Every year around about this time thousands descend on Dorney Lake near Windsor.
Ordinarily it is for the annual JLL Property Triathlon, but this year Diary felt like it had stumbled into Crufts. No longer is it enough to have a superfast bike, the most advanced wetsuit and some snazzy trainers to take on property’s biggest sporting event. No, these days you need a dog. And it had better be cute or, quite frankly, no one will care if you are the dog’s wotzits at triathlon.
You can go to www.egi.co.uk/news/932045.nw if you prefer to check race times or see pictures of humans.
S&P’s pet project
Is Strutt & Parker obsessed with pets? Diary thinks that it might be. The agent’s online “home of original thinking”, The Residential, just published 1,000 words on “Smart ways to help your pet move home”.
This follows just a fortnight after the previous topic: “Do our pets decide which home we buy?” S&P certainly knows how to catch Diary’s eye, and we love some of the animal anecdotes on offer.
Like the woman who only wanted a two-bedroom property, but with an acre and a half of land for her two dogs. The £8m apartment purchase that almost fell through because of a ban on pets – resolved by a £100,000 discount and the buyer renting a small flat nearby for her three dogs (and a member of staff).
And, most surprising of all, the seller who figured their cat would prefer staying in the house, and managed to find a purchaser willing to take the property with its, ahem, lap-sitting tenant.
Diary anxiously awaits the next pet update.
It’s good, but it’s not Berry good
Diary loves grasping at straws or desperately crowbarring an angle into a story in the vague hope of making it relevant to real estate. So, we like to give a little kudos to the hard-working PR community out there, which will use any link, no matter how tenuous, to grab our attention.
This week, we doff our cap to the team at Lawrie Cornish, which, in an attempt to make the launch of Galliard Homes and Acorn Property Group’s 58-home Hope House scheme in Bath just a little bit more newsworthy, yelled at us (via the medium of a headline) “Mary Berry’s school now new Bath homes”.
I mean, we all love a bit of Bake Off (it’s not the same now, is it? Although Diary loves you too, Prue), but in terms of interesting facts about a slice of Bath’s built environment, Diary is not convinced Mary Berry having been to school in the building should be ranked higher than Hope House being a Grade II listed, 230-plus-year-old property.
Now, if Mary Berry had formed a jv with Galliard and Acorn to build a new Hope House out of cake…
Tweet victory
Two Twitter highlights for Diary in the wave of England hysteria. Credit to James Pellatt, director of workplace and innovation at Great Portland Estates, for capturing the mood of a nation on Wednesday, with this pic, captioned “Even the cranes are celebrating this morning.” And hats off to BB&J for its shameless bit of tagging to plug a Derby business centre: “Another three suites under offer at Southgate Business Centre, let’s hope England have the same success with their @GarethSouthgate!” Not only has the England manager masterminded a penalty shootout triumph, and done his bit to save the high street with his waistcoat trend-setting, but the Southgate effect is beginning to be felt in real estate. C’mon!
A funny old name game
You would think the Land Registry would have its hands full closing the registration gap. Or working on its blockchain revolution. But, on the day of a crucial England World Cup match, Diary can forgive some measure of distraction.
Thus we applaud the LR for taking inspiration from the stat-dominated state of modern football, and delving into its property data to offer its “official England squad house price mashup”. Basically, a ranking of the whole team based (somewhat arbitrarily) on the year-to-date sales average of streets bearing their names from all over the country. Defender Harry Maguire scores highest, thanks to Maguire Street in London SE1 (£1.5m). Dire news for Eric Dier in last, thanks to Bradford’s Eric Street (£99,375).
Golden Boot contender Harry Kane is well down the pecking order, but the biggest disappointment is Tottenham Hotspur star Dele Alli, as the best property match the LR can offer is Dalley Way, Liss – which, frankly, is rubbish. Surely, Haringey Council, the time has come for Dele Alley?
To send feedback, e-mail jess.harrold@egi.co.uk or tweet @jessharrold or @estatesgazette
