If I were to believe the pop psychologists, my buying habits are due to SAD (seasonal adjusted disorder).
According to this theory, to give myself a lift, I embark on buying out-of-season, rather like a demented housewife who depends on bouts of RT (retail therapy) to get her through winter's school term , while coping with himself and his moods.
I hold my hand up - I buy at this time of the year, when most people have hunkered down for the winter, postponing property purchase until the light comes over the Easter horizon, enabling them to better see their bank balance - and intended object of desire. New Age gurus aside - and aside is where to leave them - I buy because I have a countryman's nose for a bargain, knowing that properties are cheaper in winter. Looking over my portfolio of 15 years, most of my buying decisions were taken in the autumn, bringing completions in winter. Some tales came to mind. One apartment had been decorated for sale all through the summer months, because the price was above the prevailing market. By November I told the agent I was a serious buyer, at a lower price. It was accepted because, as the agent said, the vendor wants the money for Christmas.
Another property was purchased in November, at a modest discount and without haggle, as the seller wanted to leave the country and start a new life in the New Year. The money from the sale would kick-start her new life in America.
Apart from liking the investment properties, crucial to a purchase is seeing them at their worst in a gloomy Irish winter. If the roof leaks, feel the water dripping now, rather than buying in a dry summer and being surprised by a deluge the following winter. Ditto for lagged - or unlagged pipes - and missing slates, usually out of sight in a gully. In a house viewed in summer, a tilting wall appears quaint and folksy against the lush orchard. In bleak winter it may tilt further into subsidence, as the frost widens the crack - and you calculate the cost of repair to foundations.
Every house or apartment has its hidden defects, more likely to reveal themselves in winter months. In winter you will notice mould growth in window frames, damp patches on exterior walls, faulty down pipes, leaking gutters. In spring, the promise of growth and renewal blinds you with the lure of verdant summer. That optimism - and life cycle - accounts for spring's higher prices, when most buying decisions are made, bringing completion by early summer. But I have learned, also, to sell in winter, on the basis that others like me are out there, willing to take a punt on a bargain. Frankly, a quick sale in winter returns a better profit than months of uncertainty spend haggling, as I could more profitably use that time studying my navel, while hibernating in De Costa. There, of course, I have seen the legendary effects of climate upon buying, as holidaymakers from northern Europe plonk a deposit on a villa after two weeks - where it must be said, it's mild in winter.
Which brings me back, by a circuitous route to the SADs, SYBs YUMMIEs and, ah, UMMs of the world. I will tell it like it is, then you can complain to the editor.
"Yummie, yummie," is what a workman said to a female friend, following her up the stairs as she inspected work on her house and he got a good view of her rear. On leaving, he asked if she were a real YUMMIE (young upwardly mobile mummy). He would love one of those he said, practically salivating. She had the grace - and vanity - to keep her cool, as she is actually a grandmother which makes him a SYB (sad young bastard).
UMMs my favourite, because it applies to another life, when I marched for a variety of lost causes, some of which stayed lost and some which were won. On the pavement recently, I was shouted at by a marcher, doggedly doing his anti-Iraq war protest "Come on, you old leftie, join us!"I could not, because, sadly I am now an UMM (upwardly mobile Marxist).
