Tales from the Front Line

Aligning pay with the job

by Peter Mackie
on February 26, 2010 in Properties

With all the recent discussion about pay and bonuses, I have been considering our own small business and how the team are compensated. This must be in such a way to benefit our clients, the buyers, and encourage the team to work coherently.

Historically, in the residential property industry, there tended to be an emphasis towards a low basic salary and commission paid to the selling agent, which would be a percentage of the total commission paid by the vendor, for each transaction. However, this model could never have worked on the buying side because, if our team became, for all intents and purposes, commission salesmen it could certainly raise question marks about the quality of their advice and the motives.

Therefore, we have always gone down the route of a “proper” salary and a fully discretionary bonus. The bonus is based on achievement of personal objectives and client feedback research. This is to ensure that all employees are working hard to provide an exemplary service and making sure our clients buy the right property at the right price. This has served us well over the 27 years that Property Vision has been going.

I was therefore astonished to hear recently that a firm of buying agents, who have recently set up in competition with us, were considering paying commission to their executives on each transaction and therefore destroying their whole advisory and team basis.

Property Intelligence – a buying agency’s view

by Peter Mackie
on January 18, 2010 in Properties

This week Property Vision was quoted exclusively on ”property intelligence” in Graham Norwood’s Blog.

No carnage, but still some pain in the year ahead

by Peter Mackie
on October 16, 2009 in Negotiating

Today Property Vision was quoted on ”credibility leverage” by Anne Ashworth in The Times:

Click here to view the article