Keep calm and take some new steps

I often get asked about the latest trends in the real estate market, what's hot and what's not, what buyers want and what agents "should" be doing to help sellers or vice versa. People often also tell me how bad things are in the world right now, and why we should be focused on preparing for a crisis, instead of planning for better days to come, in the property sector as well as the wider economy and environment.

But here's my consistent message in the face of all that doom and gloom: Just focus on what you can control at any given moment.

We are all familiar with the disappointment that occurs when we make plans and set goals and then encounter big obstacles to reaching those specific milestones, but it is important not to regard those setbacks as personal failures. It is also really not useful to feel so weighed down by the whole world's problems that there is no point in trying to do anything anymore.

In my own life and in the Chas Everitt group, we believe that the only useful response when "disaster" strikes and wipes out your plan is to immediately start thinking about what steps you can take at that point, and start building a new plan around those. It is a waste of good energy to keep trying to force the present or the future into the shape of the past.

For example, when the global economy crashed in 2008, it led to us developing a strong new rental division and a whole new client base, and when Covid-19 hit and we we all forced to stay at home, we kept finding new ways to talk to our sellers and buyers and of using technology to serve them and get deals done.

Of course this requires being open to talking to more people, looking for new ideas, experimenting and being willing to adapt, but that is the point - and it very often leads to people becoming a much better version of themselves than they could have imagined if things had all gone the way the originally planned.

It is also probably the most important element of the value we bring to our clients. While many others only have checklists of tasks they need to perform to get homes sold or rented, Chas Everitt agents don't just tick boxes. They are also highly capable of finding alternative solutions when necessary - and empowered to do so.

And that's because our focus is always on you, the client, and not on us. The reason our agents are equipped with the best training and technology, and have access to all the best local and global marketing platforms, is precisely to give them the space and freedom to spend more time with their clients and adapt to their particular circumstances.