Podcast reveals controversial answers to estate agency talent ‘problem’
Matt Giggs, Russell Quirk and Josh Rayner reveal why they think the best minds don't want to join the industry - and offer up some answers.
Estate agents only stay in their jobs for just 17 months on average, while nearly half of all new recruits are gone in a year, a leading industry recruiter has claimed.
Josh Rayner has revealed these figures during Matt Giggs’ latest Estate Agent Showdown podcast, also revealing that 48% of people hired by agents on average have left their jobs a year later
Rayner and Giggs were joined by PR guru and ex-agent Russell Quirk and the trio explored why the property industry has such a poor track record in attracting and retaining talent.
They offered up two key remedies – better recruitment practices and also the adoption of the RoPA recommendations that agents are licensed in a similar way to solicitors, both of which would help raise the reputation of agents among young people considering a career as an agent.
Quirk added: “Can anyone put their finger on someone they know who went through school and then university desperate to become an estate agents – it doesn’t really happen.
Best candidates
“I think the majority who go into the industry enter it accidentally and I think that’s because of the ‘PR’ that it has – we’re never going to attract the best candidates while the sector as a whole is perceived as not being aspirational.
“If you go to the US and many other countries, being an estate agent is seen as being laudable thing.”
Rayner said he agreed with Quirk, in particular noting that until the industry is regulated “nothing is going to change”.
But Quirk, who rarely shies away from being blunt, also said too many young entrants into the industry today have a ‘victim’ mentality and are too quick to cite anxiety over stress at work, rather than developing resilience in the workplace.
“Don’t get me wrong there are many figures within the industry who talk about mental health including Ben Madden and Kristjan Byfield who discuss mental health a lot and that’s totally valid – but some emplooyes do play the ‘mental health’ card and that can make people management very difficult sometimes.”
The main issue with staff wanting to stay in the business is that there just isn’t enough money to go round. In 1984 I was earning around £10-12k as a negotiator after 18months in the business. Thats about £40-45k in today’s economy. With fees having been driven down there isn’t a lot of meat in the bones to employ good quality staff at that level. So people go off to be ‘self employed’ which continues to drive fees down and they still don’t earn enough in most cases. In the USA where agents charge 6% they rent a desk and manage around 10-20 properties each. Much better work rate and more professional with licensing. Will never happen here but at least if agents would stop underselling themselves we could offer better wages and get better quality individuals. £20-25k per annum is just not enough.