How would you feel about renting a flat from Google or Apple?

That may be on the cards if the property industry succeeds in convincing the Government to back the introduction of build-to-let schemes in the UK.

Build-to-let encourages big business to buy whole blocks and rent them out as branded accommodation.

So instead of paying your rent to Bob the part-time buy-to-let landlord, you’ll hand over your hard-earned coin to “Google or Virgin style brands”.

The advocates – including what one commentator has called “an unlikely and unholy alliance” of Shelter and The British Property Federation – argue that tenants will be the real winners (there’s a discussion of the subject here: Today Programme – Feb 08).

The quality of the property, they say, will be more predictable; you won’t get slung out onto the street if your landlord can’t pay the mortgage; leases will be longer than six months; and your leaky tap will get fixed pronto … though it might also mean this…

I can see the sense in that – pretty much everyone who’s searched for a good rental property has a horror story about some sweaty bloke in a string vest showing them round a rancid basement with chanterelles sprouting from the lino.

But on the other side of the coin, I’m not so sure I’d want to live in a branded block populated exclusively by tenants.

I currently rent a period conversion in an area with an interesting mix of people – some renting, some owner-occupiers – and my landlord is a decent bloke who sorts out problems quickly and leaves me pretty much to get on with it.

True, the sash windows rattle, the boiler, for some mad reason, is in the wardrobe, and the washing machine sounds like a 747.

But would I swap it for a flat in a branded building? I don’t think so (there are enough Apple zealots here at FAP Towers … not sure I could handle a building full of them!)

The Government isn’t convinced either, but they’re currently considering it as part of a major review of the Private Rental Sector (due in October).

It will be interesting to see what they come up with … but in the meantime:

Landlords and tenants: what do you think about build-to-let, and how could the rental sector be improved? (Comment link below).

Bit of a domestic drama the other day. Keen to make the most of the recent sunshine, I’d rushed straight home from work to enjoy the last of the evening rays on the roof terrace.

My cat, a pampered puss who spends most of her time indoors – quite contentedly, I might add, being a Persian and therefore not really inclined to slum it outside – decided, on this occasion, to join me.

Happy as Larry she was, prostrate on the cool ground, with the added bonus of two pigeons prancing around in an avian mating ritual on a nearby roof as if performing some private show in honour of her outdoors appearance.

All was well with the world until the sun began to set and it was suddenly very chilly; but with the birds still in full flow, there was no shifting my cat.

Yes, yes, I know I could have picked her up and physically taken her back inside but that’s not how our relationship works, you understand.

So I left her to it while I went inside, leaving the door open for when she’d had her fill of voyeurism. Or so I thought.

Fast forwards a couple of hours, with me thinking, “Wow, Mouse is really enjoying being outside tonight, how lovely!” until, finally, I ventured back up and heard the most plaintive wailing coming from behind the – firmly shut – door.

Oh, the guilt! The accusatory yet simultaneously woeful looks. Followed, of course, by the sulks…

Happily, I’ve found a solution should a similar catastrophe re-occur – not that it ever, ever will, clearly – which reminds me of a mini-me, feline version of Gareth’s trendy MyHabs (‘Cardboard Chic‘ below).

It’s called a KatKabin and it comes in a range of colours like Starlet Red, Breathless Blue and Divine Purple that should please even the most particular of pussycats; and, just like the human version, it can be recycled.

There’s an Indoors and an Outdoors model, and a range of Jungle-themed designs such as Tiger and Cheetah – although I think that might scare the bejeezus out of my already neurotic little kitty.

So instead, I’m going to plump for the Premium Pampered Cat Combination in Black and Pink Sparkles, complete with a cat cushion and winter warmer. Mug, moi?!

I’ve been a big fan of Tom Waits for many years so I’m delighted to hear that he’s just announced a European tour.

What, I hear you ask, has this got to do with property?

Nothing at all aside from the fact that Waits is the author of the most hilariously macabre song/recitation on weird neighbours that I’ve ever heard.

If the folks next door are freaking you out, ‘What’s He Building In There?’ will definitely strike a dissonant fag-scarred chord …

Think you can top this for neighbourly weirdness? Dish the dirt using the Comments link below.

I’ve read some pretty odd stuff about the housing market but I’ve yet to come across anything as entertainingly off-the-wall as the suggestion that first-time buyers should welcome the eco-apocalypse.

This, at any rate, is the reasoning of “three young couples in London, England, planning to buy our first homes.”

The couples (above) run a website called FirstHomeBuyer which includes a page on drought titled: “The Environment Could Help Home Buyers”.

The argument runs thus: The South of England has a drought problem. It also has a lot of people. If population levels continue to rise and the droughts worsen, water companies will be forced to turn off the taps:

“People will have to use buckets to collect water from tanks or trucks in their street and immigrants will choose to live and work in other countries with better water supplies.”

Meanwhile, back in a semi-tropical Acacia Avenue many residents – presumably weary of the breakdown in queuing etiquette at the standpipe – will migrate North like a herd of wildebeest in search of a watering hole.

