Opening The Gates To More Listings

The Autumn Budget, what it means for the property market, and what to do about it this week.

On Wednesday I was on back to back calls while the Chancellor was on his feet. Then I got a train down to London for The Spectator’s post Budget briefing at the Emmanuel Centre, chaired by Michael Gove, with James Kendall. I got home at midnight and was back at my desk at 6am the next morning reading through the lot.

That meant the Budget documents, the OBR’s 200-page forecast, the Lloyds Market Insights call, and the reactions from Rightmove, Zoopla, Savills, Knight Frank, Moneyfacts, the brokers and plenty of agents. This episode is the bits that actually matter for our industry, explained the way your clients will want to hear them.

I cover what was announced and, just as importantly, what wasn’t. Stamp duty is unchanged, and the big tax reliefs that protect homeowners all survived.

Then the bit that barely made the news. How the gilt markets reacted, how gilts feed into swap rates and fixed rate mortgages, why “boring” was the best result your buyers could have hoped for, and why that still doesn’t mean cheaper mortgages are coming.

Your First Home, the new 2.5% deposit scheme for first time buyers. How it works, the small print, and why Rightmove found most new builds in some areas wouldn’t qualify.

What it means for sellers, including the mansion tax bands, and why your lettings book could be your best source of sales instructions after landlords took their second tax rise in twelve months.

What it means for tenants and rents, what the government’s own forecaster expects for prices, sales and new homes over the next five years, and what happened to the market around the last four Budgets.

Plus what the Spectator panel and Lloyds’ economists think could happen next, from rate rises to election talk, and why every time you hear it, you should think gilts, swaps, mortgages.

And finally, the six things I want you to do this week. Starting Monday.

Your clients don’t need you to have an opinion on the Chancellor. They need you to explain what it means for their move, calmly and accurately, before anyone else does.

If you have any questions at all, or want a copy of my written Budget article to share with your own clients, send me a message and I’ll happily share it with you.

Today's guest is the Founder and Creative Director of Leaders.inc, Founder of Estate Agency Events and Chairman of Agents Giving.

Before this though, he started as a 17-year-old trainee at Samuel Rains and Son before he could even drive and then built a 30-branch agency, ran a property marketing agency, has been personally coached by Stephen Covey.

He is an international business speaker and coach and advises CEOs and board members - helping them to design and implement strategies to achieve profitable growth and maximise business value.

He also develops learning programmes tailored for the wider business, delivering memorable and motivational workshops that drive performance improvement.

He has spoken at 400+ events in the UK, Ireland, USA, Australia, Indonesia, UAE, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Estonia, and his speaking awards include UK New Speaker of the Year in 2003, Outstanding Speaker in 2010, Lifetime Speaker Award in 2012 and Businessperson of the Year.

Prior to becoming a speaker, he ran an award-winning marketing agency and he worked with businesses large and small including First Choice Holidays, David Lloyd Leisure, Moneypenny, Barratt Homes and Halifax.

Lastly, he is author of the best-selling book, 'HEMP - the Highly Effective Marketing Plan', which has been translated into 11 languages.

We get into:

• Where his ideas come from, why being observant is “a curse”, and the 6,000-book library with an “important shelf” he goes back to when he’s stuck
• The one book he insists future leaders read before he’ll recommend anything else
• Why he thinks there’s an absence of leadership right now, and why culture and leadership are the only differentiators left when everything else can be copied overnight
• Opening seven days a week before anyone else and averaging 2.75% across 30 branches
• The day Roger Federer rented his house for Wimbledon, and what it taught him about reviewing your own performance
• Why Paul McCartney rehearsed his ad-libs, and what that means for your next valuation
• Recording your market appraisals, debriefing with a buddy straight afterwards, and how I’ve seen agents use AI to turn that into a coach in their pocket
• Bringing the fee up first, and how it sent one agent’s conversion rate through the roof
• Why tougher markets are the best time to make changes

If you’re not on his Monday newsletter, sign up and EA Masters is on 3rd November, with some of the best agents in the world on the bill.

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All my links: https://linktr.ee/Gatesy91

Today's returning guest is the founder of We Are Unchained, a strategic marketing consultancy that helps businesses grow faster by enhancing their market insight, strategy, activity, and talent.

Over his 8 years experience in the estate agency industry, he has worked with Countrywide, Fine & Country, Keller Williams, and Knight Frank.

He's also a mentor at Agents Together, Propertymark Trust Ambassador and Fractional CMO for Lemon and Lime Interiors.

With over 30 years of marketing experience across multiple sectors, from startups to FTSE100, he has turned failing marketing teams around, and educated hundreds of people on the science and art of marketing.

His mission is to make quality strategic marketing and practical advice accessible to every business, whether they need a virtual CMO, a one-to-one mentor, or a marketing trainer.

In this episode, we discuss the results of part nine of the Voice of The Agent 2026 (Mental Health & Discrimination), covering topics such as The Boys Club, Women In Estate Agency, the emotional demand of estate agency, gender imbalance, discrimination from colleagues and clients, plus many more very important points.

