Veracity Index Estate Agents at the Bottom
Hello everyone, you have got to see this!
This is the 2022 IPSOS veracity Index, this is a measure of trust that you the public have in various Industries and I wonder if you can guess whereabouts estate agents fall in this index?
Well you may not be surprised to know that we have actually been relegated right near to the bottom, we’ve fallen a couple of places over the last two three years and as you can see we are now fourth from the bottom ranking only above government ministers, advertising Executives and politicians in general, even bankers and local councilors rate much more trustworthy than estate agents!
If we move on to the six most trusted professions, it may not come as some as any surprise that they include nurses Engineers, Doctors, Scientists, Teachers and Museum Curators and at the very bottom once again the least trusted journalists, who come higher than estate agents, Government Ministers, Advertising Executives and Politicians generally, in our defence, what I would like to say is that as I have repeated on many occasions this industry in the UK is mainly controlled by the national chains and I believe you know exactly what I think of them! I cannot impress upon you how important it is that you avoid them at all costs.
I know that the average person in the UK decides to go on the market and they will normally call so and so, I can’t say it or so and so or so and so, don’t call them, don’t have anything to do with them, ignore all their promises, this is why they rank so low and they drag all of the hard-working decent devoted independent agents down with them who are not to blame at all.
Even now under the current climate which we are all aware of, the national chains will cynically vastly overvalue a property simply to win the listing and convince the seller to sign a contract, once the 14-day cooling off period is over there the sellers will never see the valuer again, then The Negotiator steps in and it may not come as any surprise to you that with one or two of these National chains the negotiators actually receive a commission for how much they can pressure the sellers to lower their price!
They are not in the business of trying to get you the best price, they are not in the business of looking out for your best interests, they are simply looking out for themselves and for their brand, they don’t care about their employees, they don’t care about their clients, they only care about their Balance Sheets!
It is also uh wrong that an industry that plays such an important role in people’s personal finances is not regulated with any formal qualification, there are formal qualifications but it’s not obligatory, somebody needs a qualification to speak to you on the phone and establish if you’re happy or sad or whatever the case may be, and yet somebody could come to your property and be advising you on a property that could be hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds and they might not even know what they are talking abou,t that is wrong, so all I can say is this does not reflect on all estate agents it reflects on the industry as a whole.
In the UK this industry as a whole is dominated by the national chains and it is only you the public that can break this chain, so by all means look out for that independent agent that has local knowledge a vested interest and who will look out and look after you to the best of their ability.
Anyway I’d love to hear your thoughts and something to think about and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.