Anyone have experience of becoming an Estate Agent?

Floxxie

I was an estate agent for twelve years. I started out as a weekend negotiator, then full time negotiator and finally sales progressor. It does not require any formal qualifications and the hours were fine although working every third weekend was not so exciting.

Like any company, some are good and some are bad. Why are you considering estate agency?

phill99

If you are a landscape architect, surely your transferable skills would be best used within an RICS role. Some of your core competencies will give you certain exemptions. Trust me it's a much more rewarding career than one step up from a dead horse and donkey dealer.

EppleBay

Hi Floxxie

I am considering my options but I feel that being an Estate Agent would be a challenge in terms of sales which I don't have direct experience of but would like to try. I am highly organised & like to be busy so the visits & paperwork etc should not be a problem. I am good at dealing with customers & clients. I also feel like its something I could progess in quickly.

Why did you leave the profession if you don't mind me asking?

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

It won't become a profession just because you keep calling it one. You are either trolling or staggeringly naive about what estate agency involves.

Most people, I would imagine, are shocked that you want to leave a respectable, well paid profession to go into a line of work that is usually the province of chancers straight out of school with cheap suits and plastic shoes. The visits and paperwork are not a challenge for anybody.

Unless you have a great unfulfilled desire to set up on your own as an estate agent, don't bother.

EppleBay

Scorpio

You are staggering naive that Landscape Architecture is a well paid career. Go troll someone other thread.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Compared to estate agents working for someone else, believe me, it is. This is not trolling. Most estate agent's negotiators are hired from the ranks of the virtually unemployable and wholly unqualified.

To make money from it you need your own business. This is good advice for you. It's absurd that you are simply dismissing it, but probably indicative of why you want to get into it.

EppleBay

Scorpio are you an Estate Agent?

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Good god no. I know a lot of people who have been, or are, though.

[Deleted User]

Did you honestly not watch bbc2 or it might have been bbc1 around April 2014 ? There was a mini series on inside life of estate agents then, a whole 4 week episodes if I recall devoted to it - see if you can find on u tubie

There is no money to be made as the high street now has to compare with online so forget commission - estate agency is a relative youngsters game for very good reason, so alongside lack of money will come the frustration when you are stuck working when they won't want to because they do not understand the customer needs where they haven't grown up - senior management will likely be younger then yourself so when you find yourself out of the circle I'm not sure what you'll do - (I appreciate I will get called Ageist here and make no defence)

Not so long ago an there was an estate agency job ad for receptionist offering 12k in an Essex city working 8-5 - hope that helps with the age range these estate agencies are trying to target

I nearly posted earlier that you might be best trying surveying admin or insurance sales or something like that over this unregulated lot.

I also did school work experience in an estate agency where it was 'funny' to put salt instead of sugar in someone's drink and talk so disgustingly about the conditions some vulnerable people found themselves living in. I actually found a doorstep loan company as slightly more honest and I think that says something.

MandM90

Deleted%20User wrote: »

Did you honestly not watch bbc2 or it might have been bbc1 around April 2014 ? There was a mini series on inside life of estate agents then, a whole 4 week episodes if I recall devoted to it - see if you can find on u tubie

There is no money to be made as the high street now has to compare with online so forget commission - estate agency is a relative youngsters game for very good reason, so alongside lack of money will come the frustration when you are stuck working when they won't want to because they do not understand the customer needs where they haven't grown up - senior management will likely be younger then yourself so when you find yourself out of the circle I'm not sure what you'll do - (I appreciate I will get called Ageist here and make no defence)

Not so long ago an there was an estate agency job ad for receptionist offering 12k in an Essex city working 8-5 - hope that helps with the age range these estate agencies are trying to target

I nearly posted earlier that you might be best trying surveying admin or insurance sales or something like that over this unregulated lot.

I also did school work experience in an estate agency where it was 'funny' to put salt instead of sugar in someone's drink and talk so disgustingly about the conditions some vulnerable people found themselves living in. I actually found a doorstep loan company as slightly more honest and I think that says something.

This definitely isn't always the case. People with 7 figure houses aren't all trusting faceless online companies with their largest asset .

EppleBay - I own a minority share in a lettings management company which operates under the brand name and from the same office as an EA. The owner of the EAgency is a close friend, and I've spent a fair amount of time in their office, including a three month stint at one point.

EAgency is very different regionally. In some areas of North London there seem to be huge amounts of independents who are very dog eat dog. Round here is a mix of independent and large chains.

The company I know well is independent, based in an affluent village and holds the largest property stock in the area (most of which are over the million mark), competing directly with the big boys such as Hamptons and KF. There are only 5 staff in the office (the youngest is 29), all very decent people who take their job seriously and work long hours to push sales through, get people through doors and solve problems. I realise this isn't always the case.


I can't comment on whether it's the right job for you, but I just wanted to let you know they're not all awful environments