“First, I’d like to get the confession out of the way. I’m an estate agent. As the rain lashes against the office window and the phones remain mute I can almost feel the waves of antipathy rolling my way …”

So begins an amusingly downbeat piece in last Sunday’s Observer by an unnamed estate agent who also writes a sharp, literate and very engaging blog called Agents Diary.

The anonymous author pitches himself as a put upon forty-something bloke hassled by a wife and kids at home, and “plagued by the cretinous idiots who I work with and for” – if it ever hits the screens Jack Dee is a shoe-in.

The SA has a nice line in self-deprecation and a sharp eye for human folly. His pen portraits of the people he works with are unflinching and often hilarious … if his cover is ever blown I fear they may drive a sharpened For Sale sign through his weary heart.

Let’s hope not – here at Winging It we’d miss his angsty reflections on life, work and the vagaries of the housing market:

“Have you looked at your crotch recently?” asks my wife disconcertingly, over the dusty bran flakes. The choice of possible retorts is virtually endless and with my mind racing out of control, I only end up spluttering out a milky request for clarification.

“The material’s gone again,” she enlightens, as youngest son shudders in horror and scuttles to the bathroom, while I inspect my threadbare nether regions.

“That’s hardly going to help win you any business,” she says with a shake of her head as she scoops up the breakfast bowls, “showing people the colour of your underpants.’

“You’d be surprised,” I tell her defensively and totally erroneously, as I grumble my way upstairs to change my suit.”

As a metaphor for the current state of the market and one man’s mid-life crisis, this could hardly be bettered.

Secret Agent: we salute you!

Are you a financier who raked in a multi-million dollar fortune during the boom?

Bored with your world class art collection, your international portfolio of prime properties, your string of thoroughbred Polo ponies?

Looking for an interesting way to spend some of the $350m you amassed during the wonder years?

Well step forward, my much misunderstood Master of the Universe, and allow me to introduce you to the mighty Phoenix 1000 Luxury Submarine, a 213-foot extravaganza that runs to 5,000 square feet of turbo-charged underwater excess.

The price tag is a suitably insane $78m, and the specifications – across all four floors - are so decadently outrageous that they’d put Caligula to shame (”rich fabrics, beautiful woods and replete with the finest leathers.”)

Of course, for a man such as yourself, an investment of this magnitude is not be entered into rashly and without due diligence (as if!)

So to help you make a decision, here are some points to mull over:

The pros:

• Yachts? Pah! In the mega rich game of one-upmanship the largest private undersea vehicle ever built trumps the lot!
• Dive below the waves when the weather turns choppy; leave the paparazzi floundering in your wake as you sink without trace
• Laugh in the face of Somali pirates, who’ll need a bloody big oxygen tank and frankly enormous flippers to chase you in this.

The cons:

• Das Boot, The Hunt for Red October, K-19: The Widowmaker
• Kinda makes you look like a Bond villain
• Giant octopus! Giant octopus!

Personally, I think you should go for it - and not just because the the folks over at US Submarines pay $50,000 to anyone who refers a suitable buyer (honest!)

A recent photo-feature in the NY Daily News focused on 15 Central Park West, an extremely exclusive residential block overlooking the park.

It does look quite magnificent, in that ultra-swanky, elegant way that New York skyscrapers possess despite their magnitude.

But I’m more captivated by the residents of 15 CPW.  Well, one current resident, one wannabe, and a neighbour.

Sting has an apartment there.  Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, better known as A-Rod, is looking to buy one.  And Madonna has a place a couple of doors down the road.

You’ll recall that it was Sting and his Wife Trudie Styler (to use her full title) who engineered the meeting of Madonna and Guy Ritchie.

Well, it turns out that Sting was also responsible for introducing Mads and A-Rod. Both of whom have subsequently separated from their spouses - amid many rumours that Madonna was cited in his divorce.

And now, apparently, they both just happen to share an appreciation of the same New York neighbourhood.  Hmmm…all very suspicious…

The housing market has had a torrid time of it this year, but how will it fare in 2009?

Will prices keep falling? And how long for? Will rate cuts boost transaction levels?

Click the link below to let us know your housing market predictions for 2009:

What Will Happen To The Housing Market In 2009?

Cats definitely have the marmite factor. Depending on your experience with them they’re either a) adorable bundles of fur or b) hairy evil monsters.

I tend to sway towards b), especially following I’m going to climb up your legs even though I can see you’re wearing shorts and I’m going to bat you mercilessly about the head and sit on your face until you wake up episodes.

