People we love to hate
Today we turn our attention to Estate Agents. If you live outside the UK, of course, they’re called Real Estate Agents. Why the need for the prefix “real”, I’ve never understood. Is it to distinguish real estate from virtual estate - whatever that may be? And while we’re on the subject, the word “estate” is pretty misleading in itself. Estate is something associated with opulence and grandeur as in, “You must come down to my estate for the weekend, old boy, for a spot of shooting and fishing”. A grubby cockroach-infested bed-sitting room in a run-down tenement block can hardly be classified as an “estate”!
Maybe we should have done with it and just call them “property pimps”.
As you see, the estate agent has always been a favourite bête noir, whipping-boy and general figure of fun for satirists and cartoonists. Still, you can’t help feeling just a little sorry for them since the “credit crunch” and slump in the housing market took effect. And for the time being, at least, they have been toppled from the leading position of Most Reviled Professions by - you’ve guessed - THE BANKER.
In 1985, when this was done however, estate agents were up there occupying No. 1 position:
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