A new breed of agent – The Property Chronicle
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A new breed of agent Ed Mead looks back to what estate agency was like in the 80s

The Agent

Vintage cars on a street

I’m not quite sure what it was that led to the emergence of the high end independent agent, especially in central London. For years, unless you were professionally accredited i.e. a RICS or ISVA member, you wouldn’t even have been considered as a partner of a firm, and in those days most were partnerships. When you’re starting a new business, or trying to compete in the industry you work in, you can do one of two things – have an idea no one else has or do the same thing, but just do it better. In the early 80s the spirit of Maggie Thatcher spurred many an entrepreneur to do just that, and if they wanted to staff their agencies they didn’t have far to look. Old-fashioned unmistakably upright companies expected the likes of me to stay with them for life. But that age-old code was breaking down and having proved I could sell, some of these new go ahead outfits came knocking – and it wasn’t difficult for them to look attractive.






The Agent

About Ed Mead

Ed Mead

Ed Mead has worked in the central London estate agency market for almost forty years and has acquired a reputation for saying it as it is. He's contributed over many years as The Sunday Times Property Expert and as the Agent Provocateur in The Telegraph amongst many others as well as fronting two BBC TV series. He left agency in September 2016 to start Viewber, the world's first outsourced property viewing service harnessing the power of the sharing economy to make viewings available 24/7 for agents and landlords via their own dashboard. He is still a regular press contributor with a regular live Q&A slot on LBC.

Articles by Ed Mead

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