If you've not already read part nine of the report, please do contact me for a copy of it and I will happily share it with you.

Today's guest is Estate Agency Mentor at The Estate Agent Consultancy, a regional champion for Women In Estate Agency in Scotland, a speaker, author of Change Starts With Choice and creator of the CHOICES Framework.

She works with capable women who look successful on the outside but feel stuck on the inside. They're overthinking, second-guessing and waiting to feel confident before they move.

As a Choice Coach, she helps women leaders, founders and women in business cut through the noise, trust themselves again and make the one honest choice that changes everything.

Her work is built on the CHOICES Framework, which she created to turn intuition into implementation and courage into real, lasting change.

Her background in property runs deep, through her experience with Keller Williams that has seen her coach hundreds of agents, and she now mentors estate agents through The Estate Agent Consultancy.

We get into:

• Why knowledge isn’t power, and why acting on it is
• “Change starts with choice”: if you’re not changing, you’ve chosen not to
• Why your brain would rather keep you in a rubbish situation you know than a better one you don’t
• The elastic band: finding the sweet spot between comfort and burnout
• Sun loungers, training course seats, and how quickly comfort zones form
• The forgetting curve and why you should act on what you learn straight away
• Habit stacking, marginal gains and the one small change that could transform your business
• Building a business as a single mum of four, when the “why” was simply paying the rent
• Why lead generation should be the first appointment in your diary, every day
• Ghost valuation slots, and what to do on a Monday when they’re empty
• Follow-up: how much is too much?
• Hunting versus farming, and Ryan Serhant’s find, keep, do
• Making time, not finding it, and why everything has expanded apart from time
• Her role championing women in estate agency in Scotland

If you enjoyed this one, please like, review, subscribe and share it with an agent who keeps going back to the same sun lounger.

Today's guest is the CEO of Pathways Global, a bestselling author and speaker.

Over the last 20+ years, he has helped 500,000+ Business Owners and Leaders across the world generate over £3.6 billion in additional revenue and profits.

He is back for his third appearance on the show (after episodes 107 and 133), and this one lands on a very special date for him.

Today, Friday 16th October, is exactly ten years since the original Built to Grow was released, and it’s the day Built to Grow Rewired comes out.

Ten years on, having worked with businesses in 57 countries, and the world those businesses operate in looks nothing like it did in 2016.

Brexit, COVID, AI, the rise of self-employed agents, and a word we are both big fans of, which is “permacrisis”.

So how many agents are still running a 2016 playbook in 2026?

We get into:

• Why AMR (acquire, maximise, retain) is more relevant now than ever, and why most agents have an “addiction to acquisition”
• The three pillars of a resilient independent agency: sales, lettings and financial services
• The “Who First” strategy, and why you don’t need to be the expert in everything
• Building a business that scales beyond you, rather than a job where you work for yourself
• The machine in the factory story, and why you get paid for what you’ve done, not just what you do
• Why “the investment is…” changes the fee conversation
• Human-led, technology-enabled: where your people add the most value and where AI should do the heavy lifting
• Being busy versus being productive, and the discipline of action
• Measures that matter, and why most businesses are “KPI overloaded but insight poor”
• Racing in the wet: why tough markets show you who the world-class agents really are
• Switcher strategy, with Rightmove reporting 29% of properties selling with a second, third or later agent
• Chapter Zero: rewire yourself before you rewire your business
• Balcony time, and whether you’re dancing to your own music or someone else’s

Businesses don’t grow on their own. Leaders grow businesses.

Built to Grow Rewired is out now on Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.

Follow the link below to get your copy:

https://roystonguest.mykajabi.com/startyourrewire

If you enjoyed this one, please like, review, subscribe, follow and share it with an agent who needs to get off the dance floor.

All the show links: https://linktr.ee/Gatesy91

Today's returning guest is back three years after her first appearance on episode 72, and a lot has changed since then.

She’s gone from MD to CEO of Nested, become a mum to baby Archer, and watched the self-employed model take off across the UK.

We get into Nested’s journey from bridging loans to a fully self-employed model, why February 2023 (post mini-budget, rates spiking) was actually a good time to launch outside London, and why there’s never a perfect time to start.

She is refreshingly honest about who self-employment isn’t for, why Nested turns agents away every single week, and the red flag she hears when someone’s first question is “how are you going to get me leads?”

We also cover:

• Burning the boats, and why “I’ll give it six months” doesn’t work
• How Nested’s territory system stops agents piggybacking off each other’s success
• Faces on boards: why she changed her mind, and why around 80-85% of Nested agents now use them
• Collaboration between self-employed agents, even across different brands
• Why traditional high street agencies need to buckle up as top talent leaves
• AI: friend or foe? Lazy AI-written emails, losing your own tone of voice, and how I use Wispr Flow to keep mine
• Going back to work as a CEO after maternity leave, letting go, and surrounding yourself with cheerleaders

Plus some impossible decisions to finish, including whether she would rather be well paid in a job she hates or badly paid in a job she loves.

