SIXTY SECONDS
THE PROPERTY EXPERT, 48, ON HER BIG BREAK IN A TV AD, HOW COVID HAS CHANGED US AND BEING A REAL-LIFE BRIDGET JONES
Tell us about your show, My Mortgage Free Home…
We take a really big variety of people – those who are retiring and downsizing, families that aren’t getting to see their kids enough because of long commutes every day, people in financial trouble who need to sell because bills are crippling them. And then we take the equity they have in their property, plus any savings, and find them a new home. So there’s none of this, ‘You have £400,000 but we’re just going to show you one for £480,000.’ Every single house you see on the show will enable these people to live mortgage-free.
It’s topical because everyone is moving or talking about it…
Yes, the pandemic has really made people reassess how they work. One couple we help, who live in St Albans, have two children and the dad only sees his kids in their pyjamas, so we took them to Bridport and Whitstable to reveal a different way of life. One lady is 68 and still working, and she’s knackered. She just wants to spend some time with her grandkids. They’ve all had to compromise – if you’re just using your equity and want to stay in your area, the properties are going to be smaller.
But there are some absolute crackers as well. And they are not all expensive properties – the lowest price was about £128,000 for a three-bed house, going up to £500,000 for a six-bedroom detached Edwardian house.
Has lockdown changed you?
It’s made me slow down and stop trying to fill my days with everything. Like most people, I didn’t get anything done that I thought I’d get done, like clear out the loft and sort things out. It’s also made me realise I was never cut out to be a teacher.
Was it nice to be at home? You’re usually travelling a lot…
Yes, definitely. My husband is a cameraman on Location, Location, Location and Salvage Hunters, and he worked out that last month we saw each other for only two hours. It’s tough but it’s a means to an end. It’s great to be back filming and we’ve had to abide by really strict guidelines – when we leave each house that we visit we have to wipe down thoroughly and I have to stay two metres apart from the house hunters. We can’t film in certain rooms because they’re not big enough to film in.
I’ve been bitten in the butt a bit for asking my future husband for relationship advice!
Do people get you confused with Kirstie Allsopp?
All the time. It drives us nuts. When I first started dating my husband, people used to shout, ‘Where’s Phil?’ Then someone delivered a parcel the other day and she went, ‘Oh, Amanda Beeny!’ My favourite one was in a service station the other day when someone said, ‘You’re so much thinner and prettier in real life!’ There’s a compliment in there somewhere. Kirstie and I have property in Devon, Sarah [Beeny] is now in Somerset and George Clarke is in Gloucestershire now. It’s like a mass exodus – all the presenters are heading west.
What’s it about property that people love so much?
We’re obsessed with owning our own home. And there’s been such a big shift since this pandemic that I think there’ll be a whole new different type of property show about relocation and people having massive life changes. Garden rooms, sheds, pods and shepherd’s huts are going to see a big resurgence.
What was your biggest crossroads moment?
When I got the Scottish Widows commercial. When I started modelling just at the end of the Cindy Crawford supermodel era and going into Kate Moss heroin chic, everyone had to look like a cocktail stick, which I didn’t at all, so I didn’t work for a year. I went to endless castings, which was demoralising. And then I went for Scottish Widows and I got it, and while it didn’t catapult me to stardom, it was a good learning curve and I got to work with photographer David Bailey. Then came casting for A Place In The Sun. I had a phone call that they were looking for a TV presenter with property experience and I used to be an estate agent, so I went along and I got the gig. They said it would be six episodes and I thought it would take me up to Christmas – that was 20 years ago! That was the Sliding Doors moment. I’d be in a heap right now
without it.
You met your husband doing A Place In The Sun...
Yes, it’s such a cliché, isn’t it? I thought he was really good-looking but for a year and a half I was dating someone else and then had a bit of a Bridget Jones time, and I’d ask him advice on my love life and that’s bitten me in the butt a bit! Then I realised he’d been there all that time. Never ask your future husband for relationship advice! He got to see me in all my various shades – racing to an airport, angry, happy, drunk, being stupid. There were no airs or graces.
My Mortgage Free Home is on Mondays at 9pm on HGTV