Category: Property on TV

Secret Agent with Phil Spencer – house in timperley has been on the market for 4 years.
Here is it on Rightmove

Watch it on 4onD
Whilst it has a strange layout, it’s a nice roomy place, although in need of some decoration and the crack in the wall needs looking at.

Phil says “it’s only worth what someone will pay for it… ” which is why it’s still on the market a couple of weeks after being on tv.

Secret Agent Wednesday 19th October

Sought after area of Harrogate
3 bedroom place at just under £400,000. Damp downstairs and upstairs.

Phil says “All this place needs is a good plumber” … the owners had set up a plumbing business but that’s not bringing in the money to pay the mortgage so they need to sell.

Note to self: Don’t put bodge tape on broken tiles or leaking bathroom trim. It looks tacky and people will notice!

They’ve had to take a lot of money “out of the house to keep the business going”
One of their children is going to school in York so they want to move nearer.

Phil’s buyer has been looking for 15 months. The fact she’s not found anywhere indicates a problem. She’s not viewed many though.

Phil says there’s too much in the garden and they should clear out some of the stuff.

Phil meets their agent – who is also in a grey suit with a blue tie.

The agent says the sellers insisted on the price and the agent would recommend much lower maybe £350-360k.

The sellers decide to use a PR company who are going to use twitter to sell the house. Phil isn’t impressed.

They spend £2500 on it making it pretty again and sorting the damp and leaks out.

The buyer isn’t interested and they say they’ll sign up with another agent soon.

Watch it on 4onD

In Brighton (here on rightmove SSTC) a family looking to move in together so need to sell a couple of houses.
One is busy with colours and carpet designs.
Not much wrong that a bit of paint and new carpet wouldn’t solve. The big problem is the house is on for £209,950 and they want £209,950 for it. They’ve had four offers of £200,000 but that’s not enough.
They redecorate and recarpet on a budget of £1500 (So I imagine it’s not posh carpet) and get an offer of £205,000 which they accept.
Madness. They could have had it sold some time ago and negotiated a discount on the house they want to buy.
Or sell one of the houses and have an extension on the other.
The other house (the mother’s) had an offer too but she was holding out for the asking price still.

Episode 2 on watch again on ch4

<-- BN42 4NJ Orchard Close and Old Barn Way -->
If you want to appear on the show then get in touch as they’re looking for people now – click here

HillCott Barn -4 bedroom house for sale £795,000
HOPE MANSELL, HR9, Hope Mansell, Ross-on-Wye

I didn’t really recognise this one until looking at the roof line where there’s the glass edge between the roof and the ceiling.

Watch is on youtube

‘My home is not for sale’, says man in new Secret Agent show

This shocking revelation is bought to light on Estate Agent Today

Wood, of Bristol, also said how dirty crockery was piled into his kitchen sink for the purposes of filming a ‘before’ sequence: “The programme is highly staged and the usual de-cluttering solutions are offered. My house is in fact always very clean.”

Phil Spencer – Secret Agent – new program starts today at 11am apparently.

See Ch4 page about it

In each episode of Phil Spencer: Secret Agent he’ll target one particularly hard-to-shift home. But before he meets the struggling homeowners he will don his surveyor’s hat to assess the property, looking at it through the eyes of a buyer, as well as researching the local area and housing market.

The house he’s looking at is this one

Armed with all the information he needs to make a realistic judgment on why the house isn’t selling, he’ll surprise the owners as their secret agent and outline his opinions – all the good and the bad – before recommending what needs to be done to get their home sold.

My review! Phil views a house and almost mocks the estate agent description as
he probably should – it says recently updated. The house is worn and shabby and this is one of the reasons
it’s not selling. The bizarre stable door nearly catches him and knocks him over.
Worn carpets, scrappy wallpaper, chewed door fittings,

He notices he garden is multiple level and thinks is is stopping it from selling.
It’s also the reason the family want to sell the pretty as they have a child
with a medical condition where a sloping garden means he’s more at risk of breaking
bones,

The advert break is filled with amusement too as there is a house buying ad
that’s almost as annoying as the "we buy any car" ad.

What can Phil digest?. Will astute viewers realize than spending money on a
proper to do it up is the same as lowering the price?

It was filmed in he summer of 2011. He views the house on his own and then
meets the family, who seem really surprised to see him. I can’t imagine
taking part in a tv show without knowing what celebrity would be involved and
given it’s a channel four show Phil is a likely candidate.

