Harper-Thames Decodes the Estate Agent Vocabulary That Has Made ‘Compact’ a Selling Point and ‘Character’ a Warning
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
By Harper-Thames | Shoreditch, East London | prat.uk/author/harper-thames/
The Language of the Listing
Shoreditch flat listings have developed a vocabulary that functions as a code for people who have rented in East London long enough to understand it. I have been here long enough. Allow me to translate. “Characterful” means the building was converted from something that was not residential and the conversion did not address all of the original building’s idiosyncrasies. “Compact” means small. “Bijou” means smaller. “Studio” means “we have included a kitchen in the same room as the bed.” “Open plan” means the kitchen is in the same room as everything else and this is being presented as a design choice rather than a spatial limitation. “Period features” means there are things the landlord did not renovate that they are now calling features, which may or may not be accurate depending on whether exposed Victorian brickwork is genuinely appealing to you or whether it is simply what happens when you do not plaster the walls.
“Close to amenities” means close to Brick Lane market, the coffee shops, and the tube station that the listing does not need to name because anyone renting in Shoreditch already knows which station they mean. “Vibrant neighbourhood” means noisy at weekends, which is accurate and which the person writing the listing and the person reading the listing both understand. “Good transport links” is accurate. The transport links are good. This is one of the listing’s honest statements. “Available immediately” means the previous tenant left faster than expected and the landlord would like to minimise the void period. “Recently refurbished” means the landlord did the minimum required to charge the current market rate. “Well-presented” means clean. “Furnished” means there is a bed and a sofa and possibly a kitchen table that came with the flat and which the landlord will describe on the inventory with a level of detail that does not match its actual condition.
What You Are Actually Getting
What you are getting, if you rent in Shoreditch, is: a flat in a neighbourhood that is genuinely interesting, genuinely well-connected, genuinely full of places to eat and drink and work, and genuinely expensive. The listing’s vocabulary has to contain the price. The price contains all the character descriptions. The character descriptions are how the price is justified. Happy Mother’s Day, Shoreditch housing market. You are compact, characterful, close to amenities, and available immediately at a rate that would have seemed implausible fifteen years ago and that is now simply what it costs to live here. The translation guide is free. The rent is not.
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London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
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