Oh wow!

Cruelty to cats I say.
Actually refers to a cat o' nine tails. In other words not that tiny if you think of it.

'Bijou' = no room to swing a cat

Quite right phoenix property means belonging too and there is not much chance of the average house/flat/bungalow belonging to any of the youngsters just starting on the mortgage ladder now is there.

Actually I don't even like the word "property". Why can't it just be a house/flat/bungalow?

A fairly new colleague at work asked me f I lived in an old property, I nearly decked her.

The phrase that always gets me giggling is 'deceptively spacious', which of course actually means not as big as it looks.

But what always amazes me is the way the particpants say they have seen 100 houses before the programme and cant find what they want and fail to realise that that is probably because what they want either doesn't exist or is out of there price range and to be fair to Phil and Kirsty one of their main successes is actually making people realise that they have to compromise and that no house is perfect in every way.

Most us realise this without the assistance of two tv presenters, cameramen and sound recordists.

Why do people always want a party room? Another one that gets me is when they say "just think what it would be like for Christmas" at which point we chorus "a house is for life not just for Christmas".

I watched one yesterday where a poor impoverished couple only had £700000 to spend and were sneering away at a very nice house near Mildenhall. The man said he wouldn't like the planes from the nearby air base as he was very noise sensitive. Once inside this delicate creature whilst sneering at a lovely living room said it was a wonderful place for the parties they like to have - silent ones presumably!

After being in the house selling business most of my working life I often watch the property programmes on day time TV,most of the above expressions above grate with me but the worst is the discription of a sought area and when the camera pans around to show you the view of other homes in the area, you are faced with properties that have never seen a coat of paint for years and and plants or flowers in the frontage are all dead and drooping,cars parked on pavements and rubbish on the streets,so how on earth can these be sort after areas is the presenter blind or something.

OMG these programmes drive me nuts but I still watch them so the phrases I detest are
Ticks all the boxes
I'm not loving it
Light and airy
Spacious rooms
The kitchen is the heart of the home

and instead of as decision

We'd like to go back for a second look
We're going to explore the area a but more
We're going to ask the children what they think

which is all code for thanks for the holiday/couple of nights in a hotel but we had no intentions of going anywhere

Amoung our favourites are the couple who couldn't stand the thought that a plane might fly overhead, the ones who horses could manage a field that had a slope (dont horses go uphill?) and the couple who needed a divorce as they hated everything the other one liked.

And of course "Well I am so pleased we found you something and I think that's a great decision aged 75 to take on 12 acres to breed alpacas / have stables / run a kennels / move to a remote area in a country where you don't speak the language".....

Low-maintenance garden - pocket handkerchief, half covered in slimy decking.

"Hub of the home, good size, living area diningarea etc (instead of room), put your stamp on , love the fireplace/woodburner" (if you are spending £500k+ you could always put one in?) to name but a few more.

Carol
How about - 'Appearances can be deceptive'...

I also like the following quotation -
'We first survey the plot, then draw the model; and then we see the figure of the house, Then we must rate the cost of the erection; Which, if we find outweighs ability,
What do we do then but draw anew the model.
William Shakespeare, Henry 1V, part 11, act 1.

For a revamped old house that had been divided into minute flats - 'thinking outside the box' - in other words, you won't have room to think inside these boxes!!

Of a boring garden: "arranged for ease of maintenance" or "has potential".