Mary Portas targets London Estate Agent

This morning I attended an event jointly hosted by the British Property Federation (BPF) and the London Councils. The speakers included Alan Collett (BPF Residential Chairman and Chairman, Allsop Residential Investment Management) and Mayor Sir Steve Bullock (Executive Member of Housing, London Councils and Mayor of Lewisham). In the audience were representatives from some of the countries largest landlords, including Grosvenor, Grainger and Dorrington.

The session was entitled “Invest to Rent”, and it launched a guide to assist “developing partnership investment in new rented homes for Londoners”. I have mentioned in many blogs about the shortage of supply of new housing and how future population growth and demographic changes will put further pressure on housing stock. This morning was discussing the need for additional private rented sector (PRS) stock, to part assist in satisfying this demand.

One of the points that was mentioned by some who talk about PRS but have little hands on involvement was the high level of management/poor service of agents. This neatly links to last night’s Mary Portas’s programme.

Mary Portas

According to the show, 79% of people don’t trust estate/letting agents. They think they use unnecessary jargon, that they are manipulative and untrustworthy and are only bothered with a quick sell. In many cases this is true, and the stereotype of an agent with ‘funky’ hair and a flash suit getting out of a branded company car certainly seemed alive and kicking in last night’s show.

But how difficult is it to find bad service in any industry – I’ll leave you to answer that.

 This sounds defeatist, far from it. On the flip side there are many companies who realise that customer service is a differentiator. My oft quoted example of great customer service is John Lewis. Service there is usually excellent, they do not adopt a hard sell, infact I have had times where they discouraged me from buying, or suggested a cheaper product – because they are listening to me. However, they also get it wrong sometimes – consistency is very difficult.

We are in a position that we face a severe lack of housing in the UK, and we need to encourage investors, government, lenders etc. that putting money into housing is an attractive option. Part of this encouragement comes from improving the reputation of our industry. How about the BBC, our public broadcaster, showing how good the industry can be, giving people confidence to invest in housing?

This is not a rant from someone who as part of his property group owns a letting agency – Young London – and is upset by the programme, but rather someone who feels we need to show the importance of housing the next generations and encourage investment in it. This programme really was aiming at ‘low hanging fruit’.

Customer Service has always been key for us, and this opinion is growing within the property industry – clearly demonstrated at the BPF/London Councils event this morning. So let’s encourage the positives rather than taking the easy option and revert to the stereotypes. Let’s move the debate on.