lightbulbs, oh, yes, and pull out those rattly original Georgian windows and put in some lovely double glazing that will be in landfil in twenty years.
And we have to pay for searches that will be shredded on arrival at our buyers' solicitors, and duly re-ordered.
So, if only to prevent the futile felling of a few trees, I'm really pleased at this British show of bugger-the-£200-fine bravado. It may not be quite at the level of the Iranian public's recent protests, but if it hurries the demise of this emperor's new clothes of conveyancing, then power to the people!

Pigs, vicars and lunatics

2009-06-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

The BBC this week reported that a Dorset family has been banned from selling their house to a Scottish couple because of a covenant preventing a sale to anyone from outside the area.

Apparently they weren't aware of this restriction when they bought the property, and, with all that troublesome small print involved in conveyancing, they would hardly be the first to assume that they were safe to leave it to the solicitors. So, you do have to feel some sympathy for them having found out that their pool of buyers is somewhat reduced.

Covenants are strange things. They range from the relatively benign, such the two that I have had on properties I've owned; the prohibition from keeping pigs in a flat, and the ban on turning your home into a lunatic asylum. To the potentially extremely expensive.

In 2007 I spoke to a couple, Gail and Andrew Wallbank, who had just lost hundreds of thousands of pounds because of a covenant in the deeds of their farmhouse. It states that the owners of the house are responsible for repairs to the chancel (the eastern end of a church, in which the pulpit and choristers' stalls are found) of their local crumbling church. Andrew's father, who originally bought the property, was told at the time that it was an ancient law that would never be enforced. But, unfortunately, the Church of England decided that, with coffers low, it was time to resurrect some historical responsibilities and the decreed the Wallbanks liable.

Which just goes to show that when we're told not to worry about the small print by an estate agent, a solicitor, or even a vicar, we should be very very suspicious.

Pack, move, then match

2009-06-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

The last time I moved house it took me weeks to get over it. I always use a professional removals company and try not to pack so much as a teaspoon myself. But, despite this, it probably took ten years off my life and I vowed not to do it again - at least not for a while.

So I was astonished to read that the first potential winner we've had for years at Wimbledon is spending the week before the event moving into his very first mansion.

While I would love to imagine Andy Murray serving his balled up socks into a tea chest, and carrying washing machines on that muscular back, I suspect he's being even less hands on than I usually aim to be. But, even so, should he not be at home practising grunting and drinking Lemon Barley Water, or whatever it is tennis pros do?

Far be it for me to tell him how to prepare for Wimbledon, but I would say that even the most 'managed' move requires a lot of overseeing, and that watching boxes marked 'kitchen' being hauled up to the master bedroom, and arguing with BT about the line they were supposed to have put on, is probably not what his coach had planned for this week.

The modern monarch

2009-06-16T04:14:00.000-07:00

Was woken early by Prince Charles at the front door. He has, apparently, heard about my plans to replace the Elizabethan-styled-lattice-work double glazing on the front of my late Victorian house with something a little more in period, and he's not happy.
It's not the first time he's intervened in my plans. There was the time he tried to persuade me to turn the top bedroom into a hayloft. Then there was the black mark he daubed on the front door when middle child had chicken pox. But when he tried to enlist my youngest in a new 'club' which espoused traditional values and involved climbing up chimneys (all brushes supplied) I finally lost my rag.
This time I was ready for him. "I've got a note," I told him. "From English Heritage." And he slunk off sulkily, muttering about what he's going to do when he's king.
As if that wasn't enough Richard Rogers has promised to call by. He said he wanted to talk about the windows, and the great idea he has had for something a bit more modern...

Nothing to declare?

2009-06-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

When selling our homes, we, naturally, want to emphasise the positives: the new boiler, the great local school, the deceptively spacious shed. And one thing we do not want to discuss is the awful neighbour who has driven us mad moaning about access to his back passage and deliberately, probably, broke our downpipe when he was cleaning out his guttering last autumn.

But what about truly apalling, psycho neighbours who actually drive you from your home? There is a form in the HIP bundle to cover disputes with neighbours and, theoretically at least, we have a legal duty to warn buyers that Fred next door plays thrash metal from six til six and, when remonstrated with, has threatened to cook and eat the livers of our children.

I've been in this situation once, when living in a flat in Clapham North. The terribly helpful (read desperate to sell to anyone at any price) vendor assured us that the neighbours were a very nice young couple. Well, I have to admit that they were relatively young, sometimes a couple, and I didn't really get to know them well enough to appraise their characters. However, the report she gave didn't really prepare me for living next to a prostitute and her crack dealing pimp. We lasted about a year, then moved out, and we didn't, I will admit, tell the people we sold to anything about the neighbours.

