Thirty years in the property industry means I have worked through some genuinely difficult markets. The ones that come out the other side in the strongest position are rarely those who pulled up the drawbridge and waited. They are the ones who made smart, deliberate decisions about their people while everyone else was distracted by the noise.
Right now there is a lot of noise. Global uncertainty, a hesitant sales market, a lettings sector thats just gone through the biggest regulatory overhaul in a generation, and operational costs that have risen on every front. It would be very easy to let recruitment slide down the priority list.
This article is about why that is worth resisting, and what the smarter approach looks like right now across both sales and lettings.
What is actually happening in the sales market
Let us be honest about where the sales market is. It is not performing the way many agencies hoped it would by the half point of 2026. Mortgage rates have crept back up as the Middle East conflict has introduced fresh uncertainty into energy prices and inflation expectations. In London and the South East, agreed prices are averaging 6% or more below initial listing prices, with over half of properties having needed at least one reduction before selling.
The agencies that will convert best when confidence returns are those with experienced, motivated sales teams already in place. The worst position to be in when a hesitant market turns is scrambling to hire negotiators and valuers at the same moment every other agency is doing the same thing.
Slow markets also have a way of surfacing whether the people you have are genuinely good or whether they were simply carried by a busy pipeline. If your sales team has gaps, or if it has people who are struggling to perform without volume behind them, a quieter market is actually the right moment to address it. Carefully, thoughtfully, but decisively.
The best sales candidates are not sitting on job boards. They are working, heads down, getting through a difficult patch at their current agency. Reaching them takes a direct, personal approach. That is where a specialist recruiter earns their fee.
What is happening in lettings right now
The Renters’ Rights Act is now in force. There is an opportunity buried inside this disruption. As regulation becomes more complex, landlords who previously self-managed are turning to professional agents to carry the compliance burden on their behalf. The well-run lettings agency becomes more attractive, not less. But that opportunity only converts if the team delivering the service is genuinely capable and properly prepared.
A lettings manager or property manager who is uncertain about the new framework is not just a compliance risk. They are a client retention risk at the precise moment you need clients to feel confident they are in safe hands.
The conversations I am having with lettings directors right now are not just about hiring. They are about whether the right people are in the right roles heading into May, and what to do if they are not.
The hidden cost nobody talks about
When budgets tighten, the professional recruiter is often one of the first costs reviewed. That is entirely understandable. But in practice it rarely works out as a saving, because recruiting does not disappear when the recruiter does. It simply lands on the desks of your branch managers, your lettings directors, your senior negotiators. The very people whose time generates your revenue.
What self-managed recruitment actually costs in senior management time
3 hrs – Writing and posting the job across LinkedIn, Indeed and the job boards. Managing the portal logins. Refreshing listings when applications drop off.
5 hrs – Sifting applications. The average property role on a job board attracts 80 to 150 applications. Most are completely unsuitable but every one takes time to open and assess.
4 hrs – Telephone screening the credible candidates, arranging calls, chasing no-shows, discovering the CV did not tell the whole story.
3 hrs – First stage interviews, coordinating diaries, preparing, conducting and following up, often repeated two or three times before a shortlist emerges.
2 hrs – Managing the offer, handling counteroffers, references, notice periods and the administrative tail that follows every hire.
That is a conservative 15 to 17 hours of senior management time per hire, taken entirely away from fee-earning activity. In a sales or lettings business where a manager’s time directly influences valuations won, instructions taken and clients retained, the real cost of recruiting without support is not zero. It is simply invisible on the balance sheet. And in a slow sales market where every instruction counts, those are hours you cannot afford to lose.
There is also the cost of the role sitting open for longer than it should. A position that a specialist recruiter fills in three to four weeks through targeted headhunting can take two to three months when managed internally, particularly when the best candidates are not on the job boards at all and need to be approached directly.
Every week a sales role sits unfilled is a week of lost valuations. Every week a lettings role is vacant heading into May is a week of compliance risk. The vacancy that feels manageable today has a habit of becoming the problem that defines your quarter.
How ProFind is making it easier right now
ProFind takes the entire process off your desk. Every candidate is personally pre-interviewed before a name goes anywhere near a client. Shortlists are deliberate, not a data dump. The time between brief and offer is measured in weeks, not months.
And because the conversation about fees comes up in every tightened budget, ProFind now spreads the placement fee across the first three months of a new hire starting, aligned directly with the standard rebate period. The investment lands across the same window in which you are assessing whether the hire is working, rather than as a single outgoing on top of a new salary.
The fee is not an additional cost. It is a replacement for the hidden cost you are already carrying in management time, extended vacancies and the very real risk of the wrong hire from a job board.
If this raised a question about your team, let’s talk
Whether you are thinking about protecting your sales team through a difficult market, building lettings resilience ahead of 1 May, or simply wondering whether the people you have are genuinely in the right roles, I am happy to have a straightforward, honest conversation about what is possible right now.
After thirty years in property, the most useful thing I can usually offer is not a shortlist. It is an honest view of the market, a realistic assessment of your options, and a practical approach that fits your budget and your business.
That conversation costs nothing. Not having it might.
If this raised a question about your team, let’s talk.
Sally Asling Founder, ProFind Property Recruitment
📞 0204 583 4941 · 📱 07760 787026 · 📧 sally@profindrecruitment.co.uk · 🌐 www.profindpropertyrecruitment.co.uk
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