Estate agents, along with financial intermediaries and those in the lettings industry, are among those worst hit by the big squeeze and are earning less than this time a year ago.
According to the BBC’s Panorama programme, property agents in both lettings and sales are earning £99 a month less, while financial intermediaries are £101 a month worse off.
The equivalent of a 5% wage cut for many sectors, it means that those reliant on the property sector for their living are around £1,200 a year worse off.
Builders have also been hit hard, losing £99 a month.
Public sector workers are £45 poorer a month, while those in wholesale, retail, hotels and restaurants are down £41.
Meanwhile, inflation is running at double the level the Government wants to see.
Comments
How very true PeeBee. It annoys me no end how the quick buck kids come into the market without any experience, when the market is on a high and disappear leaving a mess when it gets tough. Most of them spouting how things should be done, with little foresight.
Any agent who has been in the business and survived any recession now or in the past does deserve more credit than they are given.
"Yet you chose to become an estate agent?"
Look at it this way, Tim - it's a dirty job but SOMEONE'S gotta do it!
I made a lifestyle change decision at age 29 and became an Agent, having, I ashamedly admit, previously considered them the scourge of the planet that so many like to perpetuate. Why? Because I could, and because in some way I believed I could make a difference. Maybe I'd simply had a mental episode - I still wonder from time to time but then tell myself I am perfectly normal...
Anyway - that was 1992 - and in I went at a time when the market was pretty much past its' best in terms of price bubbles. I took with me 12 years of experience in a related property field, much of which was wasted, but some survived the transfer remarkably well. Well enough to see me for the next 14 years, actually, when I decided to return to my roots, where I live happily once again despite the market conditions we have endured in the last three years - and I am positive we shall continue to work with for a similar period of time.
You ask ANYONE who entered Agency, "property development" (you know... the 'slinging a coat of magnolia on the knackered walls of a 1930's semi and sticking thirty grand on the auction price kind of "property developer"...') or any related business in the 1999-2006 period why they did it and they will say it was a licence to print money. Ask them why they are no longer in the job, they will tell you that something better came along. They will NEVER tell you that 'selling' property is only a walk in the park when no 'selling' is involved; that vendors and purchasers expectations NEVER waver in a poor market from those they hold in the very best of markets; and that when the chips are down, it takes a VERY SPECIAL person to put up with certain attitudes; and deal with the emotions of a hundred different neurots each and every day.
Whilst I know as well as the next man that there are some who bring the profession into disrepute (but show me ANY profession where this is not the case...), believe me, the vast majority of these people deserve medals.
"One is always a master of ones own fate or destiny in life."
Yet you chose to become an estate agent?
Our partners and staff are earning more, we work hard anf being the agent of choice we keep on top. One is always a master of ones own fate or destiny in life.
@DaveEvans
I think it's a decent gag.
My god, does that mean that I won't be able to buy myself a new Mercedes/ BMW/ Jag (delete as applicable)?
Have to say better to take less money home than no money home.
Vossy the North Pole is disappearing, Lol. And most shout about how bad that is, something I don't think they will do over estate agents.
PinHead - an apt username.
Estate agent today. Unemployed tomorrow. Fnarr fnarr.
surely, if our earnings are down by double the amount that the public sector is down we should be organising some kind of protest ourselves?
Talk about stating the obvious! I hope no one was paid to write this article! next they will state that there is ice at the North Pole.