Property: Real (estate) men on the job

A VIGOROUS debate is raging in the snug bar of the Fount of All Knowledge over allegations that around one quarter of male estate agents use the vacant properties they are selling as a temporary love nest.

The battle lines have been drawn and the warring factions engage in verbal conflict at the snug most evenings. In the blue corner is Pedro who contends that this is just the kind of behaviour you would expect from estate agents. In the red corner is his girlfriend Grumpy Spice who argues that a woman would have to be off her trolley to even think about an affair with an estate agent.

"I don't know if you have noticed," she announced on Friday. "But all male estate agents have circular bruises on their upper bodies. Do you know why?"

We did not.

"Those marks are where women have been prodding them with nine foot barge poles."

It was a cutting if slightly unfair remark but it had the desired effect. Pedro roared off his bar stool, lager foaming at his mouth and launched into an uncharacteristic tirade against his loved one. He accused Grumpy Spice of using the debate to undermine his masculinity. None of us could quite grasp his logic so we busied ourselves with the central issue. Did they or didn't they?

While Pedro and Grumpy Spice slugged it out we reached a consensus. The survey was flawed on several counts.

a) No estate agent ever has the right key for a property he is showing.

b) Normally when they say the vendors aren't in, they are. So when they say a property is empty, it isn't.

c) In the last year there has been no such thing as a vacant or empty property.

d) Most estate agents are incapable of answering a simple question. The notion of them coping with an extensive survey is fanciful.

On these grounds we concluded that the survey was probably incorrect. Our guess was that the boys in the property market had misheard the question. When asked "Have you ever had sex through a vacant position at a client's property?" they heard: "Have you ever had six view a vacant possession at a client's property?"

Now that would explain everything.