Happy news: I've bought a flat. Still haven't moved in, or exchanged contracts, and I'm slightly dreading the hassle of home-ownership again: the council tax bills, the blown fuses, the demands from next door that Céline Dion is turned down. But you can't live like a student for ever and basically I'm pleased.
In fact, so surprisingly painless has the process been that I have found myself wishing that relationships were more like property. Wouldn't it be great, for instance, if potential partners came with the equivalent of a home information pack, outlining character flaws, and maybe their carbon footprint? Or if you could get surveys done on romantic prospects to get an idea of the trouble that may lie ahead? Or if you could negotiate over fixtures and fittings, have minor imperfections fixed by a Polish builder, rent them out if you get bored, etc?
And wouldn't it be fabulous if dating was more like buying a house? Indeed, it strikes me that what the eight million British singles really need is online "housedating": a website that, instead of relying on personal statements, photos and information about star signs, allowed people to find partners by exchanging information on how and where they live.
A house, in contrast, reveals almost everything that you need to know about someone. Anyone with a granite sideboard, for instance, is clearly a fashion victim. Anyone with no book shelves has no soul. Degree certificate hung in study: working class. Degree certificate in loo: middle class. Renting: commitment issues. Alphabetised CD collection: anal. Shoe rack: uptight. Corner sofa: pretentious. Spider plants: humourless. Desolate garden: self-absorbed, unnurturing, workaholic. Jacuzzi: sleazy. Cellar: kinky. Tennis court: Tory MP. Landscaped garden: Labour MP. Home cinema system: Shahid Malik. Tudor effects: John Prescott. And so on.
As Jane Austen understood and the producers of Through The Keyhole and Grand Designs realise, houses betray even subliminal truths about individuals. I've just been discussing my new flat with a posh friend, informing her that I was planning to install a plasma screen TV above the mantelpiece, having forgotten that the middle classes have a thing about hiding their TVs, and I doubt that she would have been more horrified if I'd announced that I was installing a turbo barbecue in the bathroom. The detail revealed something that I'll never be able to change: for all my middle-class pretensions, I will always be the child of immigrants.
There are other attractions to online housedating (the domain "housedating. com" appears to be available, by the way), not least discretion. One of the main reasons that singles resist the online thing is that they worry they will be spotted by friends, colleagues and enemies, who will then mock their desperation and loneliness. But photographs of attics, bathrooms and tasteful kitchens would ensure privacy.
Furthermore, if online housedating were conducted within the regulatory and legal framework of the traditional estate agency, you'd have much more confidence. You'd obviously get a few people claiming to live in Chatsworth when they have a bedsit in Bilston, but there could be compensation if things were misleading, and as solicitors would govern the set-ups, as they police house purchases, there would be legal recourse if/when the relationship went wrong.
Which brings us to the most appealing thing: housedating would restore the role that wealth plays in romance. There are some dating sites that tackle the issue of income directly: many Asian matrimonial sites ask you to state your profession and income, for instance, millionairecupid.com ("the world's best and largest dating site for successful singles, admirers and friends"), wealthychats.com ("find and meet wealthy men and beautiful women"), seekwealthy.com ("we have thousands of successful and attractive members who recognise that life is there to be lived") are brazen about it.
But most sites ignore it, or tiptoe around the subject, pretending that it doesn't matter if someone works at Burger King or is a hedge-fund manager, when we all know that it really does. As the writer David Sedaris recently put it: "Money tells you 70 per cent of what you need to know about someone."
And as property tells you 70 per cent of what you need know about someone's money, online housedating would get you straight into the things that matter. Though I'm not sure that it's particularly encouraging that property prices have been falling at record levels and there appears to be no end to the downturn.