It’s at this point, surrounded by scorched earth, warring neighbours and a jungle of vegetation sprouting in the cracked pavements, that FTBs will fall to their knees and rejoice.

Why? Because fewer immigrants and the exodus northwards mean demand will fall in southern England and house prices will crash:

“The above factors, combined with the stress of fighting with neighbours to fill a bucket of water every day, will create the mood for a property crash.”

True, if all of this comes about Clapham Common will probably look like the Mojave, and, yes, the planet will be one step closer to extinction … but hey, look on the bright side: you’ll have a really nice tan and a three-bed semi will be much more affordable!

Now there’s an inconvenient truth that Al Gore forgot to mention.

Next week: why FTBs should look forward to a plague of locusts.

When April departs with its sweet showers and the sun once more shines through, then folk longingly look towards the festival season.

They dream of blissful days lounging in tents under an azure sky with the thump thump thump of a distant sound system calling them to wave their arms in the air (like they just don’t care).

But then the ‘Great British Summer’ steps in and spoils everything.

And so, the aftermath of most festivals in the UK is Somme-like fields of mud and detritus, with abandoned, rain-soaked and sagging tents left behind like the remains of a routed army camp. A wasteland of multicoloured nylon, fit only for the landfills.

One student saw all this and was sorely vexed, saying “why oh why can there not be an alternative?” and thus MyHab was born – the green alternative to disposable tents.

Looking at it the cynics amongst us will point out that really it is just an oversized, waterproof cardboard box. True, but it’s a trendy, eco, cardboard box, with customisable logos; and its green credentials are worn proudly on its sleeve.

Made from recycled materials it can – following a weekend of abuse from cider swilling festival funsters – be recycled once again to make other stuff, like even more MyHabs. Nice.

The downside? It’s £240 quid to hire for the weekend, so more for the Kath Kidston wellie wearing brigade rather than your average punter who’ll probably nip over to Argos and buy a camping kit for £20. But still, I applaud MyHab’s intentions.

Ah, the depths we have to sink to in the name of journalism. I found myself scouring a list of dubiously talented females the other day having been told that Location Location Location’s very own Kirstie Allsopp had polled in FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women.

Admittedly, Kirstie had managed to tack herself onto the lower portion of the list (number 91), but what an achievement considering the perma-orange z-list celebs she was up against.

Also, kudos must surely be given to the fact she beat out the likes of pop princess and international treasure Kylie Minogue (number 93) and Britain’s favourite export (sorry America) Victoria Beckham (number 98).

I myself am a fan of Kirstie’s no-nonsense style, particularly the way she can dismiss interior walls with a flick of her finely manicured hand. But does this really pass as sexy in the world of testosterone-driven lads’ magazines?

A not-so-scientific survey of some of the blokes at FAP Towers reveals that the general consensus is one of bemusement as to how Ms Allsopp’s curvaceous figure and rounded vowels had managed to work their way into the male psyche.

Really? Posh, curves, and killer heels, and they’re still not getting it?

But I did discover a partisan group of Sarah Beeny devotees, unperturbed by her eternally pregnant state or inability to dissuade those first-time developers from dry-lining over their original 18th century masonry.

And so, still giddy from the newfound joys of objectifying others, I started wondering how a list of exclusive hot property crumpet would shape up.

Where would Kirstie’s wingman Phil I’ve-a-sly-smile-and-a-twinkle-in-my-eye Spencer rank? Or Kevin rough-yet-refined McCloud?

What about Selling Houses’ Andrew Winter or A Place In The Sun’s Amanda Lamb? Or are they more b-list Cheeky Girls to Kirstie and Phil’s Girls Aloud?

Your thoughts please on this matter of national importance … use the Comments link below.

I’m mightily impressed by Barratt’s latest marketing wheeze – free beer for all people coming to view the showhouses at their Hawthorns development in Witham.

I like beer. I like it enormously. I like houses, too. So this is the kind of imaginative marketing I can really relate to.

If I was a bit closer to Witham I’d be implementing the following plan of action: turn up (in taxi); take a gander round the house; position self close to beer-dispensing person; proceed to sup fill of “specialist beers from around the world”.

There may, however, be a slight flaw in Barratt’s otherwise ingenious plan: the beer tasting will be held from 12 noon to 5pm.

That’s five whole hours of beer interspersed with the occasional bit of house viewing.

I worry that come 3pm it could all start to go downhill: grandparents wandering around the garden bladdered; defiant divorcees singing “I Will Survive” into the shower head; quiet men in the kitchen trying to make bacon sandwiches…

Barratt might also come in for a bit of flak from the Health & Safety brigade, though Rebecca Littler, sales and marketing director for Barratt Eastern Counties, assures us that the beer is not the main event:

“We want to show people interested in buying a home just how much help Barratt can give them, whatever their circumstances.

“We can pay their deposit, or sell an existing home, or even help with mortgage repayments for the first two years. It’s really worth coming along to The Hawthorns to find out more.”

I hear you Rebecca, really, I do, and if naysayers, or wine-drinkers, complain, I’d point them towards the website of The Beer Academy, the people organising the tasting.

