Any resi landlords out there struggling to let your property? Buy-to-let lender Landbay has been in touch with an up-to-date wants list from potential tenants – and the headline is, you need to open your doors to dogs and cats.
To be honest, Diary’s main takeaway from the numbers is that there are a wide number of factors at play in any tenant’s decision, and there’s no foolproof way to maximise appeal: in short, you can’t please ’em all. But, since Landbay went to the trouble, here are the figures.
A pet-friendly home is the most desirable attribute in rental property, with 14% (that is not quite one in seven) putting it top – albeit folks in the North East really love their (Auf Wiedersehen) pets (there, the share rises to 27%). Londoners are clearly animal haters, as only 2% named pets as number one. Other fairly desirables include unfurnished properties (12%) and access to a garden (11%). Bottom of the pile, with 1% each, are king-size beds, balconies, dryers and dishwashers.
Lydon’s career crossroad
Diary has never played lacrosse, though one or two of its colleagues from posher schools have – with opinions divided on the joys of oiling lethal wooden sticks and hurling backbreaker balls at opponents. But, in their tales of “guts and glory” and broken arms, they don’t mention the sport as a route into real estate.
Such an idea might seem a bit out of left field (does lacrosse have left field?), but not to Knight Frank, which has hired the head coach of the England men’s lacrosse team. Steven Lydon is undoubtedly slick with a stick, and his prowess apparently makes him perfectly suited to the agency’s “flexible office solutions business”.
Team head Amanda Li was full of praise for Lydon’s “entirely unique perspective”, gushing that his career as a professional sportsman will be “highly valued by businesses looking to find a workplace that offers a compelling work-life balance, and of course great sports and leisure facilities.” Diary knows our journalists are bored of writing about offices with gyms, solar panels and terraces and hopes that Lydon starts rolling out lacrosse fields to transform the landscape.
There’s no escaping it…
One of the major real estate success stories of the last few years is the rise of the escape room. Yes, they have really taken off… so much so that now you can even do one on an actual plane. Albeit one that stays grounded throughout.
The Riddle Within has launched (but, again, not actually launched) Flight 338 at the Greenwich club venue Studio 338, where a “real decommissioned jet plane” has been shipped in to offer a “thrilling experience perfect for families, team bonding and fun with friends”. The immersive storyline sees participants don prison garments and handcuffs, before boarding the plane – and plotting their escape. Diary is slightly more uneasy about the second new “experience” at the venue – Chernobyl: 10 Seconds to Midnight.
Inspired by the highly successful HBO drama Chernobyl, groups are set puzzles to solve in a bid to prevent meltdown. Something, lest we forget, people laid down their lives in an effort to do back in 1986. Tragedy + time = an escape room?
Put on the red light
Shock news this week as Worcestershire County Council took the unprecedented step of trumpeting a new red-light district in its area. Diary was on the verge of being scandalised when it read comments from councillor Ken Pollock on how the authority has seen fit to “adapt the usual standards to better suit the local environment” and provide a facility that “will very much benefit those traveling between the city centre and the business park”.
Outrage! But wait, we have jumped to conclusions. These red lights are to facilitate night-time activity, but not that kind. No, this is all in the aid of… bats. Apparently, standard street lights can affect a bat’s flight, while new LED ones, which glow red, will provide a 60m-wide, bat-friendly crossing over the A4440, near to Warndon Wood nature reserve.
Nevertheless, Diary very much hopes the big switch on was carried out by someone named Roxanne…
Minimalism to the max
Minimalism – it’s not for everyone. Example: for architecture and design magazine Dezeen, John Pawson paring back a Barbican apartment to an open-plan “state of emptiness” is something to be celebrated.
But “ido” on Twitter, well, his take is slightly different: “do YOU have the money to buy a four-bed flat and turn it into a one-bed? are YOU tasteless enough to want it to look like a dentist’s waiting room? boy do i have the listing for you.” Which has prompted his followers to weigh in, mostly making American Psycho jokes.
To be honest, Diary can appreciate the stunning aesthetic – but there’s one line in Dezeen’s write-up ripe for mockery: “A Buddha figurine is displayed on a chunky marble plinth in the corner of the room, one of five personal items that the clients wanted to spotlight in their home.” Just five? That is an approach to decluttering that makes Marie Kondo look like a hoarder.
