A senior  property industry figure says estate agents who work for traditional firms are poorly paid and that the salary and OTE bonus structure means many agents work ridiculous hours to take home £40-£55,000 a year.

Sally Asling (pictured) who recently became a director of RE/MAX for Surrey but has also worked for several traditional agents including Stirling Ackroyd, Lauristons and Countrywide during her 24-year career, also says the low number of transaction in the market at the moment is pushing this model to its limit.

Asling claims the 5-10% of a sale fee earned by most employed sales agents means many have to sell ‘a lot of homes to reach their OTE’ and that this has created a transactional, rather than a customer-focused industry.

“Many good agents I am speaking to are not going to hit their OTE this year as there is a lower number of transactions happening because of the supply and demand issues,” she tells The Neg.

Property industry

“Their companies are increasing targets and agents are working longer hours, running themselves into the ground just to stay still financially. “They are generally unhappier because they are not getting time off to spend with families and its pushing some good people out of the property industry.

“Some agents are in debt and the high targets/long hours affects agents mental health.”

Asling is not just critical of high street agents – she says the Purplebricks and Yopa hybrid business models suffer from the same problem.

“This all means the customers are ultimately suffering from poor service and its driving standards down in an industry where we should be driving them up,” she adds.