I’ll admit that in some circles the second option is not a bad thing. In fact some people even pay good money for it, but swiftly moving on…

I know I’m not alone in this mistrust of cats but equally acknowledge that there are armies of feline lovers out there just waiting to leap to their beloved moggy’s defence.

But I think both camps can agree that the following cartoons from Matthew Inman contain more than a nugget of truth:

“How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you”

There are more cat truths on Matthew’s website ‘How To Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You‘, including a very helpful quiz (the results of which let me know that there is a 96% chance that my cat is trying to kill me).

The irony is that cats would be ruling the earth by now were it not for the fact that whilst they’re evil, they’re also very, very, lazy.

Poor old Phil Spencer. It turns out that even he’s been a victim of the all-encompassing credit crunch, and has been forced to downscale his property business empire. Poor lamb.

Okay, that’s maybe a bit harsh.  And I actually really like Phil. There’s something very endearing about him, I think.

But is it cynical of me to wonder if there’s a wee connection between this news about his business and the much-hyped future edition of Location, Location, Location?

Y’know, the super-dooper, extra-special episode that’s going to look at people facing negative equity and buying in the post-credit crunch housing market (because we all still really want to take advice from TV presenters, don’t we?)

I can just picture a scene in which a moist-eyed, quivery-voiced Phil emotes about having been “personally affected” by the downturn and how he can “totally empathise” with whatever poor souls they’ve persuaded to appear.

There’ll be sombre background music featuring a mournful violin; the subtle passing around of man-sized Kleenex; and a climactic, emotionally charged group hug to close.

I swear if anything like that happens, I’m going to have to end my TV affair with Mr Spencer…

You may like your toast quite well-browned, or even slightly burned; but for really, really DARK toast you need one of these bad boys - a Darth Vader Toaster…

And in the interests of keeping the balance of the Force, we move away from the Dark Side to something that’s lighter than errr, a lightsaber and cuter than a baby Ewok, it’s … A Hello Kitty Toaster!

Both only available in America, natch.

The Bank of England has cut interest rates by an unprecedented 1.5 per cent.

The reaction from housing market professionals to the interest rate cut has been both surprise and delight - though there is concern that lenders will not pass the cut onto consumers.

Will the rate cut be enough to encourage buyers back to the market and stop house prices from falling?

Please vote!

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I know, you’re all probably sick of the whole US Presidential election. But rejoice readers; it’s all over now! And we couldn’t let it pass without some tenuous property-related blog now could we?

So even as Barack Obama is chasing George Bush around the grounds of the White House shouting “get orf moi laaaaand”, here are few ‘alternative’ white houses currently for sale, should you wish to live out any Presidential fantasies (or maybe if you just like white houses).

The White House, Westover Road, Milford On Sea, Lymington, Hampshire

The White House, Much Cowarne, Herefordshire

The White House, Rectory Lane, Thurcaston, Leicestershire

The Old White House, Dedswell Drive, West Clandon, Surrey

And I did look for ‘Barracks for Sale’, I really did. Sadly there were none. Boo.

Read a piece by Merryn Somerset Webb, the Editor of Money Week, a few weeks ago and meant to reply.

MSW gave Graham Norwood a bit of a clip round the ear for suggesting that the slump in house-building was sowing the seeds for the next house price boom.

“This is all total complete and utter nonsense,” wrote an exasperated MSW.

“If there weren’t enough houses in the UK, why would Paddington Basin – home to hundreds of new-build flats – be pitch black at night? Why would the centres of Leeds and Manchester be jammed with empty and utterly unlettable, let alone unsaleable flats?

“The Empty Homes Agency estimates that there are more than 840,000 empty homes in Britain. That’s almost four per cent of our total housing stock. So there’s no shortage of houses here.”

I have two responses to this argument:

1. You’ll notice the crucial slippage from ‘houses’ to ‘new-build city centre flats’ … not the same MSW, not the same at all.

2. Halifax has just published a report based on Empty Homes Agency stats. It reveals that:

• 17 local authorities have a proportion of empty homes that is at least twice the national average
• All seventeen English LAs with the highest proportion of empty private homes are in the North of England with nine in the North West.
• Fifteen of the 17 LAs with the highest proportions of empty private homes are amongst the 20 per cent most deprived areas in England, according to the CLG’s 2007 Indices of Deprivation.

My point? Very simple: if we’re going to debate the issue of housing supply we need to consider property type, location, economic performance of an area, demographic trends and government planning policy.

In absolute terms there may well be lots of properties out there, but what we need is the right (and habitable) property types in the right places.

When MSW packs her bags and moves to a deprived northern borough I’ll be a bit more willing to take her arguments seriously …