Lust, greed and envy

November 25, 2007 – The Sunday Times

If we hate estate agents so much, says our correspondent, why do we hang on their every word?

What is it that is so irritating about estate agents? The too neatly pressed suits, belying an innate reluctance to leave their overheated offices and plod around a dusty house? Or perhaps their chavvish cars, badged up beyond sense with silly catch phrases? At the heart of our disdain, surely, is the knowledge that their salaries are pegged not to the dull old rate of inflation or RPI (4%), but to the much steeper slopes of the house-price index.

Because, when an estate agent flogs a house, he (and, typically, it seems to be a bloke) will be paid commission on the sale. The more expensive the house, the more the commission. Clearly, if house prices are going up, so will his salary. In some parts of central London, house prices have risen by as much as 50% this year – and in the country as a whole, the increase has been close to 10%. And that on top of years of regular double-digit annual rises. Now do you see how irritating they are?

This, of course, is why people who value money over everything else and aren’t clever enough for the City want to be estate agents. Who cares what the world thinks about you when you can earn 50% more than you did last year by basically doing the same job? This has been brought home to me because of the activities next door.

Our neighbour has been trying out for a job at the Foreign Office. Nice guy, keeps himself to himself. The only downside is that he hangs around his front door smoking, but I’m not too fussed about that – and, who knows, smoking on a doorstep might be classic FO behaviour.

Anyway, the day after he told me about his gruelling interview and nonverbal reasoning test at the ministry, which sounded rather like the entrance requirements for a selective secondary school in London, everything changed. He’s chucked it all in. Abandoned his nascent diplomatic career for a job as an estate agent. And at Foxtons, to boot.

I was surprised. I had him down as an intelligent soul, not a scrabbler for filthy lucre, but that’s western capitalism for you. In the space of 24 hours, my nice neighbour has jettisoned the prospect of globetrotting in favour of pinstripes and a new Mini with “Barnsbury Blaze” scrawled all over it. He nearly knocked me down the other day screeching around sleepy old Barnsbury, a place that has hitherto seen zero excitement since Tony and Cherie left it for Downing Street. Now, instead of mugging up on the names of foreign capitals or the GDP of the Seychelles, my formerly quiet, fact-focused neighbour is busy working out the location of the next property hot spots in Barnsbury. His career arc is now set on the stellar heights achieved by Jon Hunt, the founder of Foxtons, who earlier this year sold his 97% stake in the company for about £370m to a private equity firm. Which, incidentally, is more than the GDP of the Seychelles.

“We encourage estate agents,” says a mate of mine, who also happens to be a property anorak. “They appeal to our greed factor.” Indeed, there is something in this. No day goes past without my neighbour sending me an excited e-mail detailing potential conversions, developments, hot spots and the potential of property in Barnsbury.

Do I read, learn and inwardly digest them? You bet I do. QED.

I know it’s our fault. Our greed encourages the despicable business of estate agencies. Their own prosperity, being umbilically linked to the sale of our houses, holds up a mirror to our own avarice. You have to hand it to capitalism. It does invent some pretty peerless systems. I got a flyer from Stirling Ackroyd the other day that kicked off thus: “If you have been throwing jealous glances at other people’s lifestyles, contact us today.”

It urged me to do so via an e-mail address that went as follows: envy@stirlingackroyd.com. Estate agents may have zero class, but they have shedloads of brio.

Naturally, when they aren’t out stealing the “for sale” boards of other agents, they are diligently massaging our aspirations, like energetic call girls. “Overhyping prices is absolutely endemic,” says my property anorak. “Agents everywhere will bump up the price of your house, and offer you a paltry 0.5% off the commission on the condition that they can be your sole agency. Six weeks go by, and, funnily enough, the overinflated price has meant that you haven’t had a single bite. But by then they have frozen out all the competition.” Why do we let them do it?

I suppose it’s only to be expected. After all, we are not only avaricious but a nation of sad property bores, never happier than when pathetically working out our capital gain or settling down before Location, Location, Location, a television programme so dull, its main attraction is that it is fronted by the daughter of an aristocrat, thus helping class envy mate with property envy.

The unceasing vigour with which we climb the housing ladder while simultaneously pulling it up behind us means that our friends in pinstripe suits must whoop and cheer almost as hard as we do every time the already overstacked house-price index clambers, sweating, up another percentage point; well, in London, anyway.

You can almost hear them braying at their office meetings: “Houses up by 5% this quarter! Greed is good! Open up the Krug!” God, they are ghastly.