Agent's book chronicles life in the front line

A new book by a former estate agent throws a spotlight on what it's like to enter the industry and work for corporate and independent firms.

Inside EA is written and published by Steve Lucas, who worked for 12 years as a London agent. Although the book is aimed at being a guide to prospective buyers and sellers it actually works best as a glimpse of what goes on inside the business.

It discusses how agencies operate, the pay structures and commissions for individual agents, and how performance targets work. It also gives plenty of anecdotes on how agents bend and break rules and the rivalry between different brands.

The strongest chapter - Not All Estate Agencies Are The Same' - talks not only about how chains differ from one-office firms but gives useful insights into the different skills within an office, the work of negotiators, office catchment areas, franchises and so on. A chapter called Infighting' gives, unsurprisingly, a snapshot of how agents compete with each other.

There are plenty of anecdotes, of more interest to those in the business than to the wider public which the book appears to be aimed at, but a weak spot is that Lucas never names names. Indeed, Lucas is careful not to reveal even the companies for which he worked, let alone others about which he writes.

Inside EA is available on Amazon from £6.13 for the Kindle edition and higher prices for print versions.