Reading about more senior grey hair leaving the industry means even fewer old heads to advise anyone who cares to listen.
London is not unique, but is a massively powerful world city in a relatively small country, and its effect on local economic activity throughout Britain cannot be under-estimated. More so than any other city, its ability to attract and service the rich is a cash cow for the whole nation.
But successive politicians since 2008 have sought to vilify the wealthy as tax dodgers, spongers and any other epithet that enables them to find new ways to milk them, calculating that votes lost is a worthwhile price for cash.
That strategy has now swung too far – politically and financially: 2016 will be remembered as the year the UK voted to leave the EU, the US voted Donald Trump to be their president and Europe swung right. But economically is where the damage is being done as fewer and fewer people spend money in London.
Received wisdom has always been that soaking rich property owners won’t affect those further down the food chain. But in London this has always been wrong and the effects are now dramatic with focus always on prices and not the thing that counts – volumes.
In a market, and property economy, that has always thrived on volume, politicians need to understand that Londoners move because they want to, not because they need to. Moving to a better postcode is about status: choke off that market and you have a serious effect all the way down, as is now being evidenced.
The Stamp Duty Land Tax pip has been squeezed too hard and when you can rent a nice property for 3-5 years for the equivalent SDLT, why would you buy?
If you ally this to misdirected assaults on landlords and letting agents who provide the backbone of the PRS sector, 14 housing ministers in the last 19 years– none in cabinet – a total lack of clarity and no long-term policy on how to build homes, falling SDLT receipts, falling transactional volumes and a misguided underlying policy that assumes home ownership is the be all and end all, and you can see that if there’s ever been a time for the Government to engage with the estate agency sector it’s now, before it’s too late.
Governments probably realise ours is a disparate industry but we are at the sharp end and need to find a coherent voice – now.
Ed Mead is now a director of outsourced viewing service www.Viewber.co.uk and an independent property consultant / commentator: ed-mead.com
The NAEA, RICS and other trade bodies have singularly failed to offer a unified (or even vocal) voice to protect the industry and consumers. We now have a state of anarchy in one of the largest sectors of the UK economy with effectively no policing of this multi-trillion pound business that affects one of everybodies most fundamental need, a home.
It cannot be right that it has taken a small group of agents (including Ed) and an agency supplier from across the country to detect and identify law-breaking and a whole new form of fraud costing consumers and agents tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds each year and for that group to then effect change within the industry at the highest level, rather than the enforcement and trade bodies in question.
It is for this reason that I have re-joined the NAEA and NFoPP to work for change. I would urge you, the reader, to do so too.
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Thanks Chris for that rallying call about NAEA. Have to say I have been looking at my Renewal Notice and yet again thinking, is it worth continuing membership – what do they do for us. I will try and stay on board for now!
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Interesting to hear Ed lament the loss of another ‘grey head’ although, interestingly, many of the points in the article point towards a new property market and new ways forward and, with that in mind, maybe it isnt grey heads that should be consulted at this time (with so many still shunning or far too slow to adopt tech and evolve) but the established ‘middle-lifers’ who can see both where the industry has come from and where, potentially, it is going.
Chris is bang on about the (onging) failures of various representing bodies to really deliver on the most vital of issues. Do I need another 10% discount on stationery…….seriously? We work in sales, if we cant negotiate our own supply contracts then we should really get the hell out of the job of selling and negotiating. I want a body campaiging for us, fighting the poorly structured and highly repetitive agent bashing media, getting success stories out there showing how we have evolved and how many Landlords and Tenants alike agree with this. See them chapmion stories of innovation, success, recognition and more.
Personally I feel there is nowhere near enough consultation. NFOPP sends out its various ‘market survey’s’ ticking the monthly PR criteria of stock and movement but how about a gritty and in depth survey that reveals our hopes and fears for the industry, our chosen ‘regulators’ and the future- warts and all? How about a government that stops happily joining in the agent-bashing (you’d have thought they’d understand more being in the top 3 with us and parking wardens) and actually respects the knowledge and insight we have and actually present the problems faced to us to see how we think they should/can best be tackled- but dont just ask the 5 biggest agents in the UK (with hundreds of millions of revenue at stake how can they possibly give advice that woukd potentially damage their business) get a cross-section of agents, big and small, those that are regulated, compliant, innovative- deliver great consumer confidence (reviews) and lead the industry with awards for innovations, service, tech and more.
We can be some much more so easily if we were only given the chance to be.
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Chris,
I agree with Ed, we need a voice, someone we can trust.
Someone who has helped enforce change with regard to portal juggling, together with the likes of PeeBee, Robert and others Chris, I had hoped that you would step up to the plate yourself?
PB now need reigning in and I know how you could use that to help draw many more independents together.
This would cost very little.
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Harry S Trueman.
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