Every day, I am inundated with emails telling me how to raise or reduce the value of a house. Turns out, superstition was what I needed all along.
I don’t like to consider myself a superstitious person, because superstition seems quite silly. A number is just a number and Macbeth is just a play about two annoying Scottish people. Smashing a mirror is bad luck but only because replacing a mirror is expensive.
This is what I tell myself, anyway, because I like to pretend I am a grown up who is in control of the actions and outcomes in his own life. Or at least that’s what I like to think. I am, of course, telling myself a little lie. I may not be superstitious, but I still have little superstitious habits that I carry out every single day.
I, for example, will not walk across three drain covers in a row, for the sole reason that a pretty girl I once wanted to date told me that doing so was bad luck. Being an ‘impressionable’ teenager at the time, I decided to follow suit, lest she see me as an unlucky omen. 18 years later, I am still doing it (or rather, not doing it).
“It is, on the one hand, just a number. On the other hand, I am afraid of drains, so who am I to judge?”
I don’t walk under ladders, and I have a weird tick where if I am watching football, and the opposing team is taking some kind of attacking set-piece, I tap on a piece of wood in the hope they don’t score. It is the only time I ‘tap on wood’; I assume the reason for this is that I don’t want to waste any ju-ju on other things by knocking on wood recklessly. Got to save it for special occasions.
All of this is relevant because when I receive an email that says something plainly ridiculous such as ‘Properties with the number 13 selling for £36,000 less than wider market average’, it makes both lots of sense and also no sense. It is, on the one hand, just a number. On the other hand, I am afraid of drains, so who am I to judge?
This groundbreaking bit of research comes courtesy of London lettings and estate agents Benham and Reeves. The firm analysed price paid data from the Land Registry, looking at the average sold price of homes so far this year, and how the price paid for homes with the number 13 compares to the rest of the market.
Homes with the number 13 sold for an average of £260,000, which — because they were analysing swish London homes with huge price tags — equates to 12.2% less than homes with non-unlucky numbers. If you could slap a price on superstition, there it is: £36,000 if you’re in the market for the average UK house, or over a quarter of a million pounds if you’re shopping at the higher end of the market.
‘Superstitions aren’t to be scoffed at when it comes to potential put offs for homebuyers and we regularly see foreign buyers, in particular, place a great deal of importance on certain aspects of a home due to the superstitions they hold,’ says Marc von Grundherr, director of Benham and Reeves.
‘The Number 13 is a very common one and many buyers will purposely pass up on even viewing a home bearing the number. In fact, in some instances, the Number 13 will even be excluded from new property developments because it can be such a deterrent.’
To be fair, I grew up in an apartment building in Manhattan that just skipped the 13th floor entirely. Which is one way to solve that problem. I suppose my advice would be that if you are not superstitious, buy a house with 13 on the door, and save yourself some cash. Treat yourself to a holiday. Send me some as a thank you. I don’t mind.
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