One of my god-children has just completed two weeks work experience at Douglas & Gordon. When reporting back to his father to relate his experience, he said that it wasn’t a career for him. Fair enough! But the reason he gave was that being an estate agent seemed a very unfulfilling and boring profession. “All they do is show people houses, and when they do they don’t seem to do much selling.” I realise that recounting this tale does not show Douglas & Gordon in a very good light, but it is the perception of the general public and of many people who do choose to enter this profession. It couldn’t possibly be further from the truth. To be a truly outstanding estate agent requires a great many skills (very few people have them), and the easiest part of the process is showing someone around a house.
Archive for the ‘Douglas And Gordon News’ Category
HIP replacement
May 24th, 2010 by Ed Mead
If you want a HIP replaced these days, even on the NHS, you get it made of unobtanium and it’ll last until you’ll have more fun in one of those electric trolleys that mad old people charge around in.
At the moment the replacement HIP we’ve been offered in the property business is like damp cardboard, in other words worse than useless. Rather like Labour abolishing the House of Lords with no idea about what to replace it with much trumpeting has accompanied the removal of the packs but nothing else has been said about what’ll replace it.
With 70% of World’s wealth in property maybe this is the job for you?
May 6th, 2010 by Ed MeadIf you want to work in the wonderful world of property, and with c. 70% of the world’s wealth wrapped up in it it’s not such a bad idea, there are a plethora of choices many of which you wouldn’t necessarily think about straight away. You can either be a wide boy or a boring old stiff. Sorry, allowing my prejudice to shine through there, I mean you can be a salesman or a true property professional. You can sell, let or manage a property, for which you need no formal qualification, or you can decide you want the surety of a long term job with equally long term qualifications.
Does the perfect estate agent exist?
April 29th, 2010 by Ivor DickinsonHow do you find the perfect estate agent? Does the perfect estate agent exist? When trying to work out the answer, it is important to consider the criteria. In an ideal world, your manager or senior negotiator should have worked in their office, or at least the area, for a minimum of five to ten years. That way, they will know the area like the back of their hand and will probably have sold most houses in the area, sometimes two or three times over. Well it’s simple then. In fact, it’s not. Firstly, if the perfect estate agent never moves, then it’s rather difficult to employ them. Secondly, the painful truth is that girls are better sales people than men – don’t argue, they just are. They have more energy, more empathy and are less trouble. It’s not an exact science, but looking back over 23 years at Douglas & Gordon, a higher percentage of my very best people have been women. However, bearing in mind my opening statement about the perfect estate agent working in an area for a long time, the simple fact is that it is difficult to keep a female manager in the same office for that many years, mainly because they quite rightly have other priorities and it’s called having children.
Time for buy to let to come out of the freezer…
April 28th, 2010 by Ed MeadIt’s easy to run scared from buy to let. It had as much bad publicity as any other sector in 2008/9 and at D&G we’ve been managing all sorts of rented properties for over 50 years.
There may be only a handful of mortgage products out there but perhaps no fewer by proportion than there were for ordinary purchases. As usual with any investment sector there’s always a degree of overshoot on the downside, as there is often with upside too, and it’s probably true that prices an in recovery mode at the moment, even if it’s a bit too soon to say it’s going to last.
How do you want to be served, Robots or Humans
April 13th, 2010 by Ed MeadI’ve just had a call from a recommendation. He currently lives in E11 and knows what he wants to spend but not where he wants to live. These days central London, even prime central London, can embrace areas as diverse as Hampstead, Chelsea, Nottinghill Gate, Earls Court, Kensington, Wandsworth, Islington, Mayfair to name but a few….you get the idea. For anybody thinking of moving the main thing they need is to talk to someone, and preferably someone who knows what they’re talking about. His first question was about how long my team had been together and did they know the area.
Top tips on who to vote for from D&G
April 8th, 2010 by Ivor DickinsonThe time has come and Gordon Brown has finally called the election, but who do you vote for? You know you must vote Tory because Labour have spent our entire inheritance and run up the largest debt of any British government in living memory. The rest of all our lives and those of our children are going to be considerably harder because of the damage caused by this profligate and incompetent government. Then every time I hear sound bites from the Tories, I have to be honest, I’m not entirely convinced. Do they really think they can save the nation’s finances by cutting back costs at central office. So, are there any alternatives? You wouldn’t have thought so. However, I have been on the internet and thoroughly enjoyed reading the ninety eight manifesto proposals from the Monster Raving Loony party. Six of which I list below:
House envy is like pe*is envy, only bigger
April 8th, 2010 by Ed Mead
I was on my way to work this morning hammering round Hyde Park Corner on my sixteen year old BMW when I happened upon something called a Kawasaki ZX10. Now this is one of the fastest bikes in the world, vivid green and a quite a handful, but the rider was wobbling about all over the place and I made short work of riding round him on the bend. As soon as we got to the straight he opened the throttle and left me for dead with a glance in his mirror. I drove away with my wife swatting me about the head having forgotten momentarily she was there.
Estate agents ARE the canaries of the wider Economy, so what do they think.
June 4th, 2010 by Ed MeadWhilst standing in a bank queue this morning I overheard a guy at the back saying “…and the dreaded gazumping is back”.
That’s not the way it feels to me at the moment and it’s a perhaps timely reminder that estate agents are the canaries of the wider economy.
Tags: estate agents, Gazumping, London Market, property prices
Posted in Douglas And Gordon News, London Property Market, Market comment | 2 Comments »