Continuing our series of Rat and Mouse summer holiday interviews we welcome Henry Pryor, arguably the hardest working ex-estate agent in showbusiness, a regular market commentator on radio and TV and the creator of pithy email newsletters which always brighten the Rat and Mouse inbox. We were delighted when he agreed to answer a few questions. Pretty girls, poker players in Minis, and annoying the Establishment. As always, he didn't hold fire...
Estates Gazette characterized you as somebody who’d crossed over from “the other side”… the outspoken ex-estate agent on a mission to irritate the establishment. Any truth in that?
To the extent that I am not keen on the pompus jobs-worths who refuse to acknowledge that ours is an industry and not a profession. The membership ‘clubs’ (NFoPP and RiCS) both think that they represent everyone involved in the business. They don’t and the latest RiCS inquiry into fees illustrates the arrogance of an organization who don’t even admit how many residential estate agent members they have.
So tell me about your estate agency days… who were you with, and when?
Savills 1983-1993; Strutt & Parker 1993-1993; founded The London Office 1993-2005; founder of PrimeMove.com, The Register of Estate Agents, The Hip Exchange and buying agent 2005 –to date.
Did you enjoy being an estate agent?
I LOVED it. I have been very fortunate to work during a period where doing deals was more important than how many years you’d held the wrong end of a tape measure. At Savills, a culture of enterprise and inititive was encouraged and I’m sure it was responsible for my deciding to go off on my own with the then untried ‘Affiliate’ idea that was The London Office. Strutt & Parker was I think more surprised that they had hired me than I was that they had done so. I think it would be fair to say that I was a square peg in a round hole. The firm was culturally a decade behind Savills and Knight Frank and I was never going to contribute to a tweed jacket and steaming Labrador type environment having just come through a flotation experience at Savills. My loss – S&P’s gain, I’m sure.
Tell me about The London Office.
A 3.00am idea. Why not give the great provincial firms who were by and large run by old mates who had worked in national firms the one thing that stopped them getting the big instructions? The chance to put ‘London’ on their note paper. I think I did just two things that were clever – the name and employing pretty girls. The first office at the top of Berkeley Square still rates as some of the most enjoyable times. As with almost all my ventures, I have been incredibly lucky to have had huge support and encouragement from others who have tolerated my ego, arrogance and sharp tongue. I hope that the experience hasn’t been just one way! After 12 years, it was time to move on. Others had come along like The Mayfair Office and The Guild of Professional Estate Agents and they were better run, better resourced and above all, set up in such a way that they could progress the business. The Guild were so clever setting up Fine & Country. Something I wanted to do at The London Office but that I couldn’t make work.
You were earlier than most to spot a likely house price correction. When did you first make your concerns heard? And what was the reasoning behind it?
Like many I had been mumbling about it for months but I ‘came out’ in the FT in January 2007. At the time it was like suggesting that Princess Diana was a trollop. The Establishment closed ranks. The RiCS put out a release contradicting me but the Today program had a slow news day and so I got on that. Unlike all agents and mortgage brokers who can’t voice a negative thought as it will drive clients away, I had no such restrictions and since there were few skeptics and even fewer prepared to say so publically, I got more than my fair share of airtime.
You seem to have a fair media profile these days. Are you the new Phil Spencer?
Continue reading the Henry Pryor interview, after the jump
No I’m not! I do one or two interviews a week for the BBC and write for The London Magazine and the Sunday Times but I’m not a Broadcaster like Phil. When you see the kind of bile written by some of the vegetables out there in internet-land I’m certain I don’t want to be either!
Where are we now… at the bottom? A way off, yet? In the midst of a recovery?
I still hold to my original views that the market had to fall by 50% from the peak in the summer of 2007 before we reached a floor. Whether that floor would hold is unclear at present as we have huge unemployment issues that will impact on prices as well as the problems with bank lending. I exchanged contracts for a client on a little house in Chelsea last week at just over £1m. The original guide price had been £1.6m when it first came on the market. I’m still concerned we may have over-paid!
Is owning bricks-and-mortar necessarily good for the English psyche? Do you think we’re even capable of treating the residential property market in a responsible or even rational way?
I doubt we are and I’m convinced that the market will come back and we will set off again on the rollacoaster. Unless of course the idiotic Governement are re-elected and continue their apparent policy to f*ck the housing market.
Who are CLEA?
The Central London Estate Agents – 47 of the great and the good (Knight Frank, Savills, WA Ellis...) who publish The London Magazine. I work for CLEA helping them to build their new web site for the Magazine which will launch in the Autumn and with other aspects of their IT. Central London is one of the few places in the country that has a half commissions market. Most CLEA agents offer half–commissions on their instructions to increase the likelihood of finding a buyer or a tenant in the same way that the American market works.
You’ve a number of internet projects on the go. What are you most excited about?
I’m very keen to get a comprehensive Register of Estate Agents for the UK up and running. The industry is one of the most competitive anywhere in the world and the consumer has huge choice and very little cost if they wish to change their mind. However, the buying public often mistake agents for brokers. The result adds to the perception that agents are sharp and sometimes worse. Anything that helps improve the image of the business without forceing the remain agents who have survived the recession to join the RiCS or NFoPP is to be encouraged in my book.
And amongst all this you have time to act as a buying agent?
Well, contrary to what the papers say, the BBC don’t pay well! Buying advice is a growing sector of the property industry – one that few know about. Last year over 700,000 people used an estate agent when they sold but fewer than 12,000 got help when they bought. You wouldn’t pull your own tooth or represent yourself in your own divorce so why would someone not in the housing market day-to-day think they know everything that's on the market, what prices were doing or the tricks of the trade? Why do so many people think that their work as a nurse or a banker means that they are likely to beat an agent who sells houses all day long? When you start your search, you register with web sites and estate agents, tell them what you want, what you have to spend, why you’re moving – even how much your mother-in-law will chip in if you find the right property. And they they are surprised when the nice young man in the branded mini uses all that imformation against them when they start to negotiate. It’s like sitting down to play poker having shown everyone else your hand – oh yes, and having borrowed all your betting money!
So what’s your favourite estate agent joke?
The RiCS.
Thanks, Henry, for taking the time to do this… I very much appreciate it.
