Homes under the Hammer - a critique

Whereby cheery, easily excited presenters go to auction house to see what people buying selected properties do with them after they bought them....

Whilst I’m sure this programme used to feature hoards of eager yet naiive buy to let-ters or those relinquishing lifelong careers for property development to make a quick buck, unsurprisingly in the current climate, all the people featured in the programme this week have been builders, building contractors and professional property/letting agents.

This fundamental position change of their subject does not appear to have a) been spotted by the programme makers or b) detracted them from their formulaic approach, therefore making a bit of mockery of the programme as each ‘case’ tends to go something a bit like this:

Presenter – Here’s Bill, who you will recall has bought the run down terrace in North Liverpool for £35,000

[cue pictures of said property looking sad and unloved]
Presenter - you got a great price for it , so what do you plan to do with the property?

Bill – We’ll be refurbishing it for the rental market

Presenter – That sounds great and sounds like you have done this before...

Bill – Yes my company has been doing this for around 10 years now

Presenter – The house has been empty for a while and looks like it needs lots of work – what will you spend on it?

Bill – I think mostly its remedial work and decor so I’m hopeful we can turn this around in a month and I’d expect to spend about £2000 on it max

Presenter – and what do you think it’ll be worth to you when it’s finished?

Bill - £300 per calendar month

We then see pictures of Bill and his team doing work on the property – they knock down walls, they lay new flooring, they have to do the electrics upstairs, which turn out to be dodgy, and then decorate everything beige and install new fixtures and fittings. Some of the bathroom and kitchen fittings are the style and colour of those in the end of aisle B&Q bargain bins, the carpets are atrocious and look like they were bought off ebay in a job lot.

Presenter – So it's a month later and here we are with Bill and the finished property – are you pleased with it?

Bill – yes, we did it in the time I’d expected and within budget

Presenter – we had some local letting agents view the property and price it up – let’s see what they think it’s worth...

We see 2 agents viewing the property – they comment negatively on the decor and then justify it by adding comments like ‘but then this property is for the local rental market so it'll be fine’ and both reckon they could let the property immediately for £300 pcm

Presenter [over enthusiastically] – That’s great Bill, you’ll get the price you wanted

Bill [nods and smiles sheepishly and presumably when the camera stops rolling heads off to the next auction for his next property]

So whilst I’m sure the programme makers want to see auction purchases, construction cock ups, costly mistakes and take delight in lenghty slippage in work plans and the abject failure to achieve projected income streams, the current nature of the housing market and our economic climate means that the people featured (call me cynical seeing as I work in and am knowledgable of this sector) are JUST DOING THEIR JOBS AND, by and large, seem to be DOING THEM WELL to keep a depressed sector of our economy moving....but that doesn't sounds as catchy as a programme title does it?

What I got up to on maternity leave...

Week 1 of Maternity Leave

I know people keep telling me the start of maternity leave is a time to relax, prepare and enjoy the freedom before baby monkey arrives as I'll have my hands full soon enough, but (for the first time in my life) I'm disgustingly robust and heathly, don't feel unwell by the pregnancy and am yet not feeling too huge to do anything.

So I had a nice schedule of stuff lined up to do as I was worried about getting bored. Having been in full time employment for the last 13 years and in a hugely busy, all consuming job for the last 2 years, the thought of being at home all day with not much to do was weighing heavily on my mind.

Of course, there is little bordering on no correlation on how long it takes to do stuff when you are working, commuting and trying to squash everything else into your limited and precious freetime and how long it takes to do stuff when you actually have nothing else (or better) to do... As a result my planned weeks schedule was completed in 2 days even working at a leisurely pace, which resulted in the rest of the week being consumed by housework, slowly giving way to procrastination and poor quality made for TV movies of an afternoon accompanied by a packet of revels or chocolate digestives and some settee lounging...

Week 2 of Maternity Leave

House tidy...check

Hospital bag packed...check

Nursery stuff unpacked and ready...check

Washing all done...check

Review of contents of hospital bag...check, double check and checked again...

So I got out of the house and walked the streets like a nomad to pass the time and mooched about in shops and for some inexplicable reason found myself buying mince pies from different supermarkets in some some kind of mad taste test (my findings? the Coop ones are by far the best). When in the house I did lots of internet shopping for xmas pressies and whilst waiting for everything to be delivered, I read 3 books and watched yet more poor quality made for TV movies of an afternoon accompanied by a mince pie and did some serious settee lounging...

Week 3 of Maternity Leave

I have resisted for so long but this week I have, horror of horrors, actually started watching daytime TV.... no longer am I keeping busy of a morning and scouring the TV guide for something ‘special’ like an old film or a favourite TV show to watch with an afternoon drink and yummy treat to relax with and no longer am I treating it as I did previously - a one off when sick and off work, something to dip into or as background noise whilst doing something else.

I AM actually watching this stuff and as I a) seriously considered entering the GMTV competition for about 30 seconds and b) stuggled to complete the Guardian quick crossword and sudoku yesterday, I can only assume the slow rot of my brain has started...

Fully cooked

As of last Friday, monkey baby was officially 'fully cooked' (I'm sure medical professionals don't use this term, but the other half and I think it works quite well) and so people I know as well as random people in the street/in the shops/at the Drs etc have started saying things to me like 'not long to go now!' or 'are you excited?' to which I can nod enthusiastically or 'soon you'll be able to eat all those things you've been denied for the last 9 months' to which I...er...can't....

When Friends was on TV, if I did the 'which one are you?' quiz in a magazine, I'd easily be Monica. I'm a control freak, I'm a stickler for doing what I should be doing, when I should be doing it and I'm happy to follow rules. But I also have a rebellious side which, if all the management self assessment exercises are to be believed, shows itself when I have endlessly weighed up all the options and associated risks (usually in an anal spreadsheety way) and convinced myself I know better.

As a result I expected to revel in the 'guidelines' for pregnancy...highly detailed rules set out for me to follow listing what I can and cannot eat and should or should not eat...however I have discovered that the inane, inexplicable and contradictory guidelines from different sources and, in particular, the baby bible we purchased brought out my rebellious side kicking and screaming...

When we chose the baby bible, we wanted a reference book to dip into when we had a question and whilst this book has proven a hugely useful resource as that, as time has gone on, it's preachy 'do this' but 'don't do this' and 'everything inherently has a risk and why would you knowingly put your baby at risk if you don't need to' tone began to slowly grate on my nerves. As a result, in the last 9 months, I have:

Eaten some brie
Eaten tonnes of shellfish, including prawns in sandwiches! With mayonaise! Bought in supermarkets!
Eaten mince, sausages, burgers, cold cuts, medium rare roast beef (although I did not choose the steak tartar on a fixe prie menu at an incredibly fancy restaurant we visited in July which was a source of huge disappointment)
Eaten runny fried eggs and dipped my toast in the yolks
Eaten the other half's home made mayonnaise (which with hindsight turned out to be a huge mistake as he mixed up 'cloves' with 'bulbs'...the indigestion lasted the best part of a week which no amount of gaviscon could touch)
Eaten peanuts and other nuts
Eaten unwashed fruit and vegetables (because I am lazy and I tend to just wipe them on my jeans first)
Eaten bags and bags of salad and not bothered re-washing them first
Drunk the odd pint of shandy on a night out down the pub
Drunk pop including big glasses of coke (until the endless indigestion kicked in)
Drunk coffee EVERY day (I have got it down from 3-4 cups of instant a day to one big cup of filter coffee I savour)

And I didn't have the swine flu' vaccination either....I am surely (if the baby bible book is to be believed) going to hell...