In November, the Great and the Good of the NAEA stood in the Palace of Westminster and announced their ‘licensing’ scheme.
Standing beside a large sign that read “Always use an NAEA Licensed Agent”, the chief executive said (quoting from the NAEA press release): “From today, estate agency in the UK is a two-tiered industry – those agents who are licensed and those who are not. I think the public will welcome the distinction and I believe that this move will raise standards across the industry.”
Housing minister Grant Shapps said: “In future, anyone looking to buy a home or sell theirs should ask the simple question of their estate agents – Are you licensed?”
For the record, I believe that the ARLA licensing scheme has merit, since lettings agents are not estate agents and are not caught by the Consumers and Estate Agents Redress Act. However, my views on the NAEA licensing scheme are very different.
Like many others now, my day job for the past six years has been working as a buying agent, something that the 1979 Estate Agent Act defines as being an estate agent.
I have to sign up to an Ombudsman scheme, am governed by CERA and the ridiculous Money Laundering Register.
My beef with the NAEA is that rather than backing an industry-wide initiative, it has chosen to go on a recruitment drive and to say that only its members can be licensed.
This means that either I must join the NAEA – or stand back like the two-thirds of all agents who are not members and be labelled as ‘unlicensed’. Furthermore, I should accept this without complaint. Why on earth should I?
I am actually a big fan of many within the NAEA and applaud much of what they (and if I can whisper it, the RICS) try to achieve.
But their cause is not enhanced when one looks at the latest video-cast from Warwick. That I am being blackmailed to join a body capable of putting out this kind of communication does not impress me.
The NAEA seems to be twitching in the way a chicken does just after its neck has been broken.
By his own admission, even members of NAEA are unlikely to have seen this tragic video from Mark Hayward posted last Wednesday and included in the weekly email updates that go to the falling NAEA membership.
In a toe-curling pitch, the vice-president paints a bleak picture of the health and morale of the organization, and unwittingly gives a great advert for the benefits of media training if you want to get your message over using video.
The NAEA, says the man in a suit who looks and sounds older than my father, needs younger members to complement the ageing membership. Furthermore, membership numbers have fallen to just over 7,000, and the NAEA needs to engage with members much more.
Mr Hayward says that attendance at branch meetings is below 4% “if they ever occur”.
He wails that the magazine “is read occasionally – if ever” and that the “weekly emails” (like the one with the video, I suspect) are ignored – “less than 40% are even opened!” (Not a great pitch to advertisers needed to help fund the publications, I’d have thought!)
Despite paying a pretty high annual subscription, it seems that even the NAEA’s own members aren’t interested in what their trade body is doing.
But pour yourself a stiff drink and prepare for a visual treat! Click on the following link or copy and paste the full url at the foot of the page into your browser. https://bit.ly/eRZ5co
(If you are the average age of an NAEA member, then you might want to find a nice young member of staff to help you with this!)
I don’t want to pay a subscription towards a body that sounds like it will very soon be a corpse, even though it is keen to try and persuade both the Government and the public that only a third of all agents are good enough to be “licensed”.
I would prefer that they get their own house in order before they try and sort out mine, but I’m pretty sure a better solution would be if we could all pull together.
A merry festive season to you all!
NAEA Press release - https://www.naea.co.uk/news/news_details.aspx?id=555
Vice-President’s video:
https://www.powershiftlive.com/video_stream_approval.php?video=NFOPP_Branchv2_Powershift_S.flv
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Comments
"(If you are the average age of an NAEA member, then you might want to find a nice young member of staff to help you with this!)" Some of us even know how to copy and paste.
Nip up to Hampstead Heath matey! Thats where they all get to pull together!
Okay,
Ive been a bit horrible about Henry here in the recent past but my goodness I like the way he’s thinking on this one.
Ive said that the NAEA is nothing but a poorly managed bunch of magazine salesmen frittering away member’s subscriptions in a way that would put a New Labour QUANGO to shame, and my new pal Henry seems to agree…………
Match this with the article above about the pitiful response to the money laundering I think its fair to say that the current crop of players in the emerging economy that its estate agency regulation aren’t up to the job.
As the likes of NAEA etc stumble around like a mangy old dog, snarling a bit and showing a pathetic set of teeth the best and kindest thing to do is have them put down and get a new big dog with massive nuts and a big bite, until then we have the old dog with no balls or bite and that wont get anywhere.
Jonnie
Great Blog Henry and echoes my own thoughts and previously published comment. The licensing schme is a nonsense for all the reasons you state and was clearly a very weak PR stunt and yet another attempt for the NAEA to try and punch above their weight as a "professional body". They should revert to being a good trade body and representing their member's interests not in trying to be like RICS who have a Royal Charter and therefore an obligation to act in the public interest. RICS seems to want to regulate the world. NAEA would possibly gain more from standing its own ground rather than trying to hold onto Great George St's coat-tails. NAEA membership has fallen dramatically and Mark Hayward's video is likely to see it fall further. He uses the word exciting in the opening remarks but looks and sounds anything but. Members vote with their wallets and designatory letters. The NAEA still has a wonderful opportunity. It benefits from a name that reflects its member's activities(unlike RICS)but is failing in so many areas to get engagement with its members. The relative failure of Property Live is a case in point. Time for some new blood and new thinking in Warwick methinks?