How To Be A Property Developer with Gary McCausland. Photograph: Five
At the end of a hard week watching searing documentaries I like nothing better than a nice property show.
And if I could get a life, I would, believe me - unfortunately I live with two small children in a cul-de-sac in St Leonards-on-Sea (just writing it makes me wonder how the hell that happened) and therefore get many of my kicks from shouting abuse at fools who think they can become "property developers" by spending too much money on a weird house in the wrong part of a town that nobody wants to live in anyway. (And fortunately I have no ambitions to make it in property developing).
Last night saw the return of Five's succinctly titled How To Be A Property Developer, which just might be the best of the genre. Gary McCausland is much ruder than C4's Sarah Beeny, though obviously he doesn't have a killer rack responsible for recruiting more men to the cause of property developing than even the prospect of making piles of cash. And if that's gratuitously sexist, so be it: Beeny's not only a babe but also fabulously good at her job.
Anyway, instead of Beeny's "I think you're making a mistake, but ..." catchphrase, McCausland prefers not to mince his words:
"You have broken every rule! You've overpaid, it's a crappy location and you didn't get a survey ... You're going to lose money on this house!" Gary (known as "Big G" to female wannabe developers, which is nauseating) told Dan and Daniel, of the buff bods, permatans, tight tees and topless Mercedes, when confronted by their ghastly four-storey terrace in the wrong bit of Margate.
It was already a terrible comedown for D'n'D, who lost out on a potential goldmine of a Chelsea studio flat at auction by being, basically, just as dim as they were pretty. Nonetheless, spending £140K on an ugly, charmless dump seemed a premature admission of failure, though they cheerfully admitted buying it because the money was burning a hole in their pocket:
"We're under no illusions we could make a loss ... "e just want to get going!" said a Dan, while viewers high-fived and SkyPlused the next nine weeks of the series, despite the fact that the show's other wannabe-developers, Edinburgh-based Paula and Lyndsey, seem to be doing OK, which obviously makes for rubbish TV.
Some say the TV property genre must be gasping its last, but I disagree. As the property market becomes increasingly over-heated thus the opportunities for schadenfreude-telly are increased. Dan and Dan are the stupidest people to have graced our screens this week, and the only thing stopping us from witnessing a guaranteed financial meltdown is the sadly not to be ruled out possibility that they might yet learn from their mistakes. Thus far, however, I have total faith in Big G's assessment of the situation: "My verdict? A disaster!" Bring it on.
