One of the pleasures of getting older is the occasional unexpected dialogue with one’s children about what life was like back in the Dark Ages, when one was younger. The reaction it usually prompts is one of amazement. How on earth did people manage to survive with only three television channels? And not just that; they were channels that didn’t even broadcast around the clock (my children have no concept of what a test card is).

Then there’s the thorny issue of mobile phones. I recall I got my first one (a Motorola) in the 1990s when I was in my late twenties, and I thought I was the bee’s knees. Yet it was the size of a house brick and only did two things: make phone calls and send text messages. Back then, we thought that the only way mobile phones could improve was by making them lighter and smaller. The capabilities of the latest phones, had we been allowed a sneak preview, would have blown our minds.

Then, of course, there’s the Internet. Or oxygen, as I like to think of it. Frustratingly, we had an internet outage last week at home, and the world nearly ended. I have a backup internet service (which tells you something about its importance), and bizarrely, that went down at the same time. Our lives and work seem to be dependent on having a resilient, high-speed broadband connection. Yet somehow, I managed to survive without any internet at all for the first three decades of my existence. I know; my children can’t believe it either.

Technology is one thing, but in property, we can at least rely on things staying a little less changeable. Let’s face it, we’ve all been fascinated by the property market for decades, and in particular, the money that can be made through a savvy property investment. One of the most popular forms of property speculation has been the good old flip, or refurb. Take a run-down older property that’s ideally the worst property on the best street in the neighbourhood and then give it a makeover before flogging it on at a handsome profit. What’s not to like? And ironically, turn on any one of the thousands of TV channels we now have at our fingertips, and you won’t need to wait long to see a rerun of any one of the countless property flipping shows that have been aired over the past few decades. As a nation, we’re pretty obsessed with property, and we have been for years.