Comment: 'Luxury estate agent life isn't glitz, glamour and getting rich — despite what Netflix portrays'

Just this week, I received a direct message on Instagram from a young person asking for a job after watching reality real estate show Selling Sunset.

And this isn’t the first time.

It seems that every time you blink, a new reality TV show promising to portray high stakes real estate emerges. This week it’s Marking It in Marbella, next week — probably somewhere else equally as aspirational, marketed with a catchy alliterated name.

Some may argue that it’s great to see young people wanting to kick-start their career in property and being encouraged by these TV shows, but we have to face facts.

Young people’s heads have been turned by the glitz and glamour, and what they’re left with is an unrealistic picture of what the sector is.

Meanwhile viewers are given the impression that becoming a super prime property agent is an easy get-rich-quick scheme, at a time when we need it to be seen as super professional and highly skilled.

Netflix shows such as Selling Sunset, Buying London and now Making It in Marbella, are taking the reality TV world by storm.

While there’s clearly an appetite from the public to see lavish properties, the day-to-day of how agents sell those properties, and the clientele buying them. The reality is, these scripted storylines create a misconception of the super prime property world.

For instance, in these shows, many of the ‘agents’ talk candidly about square footage, prestigious addresses and celebrity neighbours.

In reality, our client base wouldn’t want their homes and financials being discussed out loud in an office — let alone on TV streamed to millions. Privacy is a pillar of the super prime property industry, security is critical and trust is currency when it comes to client relationships.

This is just one of the many ways these reality TV shows get it wrong about our industry.

Behind every real agency is graft. Good agency is a skill, whereas these shows focus on the gossip and glamour. While that might reel the viewers in, it’s for the wrong reasons.

Also, in a post-pandemic world, in the midst of a global recession too, the genre of shows like these are becoming increasingly tasteless.

Focusing on the entrepreneurship and skills would have been a far better avenue for producers to take. These shows overlook the skills, either because they don’t feel it makes great TV or because some of the agents shown are rumoured not to actually work there.

It has not only caused an unrealistic perception of the industry for some, but bred resentment amongst many.

Viewers are tuning into see groups of young glamorous ‘agents’, boasting huge commissions on even bigger homes, seemingly selling them without any difficulty or skill.

While it’s great that more people are keen to enter the industry, this isn’t the way our industry should be doing it. We want them to enter for the right reasons and these shows are not a great shop window for that.

Every agent I have ever employed and will continue to employ has a wheelhouse of skills including experience, entrepreneurialism and an abundance of dedication and ambition. They’ve been on professional journeys working their way up the property ladder.

No one just starts out selling million-pound houses, nor would it be right to plunge a new agent into the deep end like that without the right training and experience.

I came from a background where I worked my way up and it’s important, we encourage the same, rather than showing the same cookie cutter agent on TV.

Diversification of the types of agents in the super prime property industry is something I feel really strongly about. And I do want to transfer the trappings of success into the agents, which is why our company’s model pays more commission than any other. It’s a reward for hard work, something that is critical in our industry.

Gimmicks aside, these shows will die a slow death. People will get sick of the same scripted storylines and the gauche. In the meantime, we have to ensure we treat these shows as exactly what they are — fiction.

And for anyone looking for the facts, my inbox is open.

Trevor Kearney is the founder of The Private Office: Real Estate.