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Me: “Yeah, I quite like it – it’s not bad. Bit overpriced?”

Them: “It’s an exceptional flat. There’s already an offer in on it.”

Me: “Oh. So it’s not available then?”

Them: “Well, a guy has put an offer in. A banker, lots of cash. Wants to move really fast. Moment he saw it he wanted it. ”

Me:  “Oh right, a banker with lots of cash? Nice to know they are still around! So you know him? He’s your client? He’s not with another agent?”

Them: “Yeah he keeps calling me. Really wants to move fast”

Me: “Right.  So would you do this to me as well? If I was to put an offer in? Show other people a flat an offers already in on? Aren’t you supposed to take it off the market? Isn’t that what it says you do on your website?”

Them: “Well, yeah, technically, but with these flats you can’t hang around, they will just go, everyone wants them. I’d put in asking price and no break clause if you want it mate”

Me: “Right.”

Them: “So yeah do you want to put an offer in?” 

Me: “Sorry, but it’s empty, no? Have I missed something? We are standing in an empty flat? And it’s on your website? And has been for a while? And I think there is one two floors up on with your competitor?  Would suggest it’s not being snapped up in minutes?”

Them: “It will go mate.  These don’t come up very often”

What is it with Estate Agents? Are they thick? Bad salesmen? Or just wankers?

I read a great article the other day about how the physcology of estate agents is totally fucked.

Of course, I forgot to bookmark it, but the jist of it was that they spend too long trying to turn a “in the right ballpark” offer into a high offer.

Because Estate Agents only get a small percentage of the asking price the actual difference into their pocket from a mid to high offer is very small.

3 “in the right ballpark” deals in quick succession are worth more to an Estate Agent than 1 big one. So they should be spending their time convincing landlords or sellers to stop losing money on an empty property and accept these lower offers rather than chasing a high value deal off a punter and wasting hours wearily showing multiple people the same flat time and time again.

More on the psychology of estate agents here:
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/buying-selling/estate-agents/the-psychology-of-estate-agents-08-05-28_p_1.html

A cab driver was telling me a similar flawed logic exists in his profession. Lots of drivers will come out until they make a set amount and go home.

Say that amount is £200 a day. Some days it might take them 8 hours, some days it might take them 16 hours.

If they make £200 in 7 hours, they race home amazed they have done so well and put their feet up. Bad move! If you’ve made it in 7 hours on one day, that is the day to stay out – by 16 hours chances are you’ve made £400.

i was intrigued by this and did some digging around online and it turns out this theory was first put forward by Cornell Professor Robert Frank in his book The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas.

You can read an article based on it here too:
http://www.stockcentral.com/learn/blog/tabid/159/EntryID/40/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Lots of food for thought!

Whilst we’re on the subject of taxis though, I do love my conversations with cab drivers: of course some are full of shit, but amongst my many journeys I’ve spoken to cab drivers who built up multi-million pound businesses and lost it all, others who used to work for the Royal Family and even one who claimed to be the fifth Beatle. To be fair, that last one was a bit odd but he did have a Liverpudlian accent.

In my whimsical way though I do often think it must be interesting to be in a profession where you so often see little intimate snatches of other people’s lives without them really realising they are being observed.

The phone calls overheard by cab drivers, the insecurities and ramblings of couples en route to an event one of them is dreading, the last tense conversations between former cabinet ministers (or even faded 80s pop stars!) and their legal counsel as they head to court to be sentenced: I’m sure there is a book or even a film that could be made about this sort of thing one day. If I was an under cover author I think I’d spend 6 months driving a cab in a kind of George Orwell inspired mission to learn about what really goes on in London.

One for the ideas box, that.

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So this weekend I’m visiting my sister Sarah and her boyfriend Erik in Switzerland. I arrived Sat afternoon into Geneva, caught a train high into the mountains to meet them and have spent an awesome 24 hours in Verbier. 

Verbier is clearly a resort unaffected by the credit crunch.  It’s all a bit sloaney and very very British and American. It reminds me a bit of my Exeter days but with a cast of people 10 years older: think of lots of very middle class (but not necessarily that bright) peeps in turned up rugby shirts drinking wine and talking a bit too loud.   City Bankers with neurotic wives and 1 new born baby.  That sort of thing.   The atmosphere is quite contagious though:  I’ve never done the whole ski holiday thing, and a part of me can’t help feeling I have missed out a bit.   So perhaps another thing to sort this coming year?

