The perfect storm or a new dawn?

It’s safe to say that the property market has been volatile recently, but there are opportunities for innovation available too, says Martin Beard, senior marketing executive, tmgroup.

You’d have to be living under a rock to have not been impacted by the pressure cooker environment that has been the property industry in 2022. With these market conditions, the burden has rested heavily on property professionals in all roles across the sector.

Our annual survey aims to pick out what really is going on in the industry and what the future holds. Now at the mid-point of the survey, we look at some of the key themes emerging so far.

One of the things discovered is the potential ‘perfect storm’ that has been brewing over the last year. Over 60% of respondents state they have experienced more transactions that are taking longer to progress with higher costs. If you couple this with the 40% that answered they had reduced staff and increased working hours, it really does paint a bleak and stressful picture of the last 12 months.

Little wonder, then, when looking into the future, recruitment and staff retention challenges feature heavily – with over half the people indicating they will be leaving the industry in the next five years. Everyone must surely be asking the same question – what can we do to keep talent and experience in our businesses and ultimately in the industry?

All is not lost

The opportunity to improve is there, we just need to embrace it. Change has mainly taken the form of flexible working hours, social events, and encouraging time outdoors with things such as ‘cycle to work’ programmes. Four-day working weeks also featured prominently in responses – an interesting shift from the traditional five-day (sometimes six) working week. Time will tell whether this is here to stay. It is clear, although the industry is moving in the right direction, more needs to be done to support the workforce sooner rather than later, especially as 16% reported they had not benefited from any wellbeing initiatives.

Do you agree with our findings so far?

If you haven’t already done so, there are a little over 3 weeks left to give us your opinion. As a thank you for completing the survey you will have the option to be entered into our prize draw to win one of three weekly prizes of Amazon vouchers of £25, £50, and £100 along with our grand finale prizes of a tech or wellbeing bundle worth over £400.

We will be publishing the results in the new year kicking off with a ‘first look’ tmtv special. Last year’s report, ‘The New normal’, is available on our website and you can view the tmtv special launch on our YouTube channel