But a recent court case would suggest that the law in this regard is completely toothless anyway.

Poor Sophie Duffy, from Amersham, was assured that the nextdoor neighbour, a Mr Mack, was 'quiet as a mouse'. The owner even filled in an official form saying she did not know of any dispute with neighbours. Which was a strange oversight as the owner had, in fact, been to the police several times saying that she was 'concerned for her safety' after her neighbour had thrown stones and her window, kicked the fence separating their gardens, and threatened to kill her.

However, Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled that the disturbances caused by Mr Mack were not 'ongoing', and so the vendor did not have to mention them on the form. Which left Miss Duffy with a legal bill of £29,000.

One positive, however, was that the said noisy and agressive neighbour decided to go home and live with his mum, who, one hopes, can put up with his youthful high spirits, and will not be forced to sell her own home to get away from him. However, if you're thinking of buying and the neighbour is a Mrs Mack, don't necessarily believe what it says on the form.

Revenge on property flirts

2009-06-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

It's official. New research shows that many more of us than might want to admit it, are obsessed with property. This is hardly surprising, as the hits on property portals show when compared with the number of visitors to your average mobile library.

But what is perhaps shocking is the 20% of people who admitted they had been to look around a property they could never afford when they were not looking to buy a home.

Having been the one selling for more times than I dare to count, the one hardly daring to make toast because of crumbs, the one hugely relieved when youngest child developed a high temperature on a viewing day because he couldn't make a mess while in bed (though boy did he wrinkle that duvet), the one draining the national grid by leaving strategically placed ambient lights on all day for weeks, just in case the estate agent popped in, I'm disappointed that pepople admit to viewing properties for the fun of it.

I've viewed a great many properties in my time, but never without genuinely believing that I might buy them. So I think it's time we honest property addicts take a stand against the nosy brick-tease.

What I propose is that all estate agents should produce a list of such people (and I'm sure they know who they are already), and when, and if, such property flirts sell their own homes, we'll all be invited along to view.

We'll insist on appointments at antisocial times, we'll look in the cupboards where they've hidden all their detritis and remark loudly on the contents, we'll repeatedly flush the toilet, just to test the plumbing, and we'll let our children play with their kids' toys, and lose the bits down gaps in the floor boards. Then, after overstaying our appointment, we'll announce in an offended tone that we weren't really looking for a house/flat/lighthouse, or whatever type of property we're viewing.

And, as for those pitiful creatures who admitted in the survey that they view properties to get design ideas for their own homes, we'll sign them up for a course of therapy on the NHS and a lifetime subscription to Elle Deco. If you'd witnessed the crimes against taste in some of the homes I've viewed, the stone-clad home cocktail bar, the Moorish domed artex ceiling, the Tudor-style double glazing on a Victorian semi, you'd agree it's the least we can do.

Interiors by Big Brother

2009-06-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

Undoubtedly the most sought-after address this month is at a secret location in Hertfordshire. Sadly, for the tens of thousands of would-be inhabitants, the the deal has been sealed and tenants will be moving into the Big Brother House later on this evening.

Stepping into the hermetically-sealed hell of the Big Brother house from the balmy warmth of the outside world where headlines are muttering, rather bashfully, about green shoots, rising consumer confidence and stabilising, even, rising prices, the contestants are in for a shock.

The house has been designed to mirror the woes of a nation in recession mode, and, so as not to upset us all by wasting money on the comfort of the inhabitants, the producers decided to shrink it and take away the furniture. Well, not all of it. They do have three wooden crates and a bus stop in the garden.

The lack of furniture is obviously seen as a great, not to mention cost-effective, device to liven up the show. And no doubt they will be hoping for a Lord of the Flies moment where the emergent leader gangs up on the weaker members of the group and persuades everyone to use them as sofas.

But before we feel too sorry for the house's willing victims, just think about what they'll be leaving behind. As the majority will be in their twenties, or younger, and born after those halcyon days when young people with reasonable jobs could afford to buy a home, the house probably won't look that bad.

OK, there's no furniture, but, having endured a lot of rented-home furniture myself, and still having the back pain to prove it, this could be a welcome break.

And, as for the bus stop in the garden, at least they can congregate for a fag knowing that the police won't appear with a dispersal order and move them on. Well, probably not anyway. I'd better stop before I give them ideas....