Soon we will drive back down to Geneva in time for a drink and a mooch. I fly back tomorrow AM landing  just in time for work. 

 
It’s been great. Mountain air and snow creates an amazing atmosphere and is a total change of scene. Sarah and Erik have been great hosts. It’s enabled me to clear my head, and I know come Monday AM I’m going to be twice as focused as I normally am.

It also reminds me how spoilt we are living in the UK. Talk to someone who’s just moved here from Australia and they can’t understand why we don’t visit Amsterdam, Prague and Italy every other weekend. With Easyjet and short flying times, I think they have a point.

I flew into Geneva which is a flight time of 1hr 20 and my fare was under £100, flying on the very civilised SwissAir from the very civilised London City Airport. Granted I am lucky to have people to stay with on arrival, but in the current climate you can get bargains on accommodation in most European cities so I’m definitely going to be doing more of this sort of thing in the future.

The other side effect of this trip has been that I’ve resolved to learn some form of snow based propulsion. Based purely on how cool/good looking the people at City Airport carrying Snowboards vs skis were I think I need to learn to Snowboard.

So on the to-do list for this week is some investigation into  lessons at the Snow Dome in Milton Keynes, with a view to flying back here soon to try it out for real. Stop laughing at the back, I think Snow Boarding could be my secret hidden sporting talent!

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The whole meeting emphasised to me the importance of objectivity in online projects: no matter how obvious something may be to you, it might not be obvious to a casual web surfer! And a fresh pair of eyes can bring a whole new set of insights. Also data doesn’t lie: never assume – let’s look at what the data says!

Lots of food for thought!

I used to work on the same floor as Catriona, Paul and Marty when we were all part of Brainspark back in the dot com day. Foviance was called The Usability Company then (it has since merged with a few other complimentary companies and grown much bigger in size) but it’s nice to see them and other fellow incubees are still around today doing what they love.

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Recent work stuff includes a social network for the media buying industry lots of filming for BoringStudent plus we are also working on a couple of really nice CMS driven sites, doing updates to some legacy projects and doing some very ace rich media ads and social media bits for a number of clients.

Our headcount is on the up with Greg having just joined, and Giles joining next week. There are also some very interesting new business opportunities on the horizon and we’re also getting into mobile in a big way. As Yazz sang, the only way is up! Although, thinking about it, what ever happened to Yazz? Hmmm – one to ponder there.

For all you techies reading this we’re also mid way through a project to offer increased redunancy on sites we host. We’ve always taken hosting very seriously and have now moved to using a dual datacentre/auto failover at DNS level approach with our most uptime critical sites. We’ve been very impressed with the results so far.

As some of you know all too well, hosting is a favourite pub conversation of mine (along with ticketing systems and plane crashes), so at some point I’ll be writing about virtualisation, cloud computing and lots of related things on this blog. Make sure you book mark the hosting category of this blog to not miss out

In other news I’ve decided that I’m going to move from Islington to Shoreditch: not only will this save me 80 minutes a day in walking time, it will also mean that I’m nearer the office, nearer my gym (yes I am still going!) and I quite fancy living in a new part of town.

Finally as if all this wasn’t enough I’ve also decided that I am going to start reviewing restaurants on this blog. The first review will be this weekend.

Forget Obama. Forget Ross and Bland. Forget Verne falling off his little scooter. This blog is where the excitement is to be found in 2009. Can you bookmark it? YES YOU CAN!

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It’s been a while since I’ve been to a networking event ( DigitalPodge is my only usual exception!) but I really enjoyed it. It reminded me a little bit of the “Clerkenwell Tuesdays” that used to happen around the 2000 dot com boom.

With a leaning towards a sociable drink with fellow members of your profession rather than hardcore business networking OpenSoho reunited me with some friends and contacts I hadn’t seen for a while and also introduced me to some new ones! It’s made me resolve to get out from behind my desk a lot more in 2009.

Boring sponsored this event and also did some filming there, so stay tuned to see the results!

Find out more info about OpenSoho here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=43449196267

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It’s a great boost for the team to see best practice design and usablility being recognised as such!

Read the full review here:
http://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=48&storycode=375951

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