Are you a Punk Rocker?
Back in the mid 1970’s, as a youth I spent much time wearing a black bin bag, bondage strides and listening to the Sex Pistols, I was trying to be alternative – me and half the country. In time I found myself all grown up and wearing a conservative suit for over three decades, selling property to the general public as a corporate, and independent agent working for myself.
The pandemic, with mass scaled adoption of video conferencing and WFH as the new norm, is allowing a new generation of ‘property people’ to be their own punk rockers, to re-imagine how and when property business is done. Add to this adoption of VR and AR and many other technologies washing into the industry and our lives outside of property.
With Brexit deal or no deal, and the uncertainty of the pandemic now is a good time to take destiny in your hands and weigh up if you are a square peg in a round hole. Bin bag or suit.
Is joining or leaving corporate agency a good move, or is trying an umbrella approach, think Rollo Miles – Agent and Homes, or eXp, Keller Williams, and EasyProperty, there are many others. Maybe, going the whole way with your name above the real or digital doorway of your business is the best route to your happiness.
Given that our readers are now in one of these verticals, and maybe have sampled life in a different model of agency, I would be really grateful to hear what you think is the best vehicle to transact the asset class of property. Is earning 20% less and being the boss, better than being a Lettings area director on a larger income, is providing EPC’s better working inside an agency than as a freelancer.
Also I would love to hear what you feel the shape of agency is likely to be by 2030? Hubs, tech enabled agents, or a model more like Realtors across the pond, or in Australia. Will there be big corporates still around, and of course where does online agency fit in.
I declare scepticism with online agency as a model, that does not mean I think that anyone who works in them or for them works any less hard than any other sales professional, but something is changing with the psyche of the UK vendor.
But the fact that Purplebricks, lists over 60,000 properties a year, that is the size of three corporate arms put together, what is that telling us all about the need of the vendor? Yes with 1.1M completions a year 60,000 instructions is not a huge amount, but clearly vendors and buyers are exploring new options.
If you have a view – please let us all know. – Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward.
I’d love to hear your thoughts – info@stagingsite.estateagentnetworking.co.uk
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