Becoming an estate agent

[blackberryaddict78]

Hi

I am a mum of one working from home and am thinking about a change in career. I am finding my job increasingly isolating due to very little interaction with people. It seems like the perfect job on paper as it fits in with school hours and is well paid for part-time work but after 6 years of doing the same work/projects and a boss who works overseas (out of sight out of mind) I have had enough and am starting to get increasingly disheartened with it for various reasons. I know you probably think I am mad due to the hours and working from home bit!

Instead of moping around I need to do something about it. I have been racking my brains to see what ideas I could come up with to start my own business.

However, I have always been interested in property and turned down a graduate job with a leading estate agent when I left university to work for a blue chip company. I turned it down as I though that there would not be much variety in the work as the planned route I was going to take was lettings and I wanted the sales job.

Are there any estate agents out there who can tell me what it is like - hours, variety of work, estate agents get a lot of bad press so do they get a lot of grief, holidays etc.

I am aware that I am going to have to give up child friendly hours and accept a lower salary to get some experience.

Thanks in advance...
x

[Mintyy]

I worked part time as an Estate Agent for a couple of years and I really enjoyed it!

BUT

I was only part-time (2 days a week) and I worked for an independent, rather than a chain. The chains tend to have complicated and difficult to reach sales targets and there is an awful lot of pressure on the negotiators to achieve results (hence, probably, some of the more dubious sales techniques you hear about).

My boss worked out a commission structure especially for me, so that I was able to earn commission where applicable, otherwise the basic pay would not have been worth it.

The hours are long ... you have to work evenings and Saturdays because that's when people want to view. I lost count of the number of buyers who complained that we didn't open on Sundays.

[blackberryaddict78]

Thanks Mintyy. Were you lettings/sales and did you job share? I'd be interested to know what made you give it up?

[Mintyy]

Sales.

No job share - I just worked on the two days when they needed extra people in the office - Fridays and Saturdays.

Downturn in the property market made me give it up. I didn't earn any commission for a couple of months and, as I said, the basic wasn't enough for me to want to work for. At the same time my self-employed husband got a lot busier and had to keep turning down £350/day to work on Saturdays because I was at the EAs earning £70ish.

[blackberryaddict78]

Totally understand. What did you enjoy about it and what do you do now :)?