There was a research study a few years back into a key period in the life of the TV show Location, Location, Location. Half an hour of mid-morning drift. Hosted by two people whose common quality is they both look as if the minced essence of Wellington boots, the Volvo XC40 and the phrase “picky bits” has been reconstituted into human shapes, then sent out to judge people for buying houses.
The big reveal was always the bit where they came back a year later and saw how much the value had shifted. Because all conversations about houses are, in the end, an excuse to talk about money. Oh wow, it’s gone up by £20,000.
Oh no, you’re now bankrupt and your flat looks like a hostage cell with fairy lights. What the study found was that prices basically always increased. Ripping out the stairs, living in a tent in the garden, arguing about what to do with the two-and-a-halfth bedroom – all of this was irrelevant.
These were the boom times of the early 2000s, UK housing recast as a global money trap, an endlessly whirling laundromat, a bricks and mortar central bank bond. These people could have bought their run-down three-bed, left it empty and done absolutely nothing for two years. The price would have still gone up.
That drama about exactly which shade of Anaconda Breath Morgue And Cakebread Mega-Gloss to use in the underfloor wine cave? And yes, this is a way of talking about the 2026 summer transfer window, and the way in which everyone has basically now been Chelsea-ed. Think back four years to the start of the age of Clearlake, the first post-Roman spree.
At that time it seemed impossible there could be a profitable outcome. Chelsea were out there buying the vintage copper-plate statement bidet. Chelsea were digging out a third sub-basement.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
