East London Estate Agent Babylon

After my self-piteous rant about the property market in London, we found a nice house in Walthamstow that we can afford and had our offer accepted. Which is great, apart from the fact that this has pulled us into the orbit of the pushiest estate agent I’ve ever met (you can imagine that he’s pretty bad then). The estate agents in East London are especially appalling currently because of the Olympic effect. You can see the greed has gone into overdrive.

Since we had the offer accepted, this particular estate agent has been on the phone four times a day pushing me to engage a solicitor, which I don’t want to do until after we’ve had the house surveyed. He obviously wants to tie up his sale, but his tone borders on bullying. I’m almost at the point of telling him to stick his property up his shiny-suited arse.

Pointing out that London estate agents are venal wankers is hardly a startlingly original observation, but I do wonder whether these people are bred like it or indoctrinated. This guy turned up in his company Vauxhall Corsa with a ridiculous hairstyle slick with gel, driving along as he shouted into his mobile. He never listened to a word I said as he showed us around the house, apart from pausing in order to appear to listen, then making it clear from his next bit of patter that he hadn’t taken in a word I said. You could see his brain whirring, desperate to close the deal, figuring out his percentage.

Still, this is progress. Of course, now we’ll find out that the street we’ll be moving to is full of crack fortresses, but until then we’ll enjoy having found a potential home.

The house we found