Ex-estate agent: 'Low pay and high pressure made me quit the sector'

If you back yourself you will sack in the taking the mickey salary

Clearly working for the wrong company then…. Plus if your any good at what you do and have some backbone then you negotiate what you think you are worth…..

One “side” of a story.

Had to contact the database and create business. - what instead of sitting there waiting for the phone to ring?

The pay structure referred to (with the exception of the car usage where I’m going to guess that employees aren’t carrying appropriate insurance and the company directors could be liable for corporate manslaughter in a terrible accident scenario)
Is fairly standard - the employee seemingly had a basic salary, pension, holiday pay, an office to work from and a database to farm.

The reference to gazumping is a red herring and nothing to do with referring to a preferred conveyancer.

The company the “whistleblower” worked for isn’t named and may not have managed their team very effectively but is hardly indicative of the entire “sector”

• Guy Hodge FNAEA
• 23 May 2022 08:21 AM

The gazumping avenue was probably pre-written by the reporter before the interview because the public love gazumping stories although the majority fail to understand what it is

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• Algarve Investor
• 23 May 2022 08:29 AM

Could you enlighten us, Guy? I thought it was commonly agreed that it was a pretty awful practice that should be banned. Is that not the case? What benefits does it have? Surely it's a bit unethical, no?

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I read the article. I appreciate that there are always two sides to the story, and this one is there to bash estate agents, who very often have an unfair reputation and are an easy punching bag.

But equally the account given is pretty scathing, and there must at least be some truth to what is written here. Are soul-crushing cold calls really still happening in agency? Are there ridiculous targets to be met each day?

I think we all knew about the low pay, long hours and lack of necessary qualifications, but some of the above outlined sounds so outdated.

Best of luck to this ex Estate Agent. I'm sure he will make a major success of the rest of his career. The Local Authority would be a good place for this person.

In 1990 I had the joy of running a branch during another recession, I had two Negs, one religiously rang his applicants daily, wrote all his notes on his cardboard applicant cards and agreed three sales a week. The other Neg, mostly smoked fags, turned up late and would disappear for hours, sometimes days mostly I think to the pub or local snooker hall, but every Wednesday the end of our sales week he would produce three sales. It taught me then that targets and KPI's are important you need to have a compass for the business, but sales people are 'people' and teams are little or large families, with different characters, some sales people are just great 1:1 with the public and can close opportunities, others enjoy being more robotic.

I read the Times article and I thought mostly that he was in the wrong job, he will find his way.

We have to be careful not to dismiss some very valid points within this article on the back of perceived laziness / ineptitude of one individual, or indeed dismiss the whole thing as agent bashing.

Fees in our market are unnecessarily low, and the point is well made that increasing overheads produce pressure on managers etc in order to secure valuations and instructions irrespective of their value to the business. Owners and shareholders believe that "market share" is the panicle of success, in my view this is total nonsense if you're not making any money from that market share, or losing money and staff in pursuit of it.

"Cold calling" the database is part of the job, and comments above are for the most part right in pointing this out. Sitting and waiting for the phone to ring after popping a listing online is perhaps the most basic level of agency, and more importantly fails to capitalise fully on the inordinate amounts of money agents spend on "lead acquisition" via the portals.

At the end of the day, some people aren't suited for the role others are, but lets not dismiss the very real issues facing our industry, some of which are highlighted in this article
.

We all know there are many agents run on simple metrics/targets- make w calls, book x viewings, get y offers and tie up z deals. It's poor but it does often work. I could never run my agency in this way or work for an agency that did.
The fact that we still offer similar pay packages to when I started 20+ years ago is shocking. personally I'm an advocate of higher base salaries, a more rounded approach to management, with bonuses based on company performance (for us we look at both company financial targets but also our ESTAS reviews each year as a guide to customer satisfaction).
It sounds like the employer wasn't right for him and he should have looked elsewhere sooner or explored other career opportunities in other sectors.
I wouldn't call it damning but knowing this is still common is disappointing if nothing else.

No one (who’s not an agent) is a greater supporter of what agents do than me. But the level of denial/delusion among most in the industry is staggering. Only the minority of forward thinking, self aware agents are being honest with themselves and adapting and modernising their culture, practices, working methods and strategy in response to the changing environment. This story represents an how an uncomfortably large portion of the industry still operates. The dynamic minority who know how to deliver will never make up for the stale majority who are responsible for the industry’s appalling reputation. The coming market challenges are going to bring a very cathartic cleansing of a lot of old businesses still wedded to their high overhead operations.

I'm going to take a guess at the vote ending at 80% yes. High Street still out weighs self employed models and yes the pay is ridiculously low. If you are a good agent and know your worth, you should definitely entertain the self employed world. TAUK or Exp.
I set up on my own, I have a sales manager and never been happier with just the 2 of us.