Let the viewings begin…

After proudly unveiling my online advert to friends and family I learnt the first lesson of selling your own home…too much honesty can be a bad thing.

I live in an area of London not exactly renown for its genteel lifestyle. Unfortunately, there are more venues selling crack cocaine than cappuccinos. Walk to a local park and you are more likely to find someone as high as a kite than flying one.

But although the place maybe a little rough round the edges and not prime family territory it has an undeservedly bad reputation. I have lived there for getting on six years and I have never once been burgled, robbed, mugged or threatened and I wanted to express this in my advert.

I thought the best approach was something a little light hearted so I wrote: "Unless you are planning to muscle in on some yardie’s crack selling business you are no more likely to get into trouble here than anywhere else in London."

At the time of writing I thought this a rather clever way of pointing out that the area’s high crime rate was more to do with gang-on-gang violence and didn’t present an abnormal level of risk.

However, the hearty laughter of my work colleagues as they reviewed my advert made me realise I had made a naive blunder.

As they quite rightly pointed out my description left the (incorrect) impression that there were crack dealers operating on my street and this is not something that you should go anywhere near alluding to if you want anyone to buy your house.

Luckily, the people at property broker let me delete the offending paragraph and so I eagerly await the first interest.

Comments

[SimonS]

I think there should be more honesty in estate agent ads. It can be as rare as a private parking space in West Hampstead.

Pehaps the master of honest real estate sales was Roy Brooks. During the 50s and 60s his ads for houses he was trying to sell became cult reading in the likes of The Sunday Times where he advertised the properties. I remember a marketng lecturer telling us all about him.

Sample description of 3-bed maisonette on Wimbledon Park Road: "Not fearfully attractive. The best advice I can give on this property, says one eminent surveyor, is demolition. But what on earth can one expect for £2,995?"

Another description of a 6-bed house in Chelsea ran as follows:
"Whilst not wishing to gloss over its slum-like qualities we ought to mention that our clients will only sell to a person with the taste and means to restore it properly. A foul little garden at the back, only £6,500."

Click here for the publisher's blurb on the book...
http://www.hodderheadline.co.uk/bookdetails.asp?book=56549