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Published: 03 February 2023

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It's been a great end to the week here at Wallers... or, more to the point, a great start to February!

We have just taken our third new sales listing - two of which went live already, one of which gets photographed next week; we have two new lettings listings; five new lets agreed and into referencing since Feb 1st, three of which are fully managed; another two sales listings hopefully dropping over the next week - we will see... and then, to pop a cherry on top, as I sat here typing, a call from our Swindon team to say that we have agreed an asking price sale on a property there, too!

I don't say any of this to brag, I really don't - there are many, many agents doing waaaay more numbers than these. The point I am making is that the property market is genuinely buzzing right now - I don't care what anyone says.

Yes there are challenges, I don't deny it, and yes I know prices are sliding... but I have been banging on about that coming for a year. But that was hardly Nostradamus level forecasting, it was just seeing a bizarre growth line in property prices that was never going to sustain itself. I also recognise that some people are going to feel a punch in the mouth if they are coming out of very low fixed rate mortgages onto now weighted SVRs, or remortgaging onto relatively higher rates.

But look - things can be done to manage all this, with a little thought; mortgage terms could be extended this time round, to soften the blow.... and then reduce the term again next time if rates have dropped; use the massively increased equity to get proportionately better mortgage rates than last time; or, cancel the membership of the gym you never go to and stop having avocado on toast for a couple of years... oh, sorry... went a bit Kirstie Allsop there for a moment, must behave myself... but in realistic terms, there are things that most mortgaged households are actually able to do to smooth out their increased outgoings... I know, because we have done it ourselves (although, seemed to replace things with more after school clubs and activities, somehow...).

The headlines yesterday about the BoE increasing its base rate are true, but there is extra context that paints a very different story.

• Base Rate is up, but mortgage rates are coming down.
• Inflation is high, but expected to tank over the course of this year.
• The threat of recession is ever-present, but now they are predicting shorter and shallower... and they were already predicting shallow.
• Economists now hedging their bets on any more base rate rises at all (although I would suggest probably to expect another quarter percent - maybe not next time, but the meeting after... and then, I think, that might be it).

Stats show property market activity to be in line - or perhaps, dare we believe, even more buoyant - than in the same period in other years within the last ten, since we escaped the depths of the last financial crisis.

And remember, getting syntactical and semantical about the whole affair, that this is a crisis, perhaps (although, I'd say even that term is questionable, from a property market point of view, outside of the cost of living crisis), but it is not a crash. I know some commentators are talking about 30% drops in property values... I cannot see the evidence for it, and to be honest, if prices do fall 10% over the next 12 to 24 months, the market can withstand it... but if I had to stick my neck out, I would look at 5% to 7% drop - perhaps overall - and prices picking up again before the end of this year, as we come out of a naturally quiet summer. In fact, I would say that if the base rate does go up to 4.25%, it might well be nudged down again during the last quarter, to stimulate the economy as it grows itself out of the barely-recession it finds itself in.

In the meantime, mortgage lenders will continue to provide solutions (as I said about this time last year, look out for the return of the Tracker Mortgage!), and based on our current enquiries, the property market will continue apace, alive and very much kicking.

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Published: 26 December 2022

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It is Boxing Day! But why do we call it that? And since when?

What does it have to do with fisticuffs? Or is it something to do with boxing up unwanted gifts the day after Christmas?

At least someone on a pub quiz team will boldly claim it is definitely a Victorian creation - and a quizmaster would normally give that as a correct answer...

But the origins are a little more murky than that.

Actually, 'boxing' was a term given to the charitable act of giving... and 'Boxing Day' did, it is true, become an official bank holiday in 1871, which is when Queen Victoria sat the throne. Being not just Queen but actually Empress Victoria, is why it is celebrated today, still, in so many countries around the world, as it became an Empire-wide holiday, not just a British one.

In saying the above, it became an 'official' Bank Holiday because it had for some time been an unofficial one...

There was already a tradition that household servants, having sacrificed their own family time to serve the lords and ladies and the families of their households on Christmas Day, would be given the next day off to spend with their families. They would be given boxes of leftovers, gifts or tips, and the lords and ladies of the manor would, in the absence of their servants, enjoy a feast of cold cuts and leftovers themselves that day. Well, you wouldn't expect them to cook for themselves, would you?

