‘We send each other houses’: Real estate is the new couples’ therapy

If you sometimes think you have nothing in common with English soccer celebs, you would be mistaken.

Abbey Clancy, wife of former British soccer star Peter Crouch, revealed last week that what excites her more than anything is looking through the property for sale.

Not just that, she and Pete “send each other houses on a daily basis”. To be clear, they’re not looking for a house, they’re just ogling the proportions and the swimming pond and the annexe that could be an office, or a place for parties, or a lucrative rental. Clancy was wondering if this compulsion for house searching is because she’s 37, but absolutely not.

House fever strikes at any time from the age of 30 onwards, and the form it takes is exactly the same whether you could conceivably be in the market for one of the properties you’re looking at daily (or twice daily; it’s almost impossible to resist the early-morning scroll in case something’s just come on) or very much window shopping with a scintilla of hope.

Sometimes you might feel a bit like a private house hunter, particularly if you’re getting property alerts from a couple of estate agents in two counties. But, then again, part of you knows that this is just good clean fun, like stacking up paint samples and leaving fabric swatches draped around the place, only way more satisfying and good for the marriage.

It’s got everything you could want, house fever: you can indulge it anywhere at any time, including in the bath or while watching improving TV; it’s harmless but feels naughty, like trying on an expensive coat you have no intention of buying; it scratches the shopping itch, the snooping impulse, the compulsion to upgrade, it soothes our Where Will We End Up subliminal anxiety (maybe in this house in Stornoway… we can afford that!) and, almost best of all, male partners get house fever too.

You can message them pictures of striped lampshades, charming quilts, potential rugs and curtains for the bedroom as much as you like and you’ll be met with the same response you’d get if you sent them a link to a Healing Through The Songs of Taylor Swift Weekend.

But forward them a house on a hill, only a couple of hundred thousand pounds outside your potential budget – were you to sell your flat for a couple of hundred thousand more than it’s worth – and you’ll always get a positive reaction. Even a message back along the lines of: “I saw that. Thought you might think it was too beamy.”

In fact, house fevering has become (Clancy’s hit on something here) the nation’s fastest-growing couples hobby. It appeals to all ages and circumstances because it caters to the big dreams (His tennis court/man shed) and the little ones (a bathroom with a window); you can take turns flexing your realist muscle (‘it isn’t accessible by road’) and your creative vision (imagine it with windows onto the garden) and it has absolutely nothing to do with hard cold dream crushing reality, but then again you never know.

Brilliantly, it doesn’t depend on you having the same house fantasy or even the same ideal location. One of you can be feverish about a pantry, the other one can be chuffed about proximity to the local pub. Maybe you’re both bowled over by the mulberry tree, maybe not.

The pleasure is all in indulging each other, expectation management, playing “what if”, realising the other one doesn’t hate bungalows after all and would happily go for a first-floor flat if being 50 yards from the sea is all you really want. Better than couples therapy.

The Telegraph London