How much did a rookie estate agent earn as a basic 40 years ago?
When Bob Scarff asked the throw-away question, he was astonished to find he had nearly 100 entries – although no one got the correct answer, which has at least spared him the problem of having to award a suitable prize.
Scarff got lots of jokes about three-day weeks, and pounds, shillings and pence.
There was a big entry from people who knew Scarff and worked with him at the time: “Interestingly, without exception, they all thought I was paid a lot more than I was,” said Scarff.
“One entry thought I was paid five times as much as I actually was.”
The nearest answer was from Simon Murray of EweMove who suggested £27.50 per week.
The answer was that, starting work as a trainee in Milton Keynes in the late seventies, former Countrywide estate agency boss Scarff earned £28.85 per week – around £1,500 a year with 7.5% commission on top.
So about the same as a Countrywide negotiator can look forward to earning this year then!
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I was earning about £1,000 a year in 1975 so that looks about right. No commission though!
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I always suspected these Countrywide people were overpaid. My first job as a trainee estate agent/surveyor was with House and Son in Southampton where I was paid £2.00 per week ….£100 per annum(1957 ) and I still have the letter to prove it! I think petrol was 4 gallons for a pound which left precious little to live on but we survived.
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I started my first job in London in 1977 £1750pa +10% comimssion It wasnt high!!! A big whack of that went out for a shared bedroom in Muswell Hill where I used to scrape the damp off the bed before entering An Ascot heater in the bathroom the ones that used to kill which took about 10 minutes to crank up a few inches of water in the bath .Woken up by a radio alarm music blaring by a foreign exchange broker at 5am every morning
The flat was found in the Standard To Let pages Rolled up to find a queue of 40 interested parties snaking around the corner for the interview 4 of us- We must have looked respectable as we got it Flats to rent of any description were very hard to find. I later found out whilst I was living there the serial kiler Dennis Neilsen was doing his bit a couple of doors away !!
One Friday I missed the bank to draw out some money I asked my boss if I could borrow some money from petty cash He said what do you want “£20 £50 I said no £5 I wont be able to afford to pay you back!!
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I started Property Personnel back in 1988 and having just checked back through what I have left of our pre-computerised records (backs of fag packets, etc) it looks like the average basic wage for a Sales Negotiator was about £4,000. That’s about £75 per week!
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£4,000 in 1998!!! I started in agency in 1998 aged 23 on no basic (just a retainer that had to be paid back) and 15% commission. I banked 100K for the company and earned £15,000.
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“I started Property Personnel back in 1988″
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pre dates me I started in ’81 £5K basic and 3% pool commission. Company car was the managers car if you didn’t want to use your own, but all petrol included. 1st year OTE: £9K (I think) by ’87 it had more than quadrupled.
Average sale price of a 4 bed terrace (Norff Landahn) £28K in ’81
Same house today: £2.5m
Salary today: £9,500 basic !!!!!!!
Only joking it’s still £5K
Ho Hum !
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I started as a trainee neg in Folkestone in 1981. From memory my salary was around £3,000 PA with 2% pooled commission on top but only after my 3 month probationary period. Company car was an old escort estate that I used to carry the boards. Oh happy days….
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I was paid £2,100 with no commission in 1984. If I had ambitions for partnership, I would need to qualify as a surveyor and as I had no car, my only perk was using whichever car was free in the office car park. For a young gun at that time, this was a perk, as I variously used a Range Rover, BMW 635i coupe and 730 BMW and the senior partners Jag XJS. I can’t remember if I took the direct routes to the properties though…
When they did give me a car, it was an Austin Maestro, which did the decent thing and burst into flames when I was sitting in traffic one day. Friday lunchtimes were a high, all the agents would meet in the wine bar to discuss things…
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