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Interior Life of an Estate Agent. Part 6

It's quiet now. The crazy pre-Christmas house-buying spree has ended. The phone hardly rings. We drink coffee and eat chocolate to pass the time. I get a call from a desperate purchaser whose own sale has fallen through; their buyer has pulled out, causing them to lose the house they were going for. What can I say? It's sad, and annoying, but there's nothing to be done. People always get angry with estate agents for this sort of mishap, or blame the solicitors, yet its always some fickle punter who either backs out of a sale or withdraws their property from the market. Everyone wants to shoot the messenger.

This woman on the phone is saying they have found another purchaser and are prepared to sell at a lower price in order to continue with the purchase that had to be stopped, providing the seller will agree to continue at the same price he agreed two months ago. There's the rub. The owner has put the place back on the market for another £15,000, part of which he feels will cover the money he has lost in rental during negotiations. I call him and put the offer to him but he's reluctant. I have to ring back the disappointed woman and tell her he's not prepared to drop the price, continue to lose rental income, and possibly wait another few months. She keeps me on the phone for many minutes saying the same thing in a variety of different ways.

She's determined to convince me that she can effect her sale in a fortnight. I tell her it is rarely less than six weeks because her buyers have to start from scratch but she won't have it. First she tells me they are cash buyers then, when I ask her about this, she tells me they are in rented accommodation. This is not cash. Then she says they have a mortgage in place. This is not cash. If they have a mortgage in place it only means an agreement, the mortgage company still have to be satisfied about the particular property, and always require valuations and surveys. Two weeks. I wish it could be. I'm sorry for them. I'm less sorry for them as she goes on talking, on and on. I bring her to the point several times but still she goes over the same ground. If only it were cash. Who the hell has £240,000 in cash?

On a more optimistic note, after being with this firm for two months, and yet to make a sale, I get a call from a very Cornish man who's interested in a terraced Victorian property. He wants to know why the house next door looks so disgusting, filthy, with rotten windows, drawn curtains, and a terrible air of neglect. I find out and call him back to say that there's an elderly widower in there, who has no money to fix anything but that he has had the roof done. He's pleased about this because, for some reason, he thinks if it was empty it might make the next door house, the one for sale, damp. Not sure how this works, although the dilapidated place does lower the tone a tad. He books a viewing. He's in rented. Could he have cash? Lordy, lordy, let this be my first sale or I may not have this job for long.
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