Posts by Peter Nicholls
Would you ever advise your clients to sell or rent their properties privately?
Estate & Letting Agents: Would you ever advise your clients to sell or rent their properties privately? If not, please allow me to give you ten good reasons why you will require a broker when you feel that the time is right to sell your business. PREPARATION – It is not every day that you…
Read MoreSo You Want an Easy Life? Then You Had Better Start Planning for the Future.
Do most young, ambitious self- employed business people think seriously about their retirement or retirement planning when at the supposed peak of their powers? I have a strong suspicion that those who would readily admit to it, would certainly be in a minority. I think that it would be misguided to say that when you…
Read MoreQuestion: Would you like to See an Improvement in the Overall Standard of Service in UK Estate Agency?
Answer: Then it Could Be Time to Get Radical and Make Your Voice Heard. I read an article quite recently in The Daily Telegraph that publicised The Property Ombudsman, Katrine Sporle’s call for UK estate agents to “raise their standards”, in the light of the most recent figures (2015) – confirming a 32 per cent…
Read MoreUK Estate Agency: Things aren’t what they used to be?
Last week I wrote an article titled “What is the worst kept secret in UK estate agency?” which, judging by the high readership numbers, seemed to find some resonance amongst both fellow estate agents and those who work in and around the property sector generally. Primarily, I wrote the piece with a view to broadening…
Read MoreSmall Independent Estate Agency – A Question of the Survival of the Fittest?
Sadly, it would seem that we live in a world where at present being small and on the high street is currently out of fashion. Why has this view (particularly amongst the young) percolated in more recent times? I would strongly suspect that it has much to do with the way our general shopping habits…
Read MoreInvestor Warning: What Happens To the “Disrupters” When They Lose Their Power to Disrupt?
I read an article quite recently titled “Purplebricks gets stock market commentator support – if strategy pays off” written in response to an article by columnist Ian Pierce on the investment website, Motley Fool. Sadly, there were no great revelations in Ian’s article, but he did quite rightly strike one or two notes of caution…
Read MoreCountrywide Group – The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?
I wonder if I am alone in my perception that over recent months it has become quite ‘fashionable’ for fellow estate agents and industry observers alike, to snipe and poke fun at the ‘comings and goings’ at Countrywide Group in the trade press and social media. Somewhat inevitable I suppose, but is such criticism fair?…
Read More