My new neighbour Peter

2009-06-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

The Katie Price and Peter Andre travelling circus has entertained us for years now, raising many issues of common interest; love, marriage, nudity and plastic surgery, being most, well, actually all of them.

But the latest chapter, in which newly single Peter is allowed out by himself to choose a home is the most intriguing to me. And this is only partly because the house he has picked is very close to chez moi.

What really struck me was the rapidity with which he picked this 1.5 million det des rez. Unless he's been sneaking around in disguise, he was only in the area for about half an hour before slacking off to the beach. He says he's found his dream home, but how many houses do the rest of us mortals have to trudge through before we know we've found 'the one'? How many avocado suites do we have to pretend to appreciate, or napkin sized gardens do we have to 'walk around' before we find somewhere that we can both afford and like?

Maybe it's different for the super rich. Maybe they actually can't see anything with all those flash guns going off. But Peter Andre, with so much else to worry about, reminds me of Lou in Little Britain saying, 'I ont that one' while looking in the opposite direction. Someone needs to tell him, a house is not just for Christmas (or Junior's birthday in this case), it can take ages to buy, ages to sell, and if it doesn't fit, knocking it down and building another one can really upset the neighbours.

Handbag or house?

2009-06-01T04:11:00.000-07:00

A very glamorous friend of mine once asked me why I moved house so much, and suggested that I should save my money to buy shoes and handbags. Shoes and handbags aren't an investment, I said, and she gave me that look I've seen a few times before.

But at that time, with prices rising inexorably, it did appear to make financial sense, and I persuaded myself that I was investing in our future. From the two-bed flat in a never-quite-gentrified location in South London, to the derelict Georgian town house in Cheltenham, that we lost a fortune renovating, I believed that they were all sensible moves. And, some of them were, but that's not what drove me. If I'm honest it was the thrill of the hunt.

The credit crunch, or the Prohibition, as I think of it, has proved to me that the investment argument was self-delusional. Being mortgaged the max, moving now would be foolhardy, as the only way anyone can benefit is by moving upwards. Undeterred I've been considering downsizing, although my mortgage is half of what it was a year ago.

I have to admit that my lifestyle doesn't help. Firstly, I work from home, so I'm free to check the latest properties twenty times a day. And, secondly, I write regular features for FindaProperty. Frankly it's like giving an alcoholic a job in a brewery.

Except that it's not like an addiction to drink or drugs, where the aim is to maintain a state of constant intoxication. An alcoholic can pretty much predict what will happen at the bottom of the bottle of vodka, but a property addict never quite knows what's round the corner, down the street or in the estate agent's window. It probably has more in common with a gambling addiction; the guilt, fear and exhilaration as you bet your wages, your coat, or, in my case, your home, blood pressure, and costs of up to £30K on a new future; a bricks-and-mortar, gas-fired-centrally-heated nirvana, where there's never any washing up waiting to be done or underpants on the floor, and where you'll live happily ever after. Til next time.

Because, of course, the desire to move is insatiable, and, usually, around a year later, I'm sneaking a look at the property portals again like a gambler checking the odds of the 2.30 at Haydock.

I do need to take control of the addiction, if not for myself, then because of the effect it's having on my children. My eldest likes to tell people, by way of proving my poor parenting, that she had had six homes already, and, not only does my ten-year-old have his own files of property on the computer, but his favourite reads are Living Etc and the Ikea catalogue.

But do I dream of a future where there is a branch of the AA (not the vehicle rescue one) for people like me, perhaps sponsored by Pickfords? And where I can walk past a For Sale sign without even checking out the state of the roof (I try to avoid buying dodgy roofs). God forbid. I love my little habit, and so does the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and there are most definitely worse things I could do.

And, as for my friend with the shoes and handbags, well, let's just say she needs to move more.

The first step is to admit your addiction...

2009-05-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

My name is Nikki and I'm addicted to moving house.

Last night, while trying to get to sleep after a particularly feverish search through the credit crunch bargains on findaProperty, I totted up the number of times I have moved in my 43 years.

Now, I have no idea what the average might be. But if, for example, someone lived in their childhood home until they went to college, then perhaps inhabited three different student digs, followed by a starter flat, before settling in a house of their own they would have totalled only five moves. And for people who don't go away to college the number may be even less.

So, here's my total: It's an exhausting, stamp duty raising, 20 times. That's a move every 2.15 years.

There are gypsies and kids with ASBOs that move around less than me.