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The Diary of an Estate Agent
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Monday
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The usual Monday morning blues are aggravated by concern over our auction of country
properties on Thursday. One of the 12 lots is a gamekeeper's cottage in 10 acres
near Hanbury, the village that was the model for Ambridge in The Archers (the original
scriptwriter, Charles Bazeley, lived locally). I sold the cottage for £500,000
about 18 months ago to an elderly lottery winner who has since died, leaving it
in a very poor state. We had set a guide price of £550,000, which was upped
to £600,000 and then removed after we received a £700,000 bid from someone
who says he won't be attending the sale. But the beneficiaries, a number of charities,
still want it to go to auction. I only hope they don't regret it.
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Tuesday
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Visit a Regency semi in Lansdowne Crescent, in an elevated position above the city
- built for wealthy industrialists who liked to look down on their "satanic mills".
With five bedrooms and a lovely Italianate garden, it should fetch £400,000.
As I'm leaving, the barrister owner remarks that the house originally belonged to
William Perrins, while the adjoining semi was lived in by his Worcester Sauce partner,
John Lea. They probably had board meetings over the garden fence.
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Wednesday
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In the afternoon, I do a market appraisal of a wing of a Georgian house near Ombersley
- six bedrooms, small garden, fairly untidy. There's a peculiar appley smell on
the ground floor, which is overrun with cats. There are even more cats upstairs
- on top of the wardrobes and mantelpieces, on and under the beds - but the can
of air-freshener must have run out, because the aroma up here is pure moggy. I decline
a cup of tea.
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Thursday
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Auction day. After all my fears, three familiar faces turn up to bid for the gamekeeper's
cottage, which goes for a staggering £950,000. In fact, every lot sells and
all my clients are happy.
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Slight worry later in the day when a buyer gets cold feet because there's nowhere
to park his sports car. Our client is a wealthy and very polished businessman. Realising
the buyer is upwardly mobile and moving from a little box, he pats him on the back
and says that when you live in an Elizabethan mansion, you don't need to drive a
Porsche.
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Friday
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In the evening I attend a Country Landowners Association drinks party. I'm the local
chairman and have to do the inevitable fund-raising auction. Alcohol fuels such
furious bidding that we make £5,000. I'm introduced to a large ebullient farmer
with a beetroot face and bloodshot eyes. When I bump into him again half an hour
and several drinks later, he says to me: "You must meet Andrew Grant . . ."
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