This delivers some startling facts about beer … such as …

• Beer is packed with many of the nutrients the body needs for a healthy diet. In the old days it gained the accolade ‘liquid bread’.
• We know that cereals are good for us, beer is made from cereals, but we often fail to make the healthy connection.
• Unlike other alcoholic drinks it is chock full of vitamins and minerals.
• A litre of beer will supply ten per cent of your daily protein needs, wine has none. It has absolutely no cholesterol or fat and has useful quantities of soluble fibre.

There you go: beer, it’s practically a health food. Knock back ten litres and your daily protein needs are sorted!

More about The Hawthorns, Witham.

The guv’nor and ‘is bird

We’re not talking Alanis Morrisette “rain on your wedding day” irony here, we’re talking actual, implying-the-opposite-of-what-is-the-case kind of irony – the kind that has you scratching your head like an evolutionary throwback while emitting a series of bewildered guttural croaks.

The cause of my confusion, bordering upon chagrin, stems from Guy Ritchie’s recent rant to Empire Magazine about the state of London house prices.

The successful (?) British film-maker and all-round cockney geezer (born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire) decided he was well within his rights to have a moan about bloody foreigners buying up bricks and mortar and making it impossible for the great British working class to afford anything.

Or something like that. Here’s an actual quote:

“House prices don’t go down, they just go up.

“The natives of England are sort of being left behind because the big money came in and if it wanted something it bought it and made a bigger fortune doing so.

“And as anyone who has tried to buy a house in Central London knows, it’s almost impossible to do so unless you have ten million quid.”

Good thing for Mr. Ritchie then that he does have the aforementioned millions to purchase a decent home for his growing family and multi-platinum selling global superstar millionairess American wife.

The couple are rumoured to own five properties in the Capital alone, including a £7 million pad in Marylebone and the 10 bed house next door (a steal at £6 million) as well as a couple of mews cottages nearby.

Would it be entirely cynical to suggest that Ritchie is using house price frustration to garner a little publicity for his latest flick, RocknRolla?

This, apparently, centres on some Russian gangsters and a dodgy property deal gone wrong in old Laandan Taahn.

There’s no word yet on whether they are the kind of “Russian oligarchs” that are bringing in their “new money” and “doubling the price on everything.”

Here’s hoping geezer Guy’s wayward words don’t land him on any mobster hitlists come release. Although if I were him, I’d be more afraid of all those first-time buyers gathering around his door…

To get the full-on mockney effect of this article, you can translate it into geezer-speak here

A report this week from Mysupermarket.co.uk says that the average UK food bill has increased by 15 per cent a week since 2007, equating to almost £800 extra a year.

Strewth! That’s a lot of money just on stuff to eat, especially in the current climate of credit crunches, panic over house prices, and rising fuel bills.

Yet, despite most of the country’s households being on a financial diet, two epicurean ‘delights’ have been launched during the last few weeks, both retailing at exorbitant prices.

First up, an exclusive department store in Chelsea – where else? – announced the introduction of a £50 espresso. It costs this much, apparently, because of the harvesting method involved in concocting it.

Here’s a pared down version of the process: a very rare coffee bean is consumed – and then passed out – by some obscure cat-like creature in the wilds of Indonesia, before somehow being combined with yet another particularly rare coffee bean.

My initial – and quite normal, I imagine – view is that anyone daft enough to spend that much money on a drink that comes in something akin to a doll’s cup absolutely deserves to be downing a blend of cat’s pooh.

But, praise be, it seems there’s more to this beverage than a money-making gimmick: the costly coffee will only be on sale for a limited time with the proceeds going to charity. Well, that’s the current claim, at any rate.

Even more ludicrous was this week’s news that Burger King is launching an £85 burger. Burger King!

Of course, this super-duper-deluxe version of the meat favourite – which will feature foie gras and some variety of ‘rare’ cheese – will only be available in selected locations – and, naturally, good old Chelsea makes an appearance here, too.

That said, it’s probably a wise move to pick the place carefully; I can’t see BK attempting that particular marketing strategy in my home town of Paisley. Not if they were planning on keeping hold of their windows, anyway.

But really: nearly £100 for a slab of meat and a slice of cheese in a bun, when most of us are struggling against rising costs – the world’s surely gone mad.

Given the current fragile state of the housing market it seems some people are looking for an alternative to the traditional bricks and mortar abode.

My brother, for example, has just bought himself a narrowboat. It’s lovely: the epitome of compact and bijou and best of all, it’s mobile.

Well, mostly mobile – I got a text off him yesterday saying he’d run aground (and that the cat had fallen into the canal).

Quite how you run aground in a canal is a mystery to me. Still, I’m insanely jealous of his new found freedom and it got me thinking about balloons.

Bear with me, this is a winner. My idea is to buy a bloody great big hot-air balloon, sling an ecopod underneath and away I go.

I shall live an itinerant lifestyle, drifting wherever the wind takes me. I shall gaze down at the lowly earth dwellers as I drift along. Life will be a breeze!

No rent, no council tax, and absolutely 100 per cent safe from flooding – even more so than my brother’s beached boat.