Owning your own home

The 'culture' you step in to when buying a place in London is largely run by folks pushing the boundaries of what is morally acceptable - estate agents.

This is huge. And the culture changes too. When I first bought five years ago the culture was that I was buying the last two bed flat in Walthamstow available for £190k. It had been on the market for six months with no nibbles. The main pain in the arse was the fact that the seller was clearly insane.

When I went to buy again last year the culture had ENTIRELY shifted. The estate agents were hungrier, they would push you into things you only worked out later were entirely unethical. They would openly lie to your face. It was shocking how different it was. And the knowledge of how hard-nosed the culture is means you as a buyer/seller are complicit in it to the extent you allow it to infect your purchase. And no-one can entirely avoid it.

I allowed an estate agent to put up our flat for £25k under our minimum a few years ago - it was a five second conversation I barely thought about at the time, I just trusted them to know their business. When we sold, the EA got everyone who made an offer to write a letter. The letters from people offering £22k under our minimum and genuinely hoping they get it still haunt my sleepless nights. Its fucking awful out there.

I’m no saint of course, when selling our place with the Modern House I was asking how they achieve the best price, what they tell people etc and was a bit miffed when the agent said basically nothing. We just let people offer, totally closed bid system with no “well you’re close to the best offer but we can’t tell you what it is” bullshit.

Miffed turned to happy once I’d thought about it. Fully expected to gouge but in retrospect very glad that there was none of that.