Climb the estate agent's spiral staircase of hype

Negative equity, like Toyah Wilcox, is very 1980s. And here's something else that negative equity and Toyah Wilcox have in common. Both have loomed over our search for another house. Curious, or what?

In truth, the spectre of negative equity should not haunt us, although we have taken on board that banks and building societies are restricting what they will lend to people trying to buy in areas that have increased dramatically in value, worried that a similarly dramatic fall will leave borrowers with mortgages bigger than the value of their homes.

The spectre of Toyah, by contrast, haunts us night and day. For, last autumn, we found the family home of our dreams, a Georgian town house with a glorious garden and river frontage, in a ravishing part of the country. We made an offer which was accepted, but when we couldn't sell our Edwardian terrace in North London as quickly as the estate agent had assured us we would – ie "within 48 hours, no probs," followed a week later by "I'm surprised, there seems to have been a sudden downturn" – someone else snapped the place up. And they did not even buy it as a permanent home, merely as an occasional weekend retreat. That was doubly galling. We were inconsolable.

We have since been told that the buyer was you-know-who. Still, we're not bitter. Not all the time, anyway. At least we know she's got fabulous taste. And in our house, anyone who lends her voice to Teletubbies can lay claim to reserves of goodwill that will never evaporate.

Besides, since my informant was an estate agent, there remains the possibility that the information was less than accurate. If nothing else, six months of bombardment with property details has made me an expert in estate agent hyperbole.

"This property offers an excellent degree of versatility," for example, always starts alarm bells ringing. "You will haemorrhage money trying to make this property habitable" might be rather discouraging, I admit, but it would invariably be much nearer the truth.

Don't get me wrong, though. This is not a rant against estate agents. After all, they vie with journalists in those polls to find the people considered least trustworthy, and we vermin have to stick together. Moreover, their attentiveness has turned me into a property particulars junkie, barely able to get through the morning without ingesting yet more details of moulded cornicing, dado rails, decorative architraves, chimney recesses, Belfast sink units and inglenook fireplaces.

And what merriment they have given us, with their odd phrasing and indiscriminate use of capital letters. One house in Suffolk boasted a Norman Spiral staircase; either a spiral staircase dating back to the Normans, or a staircase designed by architect Norman Spiral, we couldn't be quite sure.

Another, in Gloucestershire, was "wonderfully located for access to virtually all points of the compass". It was the "virtually" that intrigued us. What could it mean? Were north, south, east and west within easy reach, but north-north-east a no-no?

If this were a rant against estate agents I would make a serious point here, about them having a duty to their customers, buyers and sellers, to avoid not just misinformation, but also mangled English. At the moment, I might venture, many of them are heinously, complacently, guilty of both.

Instead, this is a celebration, of their art and artfulness. Long may they continue to pad out particulars with eccentric little details, perhaps clumsily phrased, sometimes superfluous, always compelling. For they don't half brighten up these grey mornings. My favourite so far is this: "Crown House has recently undergone an extensive and sympathetic restoration programme, having been occupied previously for 106 years by the niece of Logie Baird."

b.viner@independent.co.uk