So it was the aristocracy and the gentry, then, that came up with this idea of giving to their servants on the 26th December? And coined that act 'boxing'?

No, it wasn't. Much earlier than the Victorian period, working class folk and labourers would spend the 26th December roving about to get 'boxes' - which really was a linguistic term that had come to mean 'tips' - from those whom they had served throughout the year. Essayist Jonathan Swift, in 1710, wrote: "I shall be undone here by Christmas boxes. The rogues at the coffeehouse have raised their tax, every one giving a crown, and I gave mine for shame...". Some people think the same, in the 21st century, about the way 12.5% gets automatically added to their bills at restaurants. Funny how things change, yet somehow stay the same...

1710 is not the earliest mention of this phenomenon though. Samuel Pepys, the diarist famous amongst other things for documenting the Great Fire of London, hinted at the idea in 1663: "Thence by coach to my shoemaker's and paid all there, and gave something to the boys' box...".

So why December 26th? Why not December 25th? That's the day for the giving and receiving of gifts, surely?

Well... no, not necessarily. You all know something of the truth of it, or at least you do if you know the old carol about Good King Wenceslas - although how many of us ever paid attention to the words? It tells the story of King Wenceslas - who was actually a Duke in 10th century Bohemia - who, on the Feast of Stephen (St Stephen's Day, being December 26th), spotted a poor peasant in the snow trying to gather fuel. He asked his page who the man was and where he lived. The Page replied that he lived some distance away in a cave underneath the mountain at the edge of the forest, to which Wenceslas then replied, so the carol goes:

"Bring me flesh and bring me wine,

Bring me pine logs hither,

Thou and I will see him dine,

When we bear them thither"

And the carol later ends:

"Therefore, Christian men be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor,

Shall yourselves find blessing."

So this carol about King Wenceslas's good doings on December 26th was written in Britain 1853, about a Duke who had died in Bohemia in 935 AD - but it didn't take 900 years to remember him this way. Certainly by as early as the 1100's, Saint Wenceslas - canonized almost immediately after his death by murder at the hands of his brother, and in the act becoming seen as a martyr - was being venerated by Christian preachers for his habit of delivering alms and charity and doing good deeds.

But why the mention of St. Stephen's Day, on December 26th? Well, since as early as the third century AD, 'boxes' had been installed in churches for Advent, and then on St Stephen's Day these boxes were opened and the alms and money collected was distributed to the poor - and hence where the term Boxing came from.

But who was St. Stephen? In fact, he was the first Arch Deacon, and the first Martyr - the proto-martyr - stoned to death in 36 AD, just a couple of years after Jesus Christ himself was crucified. But in life, his job - as appointed by the apostles - was to distribute food and charitable aid to the needy....

And this is all why and how the act of giving became associated with his Saint's Day, on December 26th; why alms boxes in churches became a tradition to fill during advent for distribution to the poor on his feast day; why Duke Wenceslas went about on that day giving gifts to his poorer folk; why over the following centuries, poorer folk became used to the idea that on that day they would receive boxes - a term meaning 'tips' - from those they served; why later on than that, Victorian servants were presented with boxes of gifts, leftovers and money on the 26th December, harking back to the alms boxes of the third century churches, and were given the day off as holiday; why by 1871 the Crown formalised this holiday and named it for the act of 'boxing' it was originally associated with; and why, being an official public holiday named in an act of parliament during Queen Victoria's reign, we and other commonwealth nations still celebrate it as 'Boxing Day' today.

How it has somehow (I feel) lost its charitable flavour and become - instead of a day of giving - more of a day for shopping; and how it has become such a big day for hunting, rugby and football... well, that's another story! But, a day for cold cuts and leftovers - at least for these Wallers - it most definitely remains, to this day.  

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Published: 01 December 2022

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Published: 25 May 2022

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 A furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine!

As the old prayer goes, ‘From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, oh Lord!’.

