Coronavirus crisis WILL change the way estate agency staff work when it’s over

Leading London agent says he is already planning to offer his staff more flexible working practices when they return to their branches.

estate agency

The coronavirus crisis will significantly change the way estate agencies allow their staff to work, a leading London estate agency owners has claimed.

Lee James Pendleton says his agency is looking at how his teams at his nine offices can be more efficient following the crisis and that there is going to be more flexibility about how people work.

“We are already planning a strategy around that, which includes using virtual meetings and initial valuations to make us more efficient,” he tells The Negotiator.

“While other people think it’s a time of doom and gloom, we think it’s an exciting time because the lockdown is enabling our business to evolve.

“The property industry is also not like the travel industry. Whereas holidaymakers may miss trips, buyers and sellers commit in their minds to making a transaction when they can.”

Pendleton also thinks that agents should be planning how they are going to re-open their business.

His negotiators are at home but working hard at trying to get as many sales and lettings offers as close to over the line as possible, including getting ready for the flood of viewings that will need to be completed as soon as physical distancing rules are relaxed.

Pendleton claims he has 300 instructions waiting to go ahead across his estate agency branch network.

“Our data shows that the appetite to move home is very strong out there despite the crisis, and that is a good sign – if that appetite had fallen off a cliff in recent weeks then we’d have to be starting from scratch, but I don’t think that will be the case,” he says.

“Buyers and sellers have never been funnelled into a bottleneck like this in the industry’s history and it’s too early to write this year’s market off as a dud.

“Covid-19 has created a build-up of pressure that could make the Boris Bounce look like a pea shooter.”

 

 


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