Andrew Miller: The awkward urban dance of ‘home opens’ are not real life

I trot up the steps to another home open, and stand to one side as another couple leave. His sympathetic grimace says “you too eh mate? — my condolences,” then we get confused about who will go through the doorway first. We each make jerky gestures for the other to proceed, then almost collide, finally squeaking through the chicane sideways, chests almost touching. He seemed nice, but what if we just have to have this place, then they snatch our home right out from under us? They are the enemy — we better hurry. Home opens are not real life. We are on a date — the houses suck in their guts, cram their shambolic mess into the cupboards, and pretend every worn and torn surface can still gleam for these few minutes. These houses of cards try to dodge entropy — including kids and pets — for just long enough that someone will sign under all the zeroes, aspiring to some fake, orderly life they cannot lead. These half-hour urban dances are advertised on websites, and with pop-up signs littered about the roundabouts. Real estate agents, like dictators, like to feature themselves in magnified form, beside the roads on billboards. This tactic is based on some old research that suggested we pay longer attention to ads that contain the human face. It does not necessarily mean we react positively to them, as with dictators. There is one agent whose omnipresent visage triggers the sweats each time I drive past their forced smile. The harder I try not to look, the more those crazy eyes draw me in. Agents are professional choreographers — they know too well all the little dances going on. We pay them to reassure all parties that we are getting a great deal. A great deal of debt, quite often. Still, it is much better than negotiating directly. That would be like watching a documentary called “cute animals that your meat comes from.” No-one wants to hear that our world view is wildly unrealistic; agents know how to align our different perspectives while distracting us, like close-up magicians. Those who can afford property — mostly those standing on the windfall appreciation of property already held — have little choice other than owner-occupancy. Renting privately these days is like trying to get into a trendy club on a Friday wearing Velcro sneakers. Prepare to wait in line, then be humiliated. Public housing for low-income earners — one of the healthy safety nets we used to have in our capitalist democracy — is on an ambulance ramp somewhere and unlikely to get seen by the policy doctor any time soon. If we do the guilty maths that our kids have to deal with, it only ruins our feeling of cleverness for having been able to buy at a time when houses typically cost 9 years of average household income, not 16 like they do now. It does all feel vaguely like a giant Ponzi scheme — as if the cops are going to turn up one day and explain that 1.5, 2 and 3 million dollars in the suburbs is not sustainable if wages are not keeping up. Perhaps we should abandon fixed dwellings and convert our cities into landscaped caravan parks. Mobile homes are pretty liveable these days. The Dreamliner has heated floors, Gaggenau appliances, and can bring a small car along. It sleeps six in its expandable bedrooms, and only costs around a million dollars. You’d be lucky to find an abandoned shed in most suburbs for that right now. Sick of the neighbours? Give them a salute then hit the road. All we need is somewhere to park them in the cities — which is not going to happen, so million-dollar sheds it is, until the crash. Close your eyes, sign an offer, and sit out that tense period, waiting to hear if you got the place. Then, start worrying that you will.