Here’s my more modern one for this day and age: Domine salva nos a procrastinatione: Lord save us from procrastination…

It is Viking Day today for Key Stage 2 at Cutteslowe Primary School, and Hrothgar the Dane is visiting to provide some hands on, fearsome and beardy education (my favourite sort). And so a letter went round a few weeks ago to tell us parents that our beloved progeny could dress up as Vikings today, with a homework task on how to make some Viking clothing and weaponry in advance:

“Perhaps we can help Leila make a sword and shield this weekend, dear,” Jenny said to me a few weeks ago…

 “Yes!” I said, “I’ll get to B&Q this week for some balsa wood and metallic spray paint,”…

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“Perhaps we can help Leila make a sword and shield after school tomorrow, darling,” Jenny said to me last week…

“Oh, yes!” I said, “I'll get to B&Q in the morning for some balsa wood and metallic paint,”…

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“Rowan! It is Viking Day tomorrow. We need to help Leila make her sword and shield!!” Jenny finally snapped yesterday.

 “By Thor!”, I cried, “I haven’t been to B&Q yet for the balsa wood and metallic paint!”.

 “Forget balsa wood and metallic paint!”, my ever practical wife said, “we’ve got toilet rolls, cardboard boxes and tin foil… it’s a bit of fun at primary school, not an audition for The Last Kingdom!”.

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And so in the space of a half hour in the evening, together with Leila, we cobbled together a tunic and hose out of an old dress and some PJs, cellotaped together a triple-layered cardboard sword with its blade wrapped in tin foil and its hilt bound with string, fashioned a foil-wrapped cardboard shield complete with arm straps (and a foil-wrapped Nescafé jar lid for a shield boss), and Leila added the finishing decorative flourishes in marker pen this morning.

And you know what, she looked the part. Hrothgar, I'm sure, will have been thrilled - or suitably terrified. Either way: result!

When it comes to marketing property, people can be equally guilty of procrastination. We have managed to wind the process up into being this all important thing in this country, that life and death can seem to hinge upon, and so it's no wonder that so many people now worry that their property isn’t meeting some vision of perfection yet that they’ve imbued in their minds through watching endless episodes of Location, Location, Location and other similar house-porn. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t like entirely complacent sellers, those who make no effort at all (our professional photographers, especially), but the truth is that a little effort goes a long way and you really don't need to obsess about achieving 'perfection'; in fact, given how subjective property buying is, it's usually an impossible dream on the part of any seller: you can't appeal to everyone, no matter what you do.

It is important to get some basics right, it is important to present the house in the right way; but just because you haven't got round to fixing the toilet seat yet, is not a reason to be losing out on buyers - particularly in stagnating and falling market places.

Here are three common procrastinator objections that might surface in your own mind whenever you come to sell your home, and here a couple of tips that might just help you if the process starts to stress you out:

1) "We need to redecorate first, before marketing…"

- Really? Look, maybe you do (and sometimes, you really do!), but just remember that when you start redecorating you might never stop. Once you’ve done the walls, you’ll think your joinery looks a bit off; so you do that woodwork, but then your ten year old windows now look a bit ropey… one thing leads to another and all of a sudden it's like painting the Forth bridge. A good clean - particularly carpet cleaning - will often be all you need to achieve the ‘lift’ you’re looking for; and also just remember that buyers often do want to put their own stamp on things. 

2) "We’re going to replace our furniture so it looks better in photos…"

- Seriously? You were worried about knocking a couple a hundred quid off agency fees, but you want to go and spend thousands at Laura Ashley on sofas that you’re not even selling to the buyers!? Don’t get me wrong, some sofas I’ve seen look and smell like they've come straight out of my 6th form common room - bits of Space Raiders down the sides of the arms, and all; but it's nothing that a nice throw from Dunelm can’t fix most of the time. So if you are obsessing over the idea, think throws, think scatter cushions and think the odd vase of flowers, and suddenly your Living Room doesn't look out of place in a Good Housekeeping double page spread.

3) "We're going to wait until the summer as the garden looks better…"

- I’m sure it does. You know whose else’s looks better, don't you? Lots of other people's, also selling their houses. You know when they’re waiting until? Then. You know who isn’t waiting until then, though? The Buyers we’ve got looking now. And you know what many buyers will be doing in the summer? They'll be enjoying the summer - in Portugal.

There are always reasons to wait - believe me, I know! And to be fair, I fully recognise that I am speaking a little flippantly in this article, so let me caveat the whole thing by saying that sometimes there are genuine, serious and personal reasons that rightly and understandably hold you back. Of course, in those cases, you should wait. But if the time is right for you, now, then grab the metaphorical tin foil and stop procrastinating - because Hrothgar is not waiting.