Estate Agents The Psychology of Estate Agents

Date Published:

28/05/2008

Type Three - The Status Seeker

Remember all those dinner parties where everyone tries to casually drop the value of their house into the conversation? This approach has become a bit Sven (dull, discredited). In these property-literate times, everyone already knows the value of everyone else's home. The new covert brag is the price you paid for it. And then there is a short silence, while the guests do a few quick calculations, followed by a sigh of envy or smug relief.

Three's spend their whole life making these status estimations. You can pour out a heart-rending tale of love lost, and at the end the Three will say 'That's a nice shirt. Where d'you get that?' Recently I heard a Three, on hearing of the sudden death of a colleague's father, say 'Bad news, good news, then - I take it he made a will?'

Because status is so important to them, making comparisons is as breathing to a Three. When they want to feel better about themselves, they make a downward comparison with someone they perceive as beneath them. When they need some motivational fuel, they compare upwards with someone still ahead of them.

As an estate agent, the currency of a Three's comparisons is property value. Everyone is judged on the roof over their heads. And Threes expect their contemporaries to judge them on the same criterion. Ridicule their personal qualities, but never their possessions.

In their property-related negotiations, they are constantly referring back to their own rung of the ladder. 'I used to live in a place like this once', said a Three agent, looking around my house with a wistful distaste. 'Bigger and better things now eh?' I said. 'No, no, no', said the Three, nodding her head.

They take client contempt to more pernicious levels. Ones despise their clients for being oblivious to their home's unsaleability. Threes despise their clients for their lack of ambition, their despairing Fiat, and their workaday three bed semi. They are much better at hiding it though. This is because they view people as functionaries, created to facilitate their needs.

Threes' greatest need is to appear super competent, while simultaneously basking in others' envy. They try to encourage this by a form of covert bragging, which recalls Gordon Gekko at his least humble.

The smooth-talking, devious estate agent of common caricature would almost certainly be a Three. Sadly, of all the types, Threes are the most likely to sell your house.