The Ledger of Energy and Envy

Few numbers cause more trouble on a street than the price the neighbour got. Word gets around that the house two doors down sold for well above what anyone expected, and suddenly every owner nearby is doing sums about their own place.

The trouble is that the neighbour's number belongs to the neighbour's house. Maybe that stand is bigger, or has the view, or the house was fully redone with plans approved for every change. Maybe the buyer was a family who needed to be near a particular school before the new term and paid for the urgency. Sale prices are recorded at the Deeds Office, but the reasons behind them rarely are, and an owner who copies the number without the reasons is copying half a fact.

Sorting out one's own figures is less exciting and far more useful. The size of the stand, the condition of the roof, which alterations appear on the approved plans, and what houses of this kind have sold for over a reasonable stretch. Those are the lines in the owner's own ledger, and they decide what a buyer's bank will lend.

Admiring the neighbour's sale costs nothing. Pricing a house off it can cost months on the market, and the frustration of watching buyers walk past while that other figure keeps ringing in the owner's head.