Do you remember, not so long ago, how Phil Spencer’s home finding company Garrington got into trouble – or so we thought? We’ve just had a quick latte with the person who has replaced Phil at the helm – Jonathan Hopper – who, although possessing a passing resemblance to Mr Spencer, isn’t planning on a TV career at the moment.

Instead he’s been busy over the past two years building the business back up and he’s keen to point out that Garrington didn’t disappaer entirely. He says that although the London part of the business failed in 2009 the rest of the company outside London was unaffected and, eventually, bought out what was left of the London operation and began all over again under Mr Hopper’s direction.

He says that in the beginning, during the boom years, having Phil Spencer so closely associated with the business had both upsides and downsides. “Phil’s name generated a lot of business for Garrington but some of the enquiries weren’t always ideal customers as many were fans wanting signed photos, which wasn’t so good,” says Hopper. “But I don’t think Garrington would be so well known today without the Phil Spencer connection who helped raise people’s awareness of property finders, so that’s a plus.”

If you have ever watched the TV show Location, Location, Location and wondered what sort of homes the duo who present it own, then we can reveal all – including both of them having a taste for a double life.

Kirstie Allsopp – the bubbly foil to the more considered and softley-spoken Phil Spencer – has been talking to a local newspaper in her adopted county of Devon about her property portfolio, as many people like to call multiple home ownership now.

The Honourable Kirstie Allsopp (she is daughter of the sixth Baron Hindlip) has three homes which she’s amassed with the help of millionaire property developer partner Ben Anderson.

Her first and best known is a six-bedroom holiday cottage in Welcombe, North Devon, bought for £300,000 in 2008 with her partner and his business partner William Montagu Wentworth-Stanley.

It’s a holiday home-cum investment property and is available to rent for £2,000 a week plus it’s also featured in her recent TV show Kirstie’s Homemade Home during which she did up the dilapidated cottage for £23,000 and learned 15 crafts along the way, including iron mongery. The property is also used by Ben’s former wife Theresa for holidays too.

But the couple’s main home is in a highly desirable slice of London between Notting Hill and Holland Park. It’s a two-storey apartment within a modern block and is where the couple are based most of the time. Their two children, Bay Atlas and Oscar Hercules, go to school in the area.

But their largest property is Broadhembury House in the picture-perfect, thatch and whitewash village of Broadhembury near Honiton in Devon.

It, like Kirstie, has titled connections and was built by Julius Drewe in the early 19th century – a man who believed he was descended from aristocratic Norman blood.

And so to Phil. He is only one house behind Kirstie, we can reveal. His main family home is a Victorian semi in Wandsworth, London to be found in a group of roads known as the ‘toast rack’ for the shape they make on the London A-Z. He also has a holiday home in Kent which, in the past, he has said he struggles to afford but loves as it’s only an hour and 45 minutes from the ‘hamster wheel’ of London.