Design
I
t all starts in a seemingly harmless manner - a pro-
posal, smiles, happy faces and from there an en-
gagement party featuring good food, love melodies
and champagne. Once the party is over, the cou-
ple sit over and start musing about the future. Plans of
wedding, career, future … and home. A plan is laid out
and the couple, having lived in a large, comfortable home
with their parents throughout their lifetime began iden-
tifying their ‘basic’ needs. So they set out their list: Re-
quired - a detached house, 3 bedrooms all with en suite, a
fully equipped industrial kitchen, living quarters to offer
space for a 72-inch, 3D, curved UHD television set, and
a large yard with a mini garden. Desired - a lounge area,
a BBQ area, a 5-car garage for parking of vehicles, stor-
age and the opportunity to carry out basic repair work
on cars and other vehicles. The couple start to scour the
internet and property publications. They ‘like’ and ‘fol-
low’ pages on the social media. They start leafing through
the property magazines they receive at home, which until
then they would have used for cut-outs for their younger
siblings’ school projects and assignments. All this leads
to a strange foreboding as they suddenly come to realise
that the property market is in fact flooded by apartments,
miniscule compared to their parents’ residences and at
prices for which they would expect something akin to the
value of the Palace in Sweet Verona.
The couple are close to engaging in panic mode and so
an estate agent is ushered in. A number of calls later they
get to meet a smart gentleman dressed with shirt, upmar-
ket tie and suit. The agent typically presents the ground-
ed advice of confirming what the bank would be ready
to issue as a loan for the property they are looking for
before proceeding any further. The agent is summarily
dismissed - after all he was called in to present property
and not to shatter dreams! While the couple responds
disgruntledly to the first agent, after the second and
third attempt at different real estate franchises present-
ing the same response they realise that this might in fact
be a step to be taken.
The agent, after having shattered unrealistic expectations, is often summarily dismissed
and replaced by the dismayed prospective buyer.
DESIGN&BUILD
Q 2 , 2017
39