Land broker/dealer

[okgo]

Anyone know more about said role, I keep getting phone calls from this recruiter about a company not far from here that have said role going, and they are looking for commission only people..

I assume there are people on here that know about this industry, what's it like at the minute?

Worth a trip round to them do you think?

http://stowfordplace.com/index.php

Be interested to hear peoples thoughts..

[okgo]

Bump for daytime people!

[Sam_68]

okgo said:

...they are looking for commission only people..

I assume there are people on here that know about this industry, what's it like at the minute?

Oi_Oi_Saveloy will be along shortly, if you're lucky, but IMO there's not a bargepole long enough in the whole wide world, at the moment.

I assume that you'll be paid your commission only when the contracts are exchanged on the land?

Even when everything is booming, deals can take months or even years to put together. At the moment, we're desperately looking to buy land at sensible, current market values, but are finding that virtually everyone who is touting their land for sale is doing so merely to test current market values without any real intention of selling. With this in mind, you could spend an awful lot of time chasing rainbows for no recompense.

Even in the best of times, being a land agent/broker is a fairly tenuous living - you have to be able to weather months or years of famine, in the hope of landing a 'big one' that'll pay you enough to make you comfortable again for a while. It's a bit like heading off to the Klondike to pan for gold... some people strike it lucky and come back very wealthy indeed, but a lot more end up eating their mule, then freezing to death.

[okgo]

Is this not slightly different to what you described, I understand a lot of the plots this place sell are mainly ones without planning?

Thank you all the same, interesting...

[Sam_68]

okgo said:

...I understand a lot of the plots this place sell are mainly ones without planning?

Yes, that's not unusual. If you know what you're doing (as all major developers do), you have a pretty clear idea of whether something will get Planning, so it's not unusual to buy land without a planning consent on it.

Certainly, it's worth a lot more with consent, though, and there is big money to be made if you can spot an opportunity to buy commercial or agricultural land whose potential hasn't been recognised, then get a residential consent on it... but such land is relatively scarce and the odds of gettng it wrong are quite high.

I don't know of the company you linked to, but the impression given by their website suggests that they may be little better than the companies who buy a field somewhere with no access and no chance of getting Planning consent in our lifetimes, then hawk it out as individual building plots to the gullible.

If this is the case, then my previous advice holds even firmer - it's basically a scam, and it's never a good career move to get involved with anything as disreputable as that.