Sound ecomonic advice about decorating from an acknowledged expert

For once I’ll be serious.

At least for a bit. If you own property in London you probably keep a close watch on property price trends. If not you must have nerves of steel.

Latest figures from the ONS suggest a 4.4pc fall in London house prices over the last year (compared to a rise of 1.2pc nationally). Leaving aside whether that’s caused by Brexit uncertainty, Buy-to-Let tax restrictions, simple market correction – or indeed poor decorating work done by my competitors – the fact remains that London is an pricey place to park your bones.

My old schoolteacher used to love a graph, and here’s an interesting one: it shows how many years of honest toil you, dear Londoner, have to put in to own your own patch of earth, compared to some other spots on God’s green:

Now compare that figure of a 4.4pc drop in prices to another statistic: most property magazines estimate that decorating adds between 5% and 10% to the value of your home: Propertypriceadvice website for example put the figure at 10%.

In America they would say “do the Math”, but since we know that Maths never come singly, I’d say “compare the figures”, or possibly “QED” if I were feeling posh.

So if you’re looking at painting and decorating a Fulham house, is it actually costing you less than nothing?

My wife uses this logic on me whenever there’s a Sale on, and I’m sorry to tell you I have never come up with a counter-argument good enough to win the discussion. Any response I do make is countered by a simple “Well, I want it”, and there’s no answer to that.

And that, my friend, is really the conclusion of my sound economic advice. If you want it, go ahead and get it. Get on with enjoying your bright, freshly painted square feet of the most sought-after domestic bliss on the planet.

You can leave the technical stuff to our decorators, every one of them with a world economic theory of their own.

As always, no matter your choice of colour, our mission in life is to do London’s best job of putting it on your walls. Call me on 0208 946 5045 to arrange a quotation.

Best wishes

Geoff Parvin
Have Brush, Will Travel