Road Diary.

Just two years after the banking crisis threatened a “property ice age” London house prices are on the verge of hitting all-time highs which is exciting news for all London home owners

Property prices across most of the capital have sprung back from the recessionary slump astonishingly swiftly and are certainly still rising, according to London agents.

The average is now three per cent off the all-time high of £352,869 recorded by the Land Registry in January 2008.

Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Camden, average property prices are already above their highest peaks and in some of London’s other boroughs, Islington and Hammersmith & Fulham, are just a few pounds adrift.

This can only be good for the removal industry within central London.  White Van Gentlemen are excited at the prospect of the increase number of customers needing a Man and Van Chelsea or even a Chelsea Removal Company.  With the prices rising, the number of properties coming on sale seems to sky rocket especially with the Spring coming up.

Estate Agents claim more rises of five to 10% can be expected this year. In Kensington and Chelsea an increase of 10% would see the average price top the £1 million marker for the first time ever.

For all your Fulham Removals and Kensington Removal needs please do be in touch.

With Spring nearing and the property market stabling – Is it time to move on and find another home?

Here at White Van Gentlemen, we have some tips to maximise your selling potential.

•    Basic DIY – Often after living in your property for a few years you become blinded to what improvements need done.  We advise you turn your property from shabby to chic, and this can be done on a total budget.  Painting all the rooms, changing the bathrooms and re laying the carpets are all viable options.   Just ensure you don’t spend more than the value you are adding to the property

•    Attracting a Sale – Small changes can really make a difference.  A complete spring clean of your property is a good start but also mowing the lawn and cleaning the outside of the windows helps the cause.  Don’t forget – There’s no second chance for the first impression, make it a good one!

•    Choosing the Right Agent – You are in their hands so be sure to choose the right one.  Often sellers think their property is worth a lot more than the market value so be sure to scour the market and see what other properties are achieving.  Just be careful when authorising an agent, always get a second view.

If you’re thinking of moving and need a removals company – try White Van Gentlemen for a professional, polite and punctual removal company

A guide to polite motoring in modern day Britain.

Debrett’s has recently published a book, the title being: A guide to polite motoring in modern day Britain.

Suggestions such as, men never making cliché jokes about female drivers and women avoiding spraying perfume while in the car are both included. We would like to think at WVG that none of our gentlemen would be spraying perfume around (apart from Adam) and that no cliché jokes of any sort are ever made…

Looks like we were ahead of the times by living up to our White Van Gentlemen name and being at the forefront of re inventing how people view the ‘white van man’.

For the White Van Gentlemen Christmas party this year we headed down to London Bridge to have a go at the medieval art of archery. Having had no previous experience in the sport competative spirits were extremely high, even though it seemed obvious from early practices that we had a gifted Philipino in our midst… It was thought that he mighthave been practiced in traditional Longbow values back home, until we were quickly reminded by Gareth that the Longbow in fact originated in England.

After our practice and warm up we began the competition. We were given three arrows each to shoot at the target over five rounds, highest score wins. All was at stake with a bright Gold plastic medal for all the three top scores. The result of the tournament was somewhat dubious as despite the evenly spread experience (zero), the two directors still managed to take 1st and 3rd. For some reason we suspect that prior practice sessions were taken!

This week WVG ventured across the channel to deliver some items to the French Capital. Our driver had a few spare minutes to check out some of the sites (on his time, not our clients)

I’m not sure which structure is more impressive, our Ford Transit or the Eiffel Tower?

You may remember our extremely cold and snowy winter last year… well I was rooting through a few old photographs that the guys had taken over the past 12 months and found one of our Transit Van surrounded by some large snow drifts on the Yorkshire Moors. It reminded me of the phone call I had with a lady when booking this job in… The weather reports really were bad in the North of England at the time and I recall her telling me that it was imperative that this delivery went ahead (as it was for an extremely important client of hers). I’m not lying by saying that she told me that we needed to drive until we got stuck. It didn’t stop there, she not only asked that our guys should go armed with shovels to dig themselves out if necessary but also carry blankets on board in case they could get no further!

On a journey reminiscent of Scott’s polar expedition our fine gentlemen not only fought off the gruelling conditions but also ensured another on time delivery.

After much deliberation about whom the best driver at White Van Gentlemen is, it was time to settle the matter by hitting Streatham Raceway for a full throttle Go Kart Grand Prix.

Having been kitted out in our overalls and helmets and performed our qualifying laps, we found ourselves on the grid revving our engines ready for the lights to go out… We were off! And only made it about fifteen metres before every one of our eight carts were involved in a monstrous pile up.

Not a great start. However we got this out of our systems early on and spent the next half an hour battling it out for the prestigious title of WVG champion.

In the end Adam (our very own Robert Kubica) came through triumphant, and I doubt we will ever hear the end of it!