Money can't buy you a fuck-off mansion with a moat, anymore

City bonuses reach record £19bn, the Guardian tells me.

"Big City bonuses are regularly cited by London estate agents as a key factor pushing up property prices in the capital and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors last week reported that demand from City bankers had helped to push farmland prices to record levels."


Anybody who has ever caught an episode of a program like Location Location Location will have suspected this for some time. Husband and wife with little baby finding their three bed semi with reception room, dining room, and main bedroom with en-suite too cramped, and look to move to an idyllic cottage in the countryside within easy access of motorway and train links to London. Except for what they mean by cottage is a six-bedroomed manor house, complete with twelve acres, outbuildings and a moat. Because two people and a baby need that much space.

What never ceases to amuse me is that these house-hunters never quite have enough money to get what they want. You would expect, I suppose, that £600,000 would buy a house of size and quality, with a lot of land, some outhouses, and good countryside views. But in London's commuter belt £600,000 will buy you imperfection - a house on top of a busy road, bedroom ceilings which require you to stoop, a fourth bedroom that leads off the third. That sort of thing. You need a clear £700,000 to buy your way out of having to pay some sort of house inconvenience penance.

But if I am amused by the fact that just over half a million is not enough to buy yourself out of having to live in London, I am depressed by the fact that what over half a million can buy you does not illicit more joy. Watch these people, as they are taken by the hand of Phil and Kirsty, through stunning houses with huge rooms, containing such fabulous period features as Victorian fire-places, centuries old floor-boards, or original sash-windows and the wealthy couple look as if they're experiencing a wet winter weekend in Blackpool. Walk into a big square kitchen, with flagstone flooring and an aga, and notice how they criticise the colour of the kitchen units or the amount of clutter. Show them the main bedroom with acres of floorspace and views over rolling hills, and watch them wrinkle their noses at the wallpaper that is "not to their taste".

What is the point in having so much money if when viewing your country mansion you act as if you have been shoved into a dilapidated terraced house in Tipton? Surely having lots of money to spend on a fabulous house should mean your mouth aches with smiling all the time. Even if the house you happen to be looking at isn't quite right for you, just being in a position to buy a six-bed farmhouse with paddock and tennis court should make your little rich heart sing with joy. I'd be overwhelmed to fainting entering through the grand entrances of some of these houses, when they can hardly raise a grudging "Hmmm, it's OK."

I can't help thinking that a big problem with these people is that they are buying their house to impress their friends and family as much as to live in. Notice how much they talk about 'entertaining' as they walk around the dwellings, how important the dining room is, or the 'guest room'. They long to show off. I'm sure they see through the eyes of their friends and family, picking up on faults they might pick on, rather than just looking for what pleases them. They think more about the odd dinner party with Ian and Clare from accounts, than they think about how it would be to have breakfast in the kitchen every day.

But then if this was just about living, and not about showing off, they probably wouldn't be hawking out their house-hunting to television programmes. Look at me everybody, look at what I can buy. And see how little joy I exude.