So said Leonard “Bones” McCoy, ship’s doctor, to James T. Kirk ship’s captain, Star Ship Enterprise, stardate 23275…(T stood for Tiberius, the classical imperial allusion is surely not lost on us…?) as the crew licked its wounds following yet another bruising encounter with an alien life form.
Well he didn’t actually say that at all.
No, he regularly said “it’s life Jim, but not as we know it…”
Where is this going I hear you ask?
Well,
it’s going here
We have just come out of a Summer and it was, indeed, meteorologically and chronologically speaking, a Summer; ie: it had long nights, warm days, had slightly less drizzle than Spring and began after Spring had finished and it’s ended now Autumn has begun. (a little digression, who decides when Summer is over? The Government, because they put the clocks back, Michael Fish because there’s dew on the common in the morning, Julius Caesar and The Druids because we hit an equinox?? – more on that later, I have a theory…)
You see it wasn’t a Summer as we know it.
The WE in this case does not represent intrepid, inter-galactic space voyagers tasked to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man (imagine the Woke Explosion if that was broadcast now!!) has gone before! (incidentally adapted from a speech made by Captain Cook as he set off from Plymouth in HMS Endeavour to discover the New World…)
No, the WE is us – Estate Agents who live and work in SW London.
You see, this summer was like none other that Joel and I have experienced in over 20 years of estate agency in LBW. Put it this way, August is normally our quietest month, quieter than December – Nappy Valley, Pram Springs etc – Wandsworth is young family central and, as such, is dead from late July through to September – people either have the kids or are in Salcombe, Tuscany or the Algarve with the kids….but if you’ve been following these missives (and I truly hope you have) the property market round our way has been anything but normal this year…
Quick recap;
- Wandsworth people have real reasons for moving – births, (deaths), marriages, schools, downsizing, divorce etc ie: life
- Four years of Brexit and Boris boll-cks, anxiety, restricted turnover
- However, people still breed, marry, grow up, grow old, grow fed up
- Election – Boz won with a good majority, political certainty (?) restored. Pent-up demand unleashed…
- Covid – pent-up demand leashed
- Families locked up again in unsuitable homes (with unsuitable partners?)
- Estate agents let out, people let out – market explosion!
Pause for breath…
Results,
Let us take our NCR office as an exemplar (Nappy Valley Central after all) for a quick Stat Attack. Compared to Aug 2019:
- New buyers up 102%
- Viewings up 91%
- New stock up 170%
- Sales agreed up 113%
- All-time price records being broken for family homes hither and thither
I could go on, but I’d be boring myself as well as you and I’d guess you get my drift…never before in the field of Wandsworth Agency have so many deals been done by so few, for so many…or something.
Well that’s all jolly fine and dandy if you happen to work in agency, “but what’s this got to do with me, a common (?) or garden denizen of The Valley”, I (think) I hear you cry?
Well if you want to move this year, to buy and sell, get cracking! Soon the assorted storms, Son of Covid, Unemployment, Recession, Boris’s Balls Up Brexit will all be upon us. And I for one will be heading to the Surrey Hills, with a duvet, a can of beans and a shotgun…(not really), but a degree of hunkering down will probably be in order as we head towards the dark days of All Souls’ Hallow and Sir Guido Fawkes…
Yet, oh and yet, don’t despair…I am not an economics forecaster or a socio-political commentator but I don’t think that this Summer Market has ended. Originally I thought it would end for the First Day of Autumn Term. But I was wrong. As far as we can tell there is still a massive number of people who want to move before Christmas (the new beginning of the Autumn Term).
So, going back to who decides how and when Summer ends, I do. And it’s now officially Boxing Day (or the next major global crisis).
You heard it here first.