There are two very similar houses for sale on our estate both 3 bedroom link-detached looking identical on the outside and not dissimilar on the inside with both being nicely decorated. The major difference is that one has central heating and double glazing whilst the other doesn’t although it does have an extension at the back which could make it a 4 bedroom house. The other major difference is the price - one is £20,000 cheaper than the other and the expensive one is not above the usual valuation for such houses around here. The cheaper one is by far the cheapest 3 bedroom house on the estate.
So buyers look in the estate agent’s window and decide that the higher priced one is £20,000 more than they can afford so they come and view the cheaper one. Guess what? They then turn round and say ‘but we’d have to put in central heating and double-glazing’. Why the f*** do you think it’s £20,000 cheaper?
There was a time when a young couple (which once we were) would be chuffed to bits at the chance of owning their first home. The fact that it had no heating nor posh windows or was a bit run down wasn’t a consideration, all those things could come in time - if they wanted it. There was never, ever, the thought that the house had to be completely finished to the highest standard at the lowest price. Not so now. First time buyers want everything right now at a price well below what everything costs. They can’t entertain the thought of waiting, and saving, and working to get the things they want. They have no idea of the joy of turning a house into a home through their own toil and their own imagination. Maybe they all grew up with Nikes and Playstations and foreign holidays and had everything they wanted given to them by parents who should have known better? Sod the lot of them, They’ll never find that perfect house because it doesn’t exist. Why? Because they can’t bloody afford it.
The excuses (and lies) come thick and fast but this week topped the lot. The agents have been brilliant in chasing up viewers to get their feedback and on Monday Michelle phoned with the feedback from the viewing she had booked on Sunday. The guy had said that it was a very nice house but he was looking for something with more than three bedrooms and somewhere that he could do a bit of work on whereas ours was already finished. Same old excuses really only this time the bugger never turned up for the viewing. He made the whole bloody thing up!
Getting rather fed up with it all now but I’ve got to try and be nice again in half an hour’s time when another casual house viewer is due to drop by and waste another twenty minutes of our lives.
