What the Hel?
When your estate agency is named Helmores there’s a certain obligation to deliver at this time of year. And it is one taken very seriously by the fine staff at the firm in Crediton, Devon. For the second year in a row, they have filmed a Halloween-themed ad. A ghoul, a witch and a vampire walk into an estate agent is a pretty great set-up for a joke. If you fancy a chuckle, check out their efforts.
Scarily early
Bravo to New London Architecture for getting in on the spirit of 31 October by running a seasonal tour through the historic estate neighbourhoods of Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury, promising spooky stories of the ghost of spring-heeled Jack, local “goblin fantasist poet” Christina Rossetti and the mummification of UCL founder Jeremy Bentham back in 1832. Just a shame that they’re running it at the not particularly spine-chilling time of… 10.30am. Alas, Diary will be busy carving its pumpkin.
A tale from the crypt
31 October can bring back scary memories for some, and one of Diary’s colleagues exhibited epic recall by dredging up a classic from the EG archives: “In the presence of the supernatural surveyor”. Was it a “grave mistake” to head to Spitalfields Market with a paranormal investigator named Troll, we asked, back in 2005. That’s an unlucky 13 years ago, which makes it high time we did something similar again. Perhaps, for the multimedia age, a site visit with night vision cameras? And maybe Yvette Fielding? In the meantime, give yourself the #EGjeebies by reading the original.
Most haunted
Diary loves Halloween, not least because it usually inspires some of the year’s best press releases. Rising to the occasion like a zombie out of the grave, the good folks at Sellhousefast.co.uk uncovered England’s most haunted regions. Apparently, to date, there have been 11,900 known cases of “paranormal activity” and, Sellhousefast says: “It may come as no surprise that Yorkshire, known for its Norman castles and medieval abbeys, is England’s most haunted region, with 685 entries.” Greater London comes second (622), with Lancashire losing the war of the ghosties in third (548). If you want to stay clear of horrors this Halloween, England’s “least haunted region” is the Isle of Wight, not the Isle of Fright. Proof that spooks struggle to cross water?
Freddy or not
Not to be outdone, rival Housesimple.com got in touch with its own, more focused research. This time on the “nightmare” faced by the country’s Elm Streets. Apparently, shockingly, more than half of the 79 such roads in the UK have seen no property sales since last Halloween, while one in seven have not had a house sold in the past decade. Chief executive Sam Mitchell said: “It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason for the low numbers of house sales on Elm Streets. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a few prospective buyers have been a little nervous about the prospect of living on such an infamously named street. Fortunately, not everyone is spooked by Halloween and with Elm Street prices below the UK average, there could be some good-value properties to be snapped up. Just check your neighbour’s name isn’t Mr F Kruger.”
We’re gonna need a bigger boat…
M7 Real Estate’s latest portfolio sale is a bit of a monster. In fact, the €1.5bn portfolio of 300 assets in Germany and the Netherlands is thought to be the largest up for sale in Europe at present. Due to its gargantuan size the process has been dubbed Project Meg, in homage to the film The Meg, Jason Statham’s action blockbuster about the discovery of a ferocious 75ft megalodon shark long-believed extinct. In the movie, The Stath may go head-to-head with The Meg but even he would struggle to grapple with something of the scale of Project Meg.
The Circle of life
When you’re looking to market your brand-spanking new rental apartments, your first thought isn’t typically reality TV stars. But Fizzy Living opened its Hayes scheme in May and new tenants were joined by eight contestants from Channel 4’s social media experiment The Circle. The programme saw players holed up in the build-to-rent apartments, communicating solely through social media and competing for likes to avoid eviction. Producers tried to keep the location hidden and distributed letters requesting that residents keep the game “our little secret”, specifically asking them not reveal the location on their own social media. Though the nine-storey circle lit up in front of the apartments didn’t seem to worry Channel 4 too much… and it can’t have hurt Fizzy’s marketing efforts either. Speaking of which, once the series ended, the contestants submitted online reviews of their temporary homes. Hannah, 27, said it “really was such a pleasant stay and that’s saying something as I barely left the room!”. There’s one for the posters.
Planning for the pub
Westminster Council hit the headlines this year after it was revealed former planning committee chairman Robert Davis had received gifts and hospitability on 893 occasions over six years. The former deputy leader of the council resigned last month and Westminster announced an overhaul of planning. Plans to revamp the department asked that documents should “pass the pub test”, an interesting turn of phrase given its history of hospitability. Probably better that Westminster planners and documents steer well clear of pubs altogether.
Retail of terror
What does it take to sell a shopping centre nowadays? Quite a lot it seems, as any frustrated retail investment agent will tell you. And when they are completing, it seems that perhaps there’s more going on than meets the eye. Word reaches Diary that there has been an increasing trend not only for centres to be sold well below book value in order to convince buyers to take the plunge, but also for vendors having to provide rental guarantees post-sale in order to de-risk the assets. Those CVAs and downsizings could still hit their pockets for a while to come. It must bring The Godfather: Part III to an affected seller’s mind: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in…
To send feedback, e-mail jess.harrold@egi.co.uk or tweet @estatesgazette
