Given the phenomenal amount of screen time devoted to property on British
television, it seems incredible that, until now, there hasn’t been a sitcom
set in the dog-eat-dog world of estate agents.
Despite our national obsession with property, few of us really know what goes
on in the fancy agency offices that dot every high street. Agents, like most
of us, are trying to do a job and pay their own mortgages. Yet they hold the
keys at the milestone events that often accompany buying and selling homes –
getting married, having a baby, divorce and death – and they are the people
we love to hate. This combination makes Sold compelling viewing, even though
it is played for laughs.
Years ago, I worked briefly in an estate agency, although I never sold a house
and hated much of what I was asked to do. Watching the first couple of
episodes of Sold brought it all back: pretending to be fussy about the type
of homes being sold; erecting boards anywhere; ramping up fees; sabotaging
competitors; enforced drinking nights in the guise of “team building”;
sales-figures contests; and the constant threat of the P45.
Sold is set in a fictional agency called Colubrine (which means “snake-like”).
The staff are masters of dirty tricks and high-pressure selling. Though
slightly over the top, this is a good depiction of what can go on in an
agency when the owner has no scruples – and there are certainly a few of
those around.
Its fictional owner is a shady figure who rules his gang with an iron rod via
a web link from his tax haven. He doesn’t care about customer satisfaction:
it’s all about getting them to buy a house. If they buy the wrong one,
they’re more likely to come back and sell it – and that means more
commission. At the agency’s weekly Big Night Out, he rewards those who have
clinched the most deals and humiliates the “geek of the week” before a
baying mob of drunken colleagues. Sounds fanciful? Believe me, this stuff
really goes on.
Money can bring out the worst in people, so, given how much is sloshing around
the housing market, it is no wonder the profession attracts the occasional
rotten apple. In the series, it is Matt, the office manager, who is the
biggest liar, the biggest poseur, the most self-obsessed and the most
focused on money and glory. In my career as a property-finder, I’ve met
plenty of “Matts”. One I knew used to invent stories about his (nonexistent)
children in order to appear “fatherly” and, by extension, trustworthy. I
remember some agents using vendors’ beds during office hours, for sleep or
sex. One I once worked with used to help himself to a bath and a brandy on
cold winter afternoons; another used to fill the locks on a rival’s office
with superglue at weekends. Giving “feedback” from fake viewings to sellers,
and punch-ups between people erecting boards, are fairly common.
Nor are clients above chicanery: backhanders from buyers wanting to know what
to offer in a sealed bid can be too tempting to refuse. I even know of one
team whose manager allegedly let them buy one “underpriced” flat each a
year. These never reached the open market, and were owned by people abroad,
too old to realise they were being swindled, or dead. Known as ring-fencing,
this is the worst trick in the book – and illegal. Then there is the
emotional manipulation used to close sales.
If all this is making you determined to buy or sell without an agent, cheer
up: in Sold, a young agent, Danny, slowly becomes the hero, outperforming
Matt through a mix of intuition, empathy and honesty. He wants to find
people homes – rather than flog them houses – and it really works.
Thankfully, there are agents like him in real life.
Joking aside, there are serious messages within Sold. Agents are paid to look
after the seller and to secure the highest price, so they’re unlikely to
care who buys a property as long as they get their fee. Buyers must remember
that agents are excellent relationship-builders. The more they know about
you, your lifestyle, your requirements and your finances, the easier they
find it to sell you a house.
They are trained to win your trust, and will try to override your opinion with
their own or nudge you into spending more than you wanted.
So, what to do if you think you’re dealing with a real-life version of a
Colubrine employee? First, ask direct questions about any worries you have:
to the selling agent, the seller, your solicitor, another agent from the
same office, even the receptionist. If you’re still unsure, ask them all
again. If somebody’s bluffing, it will emerge. And ensure that there is a
paper trail: dodgy agents prefer doing business by phone, where there is
room for misunderstanding. Writing everything down and sending it through
for their files should end “misunderstandings” and bring them sharply back
into line.
Hopefully, the average person is too clued up these days to take what goes on
in Sold too literally – probably because they’ve been bombarded with
property shows for the past five years, something for which I feel guilty
and grateful in equal measure.
I’m bracing myself for a call about a series vilifying the buying-agency
business, which must be the last one not to have been given the sitcom
treatment. It’s a good job we’re all so squeaky clean.
Sold, starring Kris Marshall as Matt, begins on ITV on Thursday at 9pm
Phil Spencer is chief executive of the home-search consultancy Garrington;
020 7376 6780, www.garrington.co.uk
Does the series include a final episode (to air in about six months' time) where all the staff are fired, the clients go bankrupt from their BTL 'investments', the agency is shut down and the owner arrested for investigation by the fraud squad?
That'll make entertaining viewing...
MB, Edinburgh,