How do they take the news? They think they have been living in a show house
for. Phil is gobsmacked at the difference between the agent’s description and
the actual house – it’s not how he’d describe the place.

It appears she’s never heard of a safety gate that would have allowed
her to keep an eye on her child. Cutting a door in half is probably cheaper.

Dirty washing, ironing waiting to be done make the house look messy and puts
people off.

The outside needs tidying up and the parking space is a bit odd but given the
height of the road from the house it’s needed.

Phil plans to have the house read to sell in two weeks.

He puts together his own particulars to point out just the brutal truth.

He checks out the competition. 130 similar within a 3 mile radius. Would have
been interesting if they had mentioned floor space as a comparison,

Again he is pointing out the misleading estate agent details can mean you get
viewings but people aren’t prepared for what they actually see.

He’s pointing out to other vendors to show potential of the property and to
tidy up outside.

Phil gets a decorator in and tells the kids to tidy up. They also get a carpet
fitter in.

£850 on new carpet.

The show is an hour long. The house doctor and Andrew Winter have all done
this before Phil. It’s nothing new although he’s not actually told the,
to decluttering yet. Although their house isn’t that bad, apart from the garden,
just some Painting and sorting the doors out and getting new carpet will make
a difference.

Now he’s got people viewing houses. A couple who want a family house are being
sent to view a tiny flat. He shows them the house he looked at before – the
one that has potential. It’s still not looking 100% but bits have been done.

Phil asks what feedback the viewers have had. Lack of privacy and lack of one
level in the garden are a key issue.

Landscaper comes in to see what could be done with the garden.

Suggest tidying up and maybe bamboo screening. The landscape gardener gets to
work! How much does that cost?

£31 on dressing dinner table, £850 on carpets, £1300 on garden.
Just over £2500 spent on improvements about 2% of asking price.

The garden looks loads better with plant screening around the car space.

Open day arrives; Phil has a few buyers lined up.

Phil admires the changes including the bowl of fruit lifestyle touches, and
a copy of hello magazine. Garden is very tidy, laurels around car space, make
t look much more private. Pictures and bedding refresh the bedroom along with
a new cook making it feel like a sanctuary inside the busy house.

They get other propel including an investor to look at the made over house.
Landlord reckons 600-650 rent a month for it. He would pay 90-95k for it – a
huge chunk below the offers over 115k asking price.

Jonathan. And his wife Anna comes back a few days later to view it. I get the
impression she didn’t like it.

At the very end Phil says they have accepted an offer of £116,000. We
don’t know if it’s from the couple but I think if it had been they
would have said.

Is this also a grand design for sale?

No mention of it in the listing but it reminds me of one very much! The glass stairs, excessive open planness, glass everywhere (just think of the fingerprints!)

A quick google brings up the Savill Listing that mentions it was on Grand Designs

Radio Times review of Location Location Location says the show has past it’s best article here

It’s always been a shocking program to watch if you have a realistic budget of 3X minimum wage. (I’ll let you do the maths on that but you are starting to find houses almost at this level if you don’t mind a small terrace in parts of Manchester.)

For people in the real world not on glamourous wages it’s really always been property porn.
Not as bad as the programs like Grand Designs (although having architectural merit and the most interesting people sometimes helps make that show amazing) or Escape to the country which often has exotic budgets.
I love big houses, if I could make a career out of going and viewing them I would. Hmm maybe I should work on that idea a bit!

20,000 people a year build their own home!
Watch some of them on this interesting program presented by Simmon O’Brien

Cheshire Andy Bloor building
a house on his farm – plan to spend £175k.
His son will have the old farm house and him and his wife will have the new house. It’s not about a grand statement architecturally but a home!
This is certainly a different program from other house building shows on TV – no huge budgets here!
It’s also magaziney in style with going between the build featured to other projects and info.!

13/20. Simon O’Brien gets stuck in to building stud walls at building college.

14/20. Featuring a cutting-edge home in Wales that really has the wow factor.

15/20. Presenter Simon O’Brien learns how to make a traditional ceiling rose
at building college.

16/20. presenter Simon O’Brien gets to grips with tiling at building college.

17/20. Featuring a university professor who has built an eco-home in West Yorkshire.

18/20. Simon O’Brien is left high and dry when he has to fix a roof ridge at
building school.

19/20. Simon O’Brien tries not to throw the towel in when fitting a bath at
building college.

20/20. Simon O’Brien cannot see the wood for the trees when trying carpentry
at building college.

To Build or Not to Build episodes available now on BBC iPlayer