We are all aware that the housing market boom over the past couple years led to a surge in agreed property sales, ensuring that many estate agents produced record sales figures and secured bumper pay packets, but it really will be a case of survival of the fittest as the market continues to slow in the coming months.
A number of agents have struggled in recent months from low housing stock and a drop in sales. But not everyone, of course. Some shrewd agents eye falling property values and a slowing housing market as an opportunity to “take advantage of weaker agents”. That is the general view of the leading property industry figures who recently took part in a roundtable discussion about the estate agency sector, which was video recorded. Watch below.
Peter Rollings, non-executive director of Foxtons, believes that most agents share a common problem that they will struggle with, particularly in a sluggish housing market, and that is they are not particularly good at their jobs.
“The vast majority of agents aren’t very good,” he said.
Rollings urges agents seeking success in today’s tougher climate to “get back to basics now”, and “understand what’s necessary and deliver it”.
He also offered this piece of advice to employers: “If they [the negotiators] don’t deliver it, they’ve got to be told, straight between the eyes, that they’ve not got a job.”
Peter Rollings says estate agents are ‘lazy’ as business leaders discuss agency issues
