It’s been a challenging week.

The tragic murder of Sarah Everard highlighted the issues around women’s safety.

As a husband and as a father with a daughter, awful incidents like this hit home.

As someone who heads up a team of estate agents, many who are female, I think it’s worth sharing some best practice around keeping safe while carrying out our daily roles.

No one in our industry has forgotten the terrible case of Suzy Lamplugh, the agent who went missing while on a viewing back in 1986.

We always log viewings and prospective buyer or sellers’ details onto our CRM, but as that can never be 100% failsafe, we also recommend that wherever possible, it’s important to let colleagues know what you are doing in terms of ‘out of the office’ work.

While thinking about this article, I did some research about personal safety apps.
Options include Bsafe – Red Panic Button and Circle of 6 among others.

And while the use of these may be, thankfully, very rare, it’s worth considering them or some of the other alternatives out there.

In other news, I had my Covid-19 jab on Sunday. It felt like a had a really bad whisky hangover later that day, but I’m getting back to normal as I write this.
And that sense of getting back to normal is one which many of us have.

It’ll be a year next Tuesday since we went into lockdown in the UK.

Last week I spoke with several prospective franchisees and told them that I believe there’s never been a better time to launch as an agent.

In 2014 when I joined EweMove, all indicators pointed towards a hectic couple of years as we recovered from the Credit Crunch. Then came Brexit in 2016, casting a big cloud of uncertainty that took four years to clear.

The Brexit / Boris bounce kicked into action in early 2020 before the pandemic hit, throwing the mother of all spanners into our economic and social activity.

Despite that, 2020 was extraordinary for the property market, and on Monday morning this week, Rightmove reported that buyer demand across the UK was at record levels.

I can see this lasting through until September or October at least.

Several factors make me believe this.

The stamp duty holiday has been extended. The Government-backed mortgages will start kicking in, and there are more options for borrowers looking to move.

And while I fully expect it to be busy, I’d also urge every agent, male and female, to take a safety-first approach and do all they can to keep themselves and their colleagues safe.

Thanks for reading.