Property
When the market cooled, Robert addressed the harsher economic realities with a new column, "More For Your Money." It ran for more than two years, beginning in January 2005. Robert's property feature articles appear in The Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Observer, Financial Times, Sunday Times and other newspapers, magazines and websites. "Trial or Error" (rent before you buy), Sunday Telegraph, 11 July 2001. "Survey the Scene for a Good Surveyor" The Observer, 9 April 2000. "The nasty snags that are swept under the carpet" Financial Times, 6-7 September 1997.
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Ask the Property Experts - Sky TV
Robert (far right) was a panellist on several editions of 'Ask the Property Experts'. |
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The Buy Association provides impartial advice and information on property and consumer issues.
Robert was a panellist on several Buy Association radio programmes and podcasts. |
PodcastsThe current state of the buy-to-let market To buy or not to buy in Florida?
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More For Your Money, The Independent
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Robert Liebman wrote nearly 400 weekly columns for The Independent, inaugurating the "Hot Spot" column in 1998. The property market stayed hot for more than five years, long enough for more than 300 columns. 
| Monmouth, Wales - 14 March 2007 | Ham, Surrey - 25 October 2006 |
| Olney, Bucks - 1 November 2006 | Saltash, Cornwall - 10 January 2007 |
| St Albans, Herts - 11 October 2006 | Penge, SE20 - 13 September 2006 |
| Cockfosters, EN4 - 6 September 2006 | Gospel Oak, NW3 - 23 August 2006 |
| Rectory Field, SE3 - 2 August 2006 | Inwood Park, TW3 - 7 June 2006 |
| Noel Park/Scotch Estate, N22 - 8 March 2006 | Hillmarton Conservation Area, N7 - 10 May 2006 |
| Streatham, SW2 - 22 April 2006 | Wanstead, E11 - 31 May 2005 |
Merton Park, SW19 - 1 March 2006 |
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Community Centre, Cuckoo Estate, Hanwell 5 April 2006 |
Spring Grove, TW7 - 22 November 2006 (photos: Robert Liebman |
Many of Robert's "Hot Spot" columns in the Independent appeared before newspapers had websites. By the time he wrote the last of the more than 315 weekly columns, his articles appeared on the web as well as in the print edition. The Hot Spot column was exclusively London-centric at the beginning, but the property bug was biting just about everywhere, and Robert gradually included provincial UK locations and then foreign cities.
Highbury, North London - 26 January 2005
St Austell, Cornwall - 17 February 2004
Darlington - 16 July 2003
Paris, France - 18 January 2002
The Rustic Rock'n'roller - Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath
"When an audience member tossed a bat on stage at one performance, Ozzy promptly bit its head off. He dished out similar treatment to a dove."
He had to live somewhere! What kind of home would be suitable for a bat-eating dove destroyer? A cave? A dungeon?
In fact, Ozzy - at the start of his career - lived in a normal ordinary country house.
He remained extraordinary: "When Ozzy lived here his first wife hid his clothes so he couldn't go to the pub. So he wore her dress instead."
"Ozzy Osbourne's Country House", Mail on Sunday. Complete article
The Underground Rabbi
Rabbi Jonathan Black, his wife Susan and their two children lived in a below-ground home in a London suburb before moving into an above-ground house in the land down under.
"With the help of an architect and a sympathetic gas supplier, they dug up the entire garden and built Undermill, a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house featuring lavatories that flush using rainwater, pumps that remove ground water and the Blacks’ personal petrol station. As owners of an experimental car powered by natural gas, they filled up from a hose near the front door."
"Dig Deep to Enjoy Living in the London Underground," Mail on Sunday.
The Rustic Megastar
Sporting Estate anyone? I'll take it, said Mrs Guy Ritchie, aka Madonna
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The Rustic Novelist
She sold her Hartlepool mansion so that she could move to the country.
Mail on Sunday, Complete article |
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Buy a house...enter the traumatic world of property conveyancing...and use that trauma to become a property specialist.
In late 1992, Robert Liebman was in hot pursuit of a house and a mortgage - in a very quiet market.
Apparently stunned by the appearance of an actual customer, several building societies couldn't, or wouldn't, arrange a loan.
Finally he obtained a mortgage. Then came the surveyor who agreed that Robert could be present during the inspection. He then conducted the survey without telling Robert.
Then the solicitor took a holiday at a critical stage, and the fill-in solicitor made a basic mathematical error that could have caused mayhem at completion if it had not been caught in time.
The house did change owners on schedule, despite the professionals. And because of them, Robert started writing about property. His diary of his rollercoaster ride of a house purchase was published in four parts by What Mortgage magazine. An expanded version, and other property articles, are available in www.propertywithoutpain.com