WHEN it comes to property market advice, then Channel 4 must surely have the monopoly. The thing is, which programmes are made for Park Lane and which ones are more like a second-hand market stall on the Old Kent Road?

Two female presenters are currently vying for our attention.

The always unusually dressed Kirstie Allsopp is one half of the team on Location, Location, Location: First-time Buyers (C4, Tuesday) while know-all Naomi Cleaver follows up with the property faux pas of Honey I Ruined The House (C4, Wednesday).

"I'm sorry, but this is completely boring," said my wife through half-closing eyes as Kirstie and balding charmer Phil Spencer tried to convince young people that it was possible to struggle onto the bottom rung of the home-owning ladder.

In the case of Alexia Woolsey, aged 32, of darkest London, it meant buying an £79,950 mid-terraced house in Lincoln and renting it out to students.

She stood to make £300 profit a month with the eventual aim to stop renting a home in central London and buy a place of her own - prices currently averaging £220,000. This type of rent-to-buy arrangement is apparently known as "mouse-holding", although Kirstie and Phil failed to explain why.

Perhaps the Disney empire goes further than we think. Alexia promptly lost the plot and felt all students were smelly and too untidy and started looking for somewhere she'd like for herself. Phil was not impressed. However, Kirstie soon distracted us by discussing stamp duty exempt areas in Leeds - basically you're buying in an area where the Taliban might struggle to keep control - and assisted two friends, Richard Tonks and Jonathan Dye, in buying a house in the Bramley area together.

Eventually they might split any profit or share with two girlfriends.

"This doesn't work because there isn't the interesting personalities who turn their noses up at really expensive houses," said my wife.

While Kirstie is full of mobile phone calls and the minor miracles of finding four walls, designer Naomi Cleaver is the upper class answer to BBC1's DIY SOS. She comes, she sees and she comments on the fantastic jobs we all think we're making behind closed doors.

Wednesday's opening episode of Honey I Ruined The House even outshadowed the exit of the German team in Euro 2004 over on ITV1. Switching between the two did cause my wife a few difficulties because she'd been convinced that the game's pundit was Holiday host Craig Doyle - "and he knows less about football than me" - instead of ex-footballer Jim Beglin.

But it's the most excited I've seen her about the beautiful game since I was carried up the driveway with a smashed knee.

Back over at Tula's house with Naomi, the bad taste expert quickly told the poor woman she'd actually slashed tens of thousands off her Kensal Rise, London, home with a dark green Gothic hall and a kitchen which looked like a bondage den.

Not that Naomi lifted a fingernail in transforming Tula's trappings, a small army of builders arrived to ensure that she now had the best-looking house in the street. Perhaps Kirstie can pop in next to run through the merits of mouse-holding.

Published: 26/06/2004