Property Natter - Memories of times past while marching bravely forward

I’ve found myself in contemplative mode this week, looking forward to the future and remembering times past.

In the immediate future – on Wednesday, in fact – Jeremy Hunt will get up on his hind legs at the Despatch Box and lay out his plans for the economy and the fiscal measures he is going to take in his ongoing fight to ease the cost of living crisis by bringing down inflation.

He’s had no shortage of advice from the Property Sector – most commentators want to see more help for First-time buyers in the form of Help To Buy Scheme 2. On the lettings side, the PRS is making a similar plea for the reintroduction of another old favourite – in this case a return to landlord tax relief for mortgage interest payments.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Hunt agrees to any of these requests. One senior industry figure said that he ‘wasn’t holding his breath.’ I don’t think anybody else is either.

But what we can say with confidence is that the beginning of 2023 is going far better than many predicted. No deep recession has emerged thus far and many agents are reporting signs of the usual Spring bump in sales enquiries.

Of course, a little encouragement from Mr Hunt in the form of financial incentives would definitely not go amiss.

The good old days

It seems like only yesterday, but I was reminded this week that I’ve been in this business for 35 years. Before anybody else says it, I’d like to point out that I was a very early starter (some might say a child prodigy!).

Best-selling car in 1988 was a Ford Escort, Liverpool won the old First Division Championship and Wimbledon won the FA Cup. Remember the Crazy Gang? Me, neither.

I’d left school at 16 and immediately began working for a bank as a financial advisor (commission only) and ended up grafting on the floor of the Stock Exchange. I was working there when it closed following the great Black Monday crash.

Shortly after that (like so many others) I was made redundant so I started working for myself. First as a mortgage broker and then I started my own estate agency – aged 23. That grew to five offices but we were still doing loads of mortgage business which was bigger than house sales for us. One proud moment was when, at the tender age of 27, I became the Number One sales person for Royal Insurance.

I formed Angels Media and launched Introducer Today to complement the mortgage business and all was going swimmingly until the crash of 2008 which put a serious rip in my masterplan.

I launched Estate Agent Today and the other Today titles within months and they became a hit because we were producing them daily and everyone was desperate for the latest market news.

It was around this time that I I got geeky and became fascinated by technology but I also kept coming back to lead generation which I put down to my roots working for commission only. (Anything was a lead in those days – even a carelessly discarded business card.)

That’s when the first iteration of ValPal came along. It was called valuemyproperty.com. But the Eureka! Moment arrived when we were able to leverage the agents’ already-paid-for traffic.

ValPal now generates 125000 leads a month and we’ve developed MovePal to nurture those leads.

That’s why I’m fixated with leads and the value they bring to businesses. It never leaves you. Obviously.

But going back to those halcyon days of 1988, Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Premier, became the longest-serving PM of the Twentieth Century.

I think that’s something worth remembering, given that we all celebrated International Women’s Day on Wednesday.

No time like the present

And speaking of successful women, Women in Estate Agency held their inaugural conference at London’s Cavendish Conference Centre last week.

The event was a sell-out and 250 delegates enjoyed a busy schedule of speakers. The major themes for the event were health, wealth and empowerment of women in their careers and workplaces. It proved such a hit, they are already planning for 2024.

Congratulations to Liana Loporto-Browne and Clare Hughes who formed the group to better support women in the property sector, their partner Elle Wood and the whole team.

 To learn more about Women in Estate Agency, click here

Back to the future

Another date for the diary is UK Real Estate investors and infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) on the 16^th May at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. They’re expecting 6000 attendees with a further 1500 at fringe events around and about. It brings together people from public and private sectors, investors, developers - the lot!

More info here

Until next time…