A House Is a Fifty-Year Relationship

The transaction takes between four and fourteen months. The ownership takes between fifteen and fifty years. Almost the entire property industry is organised around the former.

Years one to three are straightforward: the house is new to its owner, the systems are under warranty, and the enthusiasm is high. Years four to nine are the plateau. It is years ten to fifteen where properties are either sustained or quietly lost.

This is when the first major plant replacement falls due, when the original staff arrangement reaches its natural end, and when the family circumstances that justified the purchase have frequently changed. We see more properties come back to market in year twelve than in any other year, and the great majority of those sales are avoidable.

Three things, in our experience. A staffing arrangement that survives the departure of any single individual. A maintenance schedule that is written down and funded rather than reactive. And an honest annual conversation about whether the property still fits the life it was bought for.

We conduct that last one formally on every property we manage. Occasionally it results in a sale, which is a legitimate outcome and considerably better than the alternative — a house that is retained out of inertia and deteriorates for four years before anyone admits it.

Partly because clients ask. Mostly because a property we placed and then watched decline reflects on the recommendation we made, and the recommendation is the only thing this house actually sells.