Make sure to check this episode out and hear from one of the most senior people steering the ship at one of the biggest self-employed brands in the UK.

I booked two tickets to see Will Guidara and Rory Sutherland in conversation in London as a thank you to Toby Martin.

No agenda, nothing expected back. Before we'd even sat down, Toby handed me a book I didn't know existed, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide. That set the tone for the whole night.

Will Guidara took Eleven Madison Park from a two star brasserie to the number one restaurant in the world. Rory Sutherland is one of the sharpest minds in advertising and behavioural science.

In this solo special, I take you inside their conversation and show you how almost everything they said applies to your estate agency.

In this episode:

• Why the opposite of a good idea should also be a good idea, and why "reasonable" agents get forgotten
• The famous two dollar hot dog, and what it teaches us about listening to sellers and buyers
• Reverse benchmarking: how to find what other agents in your town are getting wrong and become famous for it
• The Popsicle Hotline, Buc-ee's toilets and what your agency should be known for
• Why valuations are won and lost before you arrive and after you leave
• Charging what you're worth, and why the second cheapest agent is in the most dangerous place
• Technology as a choice: automate the predictable, humanise the exceptional
• Hiring slowly, looking after your team and finding their superpowers
• Why 99% of your competitors will never copy you

And stay to the end for the moment that summed up the whole evening: a gentleman in the audience who never got his champagne, and what Will did about it.

On Wednesday 23rd September I spent a full day in Manchester at a coaching day with Professor Damian Hughes, co host of the High Performance podcast.

There was no PowerPoint and no agenda. Just a flip chart and around twenty five leaders from schools, charities, the NHS, insurance, fintech, hospitality and more. Every one of them had turned up with the same problem as you: their people.

In this solo special I break down everything I learned and what it means for estate agency, including:

• Why "high performance" and "culture" mean something different to everyone in your office, and how to fix that
• The research on choice, and why giving your team a little control changes how they feel about the whole job
• The job application exercise that gets your team to set their own standards, and why English cricket could do with it
• Single loop and double loop thinking, and why cutting your fee is not the answer to losing a listing
• The five culture blueprints from Stanford's research on start ups, what football teaches us about each one, and which one your agency is running
• "Success leaves clues": the simplest way to build a winning culture in your agency next week
• Psychological safety, and why the best teams report more mistakes
• Radiators, drains and why it is better to have a hole in the business than the wrong person in it
• Why doctors interrupt patients after 18 seconds, and how long you let a vendor talk
• Bottom line up front, and the story spine you can use for every sale agreed
• What Damian did after the day that epitomises high performance, and why it should change how you follow up every valuation

Plus, with AI on everyone's mind, why the most important question is not what will change in estate agency but what will stay the same.

Transactions do not compound. Relationships do.

If you have not heard my conversation with Damian on episode 100, go back and listen to that too.

Today's returning guest specialises in training, consultancy and keynote speaking for independent estate and letting agents across the UK.

A failed rock star, retired stand-up. and former English teacher, now a marketer, trainer, speaker and troublemaker, who helps agencies win more instructions by standing out rather than blending in - through smarter marketing, video and content that sounds like a human (not every other estate agent), practical AI training for busy teams, and a bit of personality along the way.

Alongside the above, he also:
▸ Works under the banner of The Estate Agent Consultancy
▸ Speaks at industry conferences and agency away days on AI, video and marketing
▸ Co-founded PropX - an industry event that raised £40k for charity
▸ Am an ambassador of the Propertymark Trust

In this special episode we review his key takeaways and learnings from his recent 24 hour webinar, which was part conference, part telethon, and part fever dream.

He ran 24 hours straight for charity and the recordings are yours in exchange for a donation that will go a long way for Breast Cancer Now and Andy's Man Club.

You can expect us to discuss men's mental health, taking action, motivation, lessons on purpose, marketing insights and so much more in this value packed episode.

Today's guest is an Estate & Letting Agency Sales Conversion Coach, helping agents turn leads into clients, backed by almost 20 years of front-line and leadership experience.

He is also a funnel & conversion expert, speaker & trainer.

He started in estate agency in 2007, just before the housing market crash, which meant he learned how to hustle, spot opportunities, and make deals happen in the toughest possible conditions.

At 21, he co-founded his first agency in Bedfordshire and, from a standing start, grew it into a Top 3 market share branch in just 12 months. At 24, he acquired a struggling agency in a neighbouring town, implemented his systems, and turned it profitable within months.

After 8 years of running multi-branch sales operations, he moved to the Midlands to join Concentric Sales & Lettings, where he shifted his focus to lettings and became an ARLA Propertymark-qualified member.

Today, alongside his role as Director at Concentric, he coaches agents across the UK with Agent Rainmaker and Agency Titans.

In this episode we discuss having the right foundations, time blocking, discipline and focus, learning from a crisis, trust and communication, data, acquisitions, market positioning, funnels, nurture systems, content, delegation, leadership, AI and so much more.

As you can tell, we packed a lot into this fantastic conversation and it is definitely not one you want to miss!