Why Residential Surveyors Need to Know What They’re Walking Into

Speaker 1: 00:08
Hello and welcome. You’re listening to This Is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I’m Nina Young, founder of Surveyors UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let’s dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody and welcome to This Is Surveying. This week’s guest is Rebecca Freeman, who I’m very pleased to have join me today. Rebecca is the Risk Director for Legal and General Surveying Services. And Rebecca has a very strong background and long-standing career in residential surveying. And so I’m very keen to explore her background, her experiences, and some other things that come out of the conversation. But without further ado, welcome Rebecca. Great to have you on here. Thank you so much, Nina. Thank you for asking me. No, no, it’s a

Speaker 1: 01:10
pleasure. It’s a pleasure. So what I think would be helpful is to understand really some of your background, you know, how you got into surveying, I think is always a fascinating question to ask. And sort of your your career journey that’s led you to obviously be where you are today.

Speaker: 01:29
Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, always an insightful one, I think, with surveying Nina, because um, and I think to this day, really, but when I was kind of growing up coming through the sort of GCSE stage of my life, it’s that challenge, isn’t it? Actually, my sons, sons have been just both going through this at this point in time. But it’s that challenge of knowing what you want to do next. And I had set my sights actually on being a lawyer because I’d spent quite a bit of time. I was quite fortunate I fell into a temping role while I was doing my GCSEs to work for the CPS Crown Prosecution Service. I used to go in in the summer and Easter holidays, believe it or not, just as I turned 16 and prepare bundles for court, which was incredibly interesting. But looking back at the time, it was like quite a scary role I’d landed. But equally, yeah, as I said, it it got me into thinking that law was a place I’d really like to go. Anyway, I’m a very honest person, I’ll speak very honestly now about how how this played out. But I started my A levels and at the same time I met my now husband. I always like to blame him for this, this part of the journey. It’s a distraction here, as as you do, as we did. Yeah. I met my hands, husband, yes, a distraction. I didn’t do as well in my A levels as I had intended, but uh I was very set on going to university at the time. So I did what what you do when you don’t do as well, and I got on the phone clearing. And this lovely lady answered the phone. She was really sweet, because I was obviously naturally very upset and very panicked and thinking, what the hell am I going to tell my dad when he gets home from work? And she said to me, Well, my dear, she said, there’s a really good course and it’s called real estate valuation and management. And I said, Oh, what does that mean? And she said, uh, well, basically, she said, it’s just going into people’s houses and being really nosy. And I said, Is it? And uh, she said, yeah, she said, there’s a there’s a bit of oh, let me read it to you. She said, There’s a bit of pathology, valuation. And she was reading down this list, and then I said, Oh, I said, have I got enough points to get on the course? And she said, just. And I said, right. I said, fine, I’m in. I said, I’ll do it. And I said, okay, okay, brilliant. So that that was how I then ended up doing this degree. So I rocked up on my first day. I went to a University of the West of England. This course didn’t actually run in many universities around the country. I think Reading was another one. But I opted for the West of England so I could stay living at home with my then husband, who was very distracting at the time. So I turned up on my first day, and I never forget sort of opening the doors into this lecture hall. There must have been about 98 guys staring back at me. There was just me and one other woman at the time walking into this lecture hall. And I did sit down and remember thinking, still, what have I let myself in for? I’m not sure here. Yeah. I absolutely loved it. Honestly, I knew within like the first few weeks of doing the course how I just felt like, you know, in life when things happen and people say they happen for a reason. Yes. It honestly, it felt like that. And and I thought to myself, this was meant to be. Like I’m enjoying this so much. It was totally meant to be.

Speaker 1: 04:47
Yeah.

Speaker: 04:48
So anyway, I did I did my three years and was really, really proud to come through that that and get qualifying my degree. Towards the end of that, there’s then that decision about which direction you take here in Sobeying, because it’s either going obviously down more of the commercial route, or at the time there was this opportunity to purely go down the residential route. The qualification at the time was called the tech rix. Some of the guys and girls watching this might remember that, but it was basically the first iteration of what is now the ASOC RICs.

Speaker 1: 05:20
Okay.

Speaker: 05:21
So it was the opportunity to become qualified, but purely in like the residential space. So I I basically decided that I did have more of an interest in residential, although I did go to some of the what they sort of call like the assessment centre days for some of the commercial, just to be really sure. I was very sure when I came out of those that it was not for me.

Speaker 1: 05:43
Was it not for you? Why was it? What was it?

Speaker: 05:45
I just didn’t have the same kind of passion for it at all. Um, whether it was because the course I’d done at uni had a bit more of a flavor and an emphasis around Resi because of the sort of building like building surveying side of things, a pathology, that might have played a part. But I yeah, I just had absolutely no desire or passion. And I’m the kind of person that needs, I need that buzz. I need to build a passion to be able to give what I need to give. So yeah, so I decided that Resi was my my way forward. And really fortunately at the time, one of the largest residential firms in the UK were doing a graduate program for this tech ricks qualification. So I applied to countrywide and was really successful and joined their bath office.

Speaker: 06:36
So yeah. Honestly, again, I was so fortunate because obviously I still got a husband who was husband to be in the background. So the thought of suddenly having to lift and shift and move to somewhere else in the country wouldn’t have been the most practical. So to land the bath job was amazing, and what a place to learn. Wow, what a place to learn.

Speaker 1: 06:58
I absolutely love bathroom. I went I went there for the first time three years ago and spent the weekend there. I absolutely love Georgian architecture. It’s it’s my favourite. And so I was just liking my element. It’s so beautiful there.

Speaker: 07:13
You are just blown away by by it. I mean, I covered Bath and I’d cover the surrounding sort of, it’s very rural in the surrounding areas as well. So that was kind of, yeah, that was that was my ground, my territory for for several years while I was becoming qualified. And I had um I had the most adorable, it was a very small office, but we had the most adorable boss at the time. I’ll I’ll give him a call out actually, because I remember this day he spoke at my wedding. I’ve told you that my husband features quite heavily in all of this. Anyway, he um Jerry Day, he was he was adorable, and uh he was my first mentor, and yeah, he kind of showed me the ropes and he’d been in in the trade for a long, long time. And yeah, there wasn’t a property I don’t think he hadn’t been in throughout the arc.

Speaker 1: 08:04
The importance of mentors, though, isn’t it?

Speaker: 08:05
And mentoring is so important. Oh, massively, massively. And um, yeah, and and so so learning on the ground there was was amazing. And I’d got the the techs qualification, but it was very much back then the done thing, which not so much now, but the done thing back then was you you then transferred up to MRICS. So as soon as we got the the tech designation, we’re we were within country I sort of immediately put on the MRICS program then to proceed up. We didn’t actually need to do it. Like today, you’re working in Resi, you don’t need to go from ASOC to MRICS, but back then it was just the it was the done thing, it was the aspired thing to do. So yeah, a couple of years later I went through I went through that process, which look I’ll be really honest, was quite turmoil back then, and I know it’s quite a challenging process still to this day. It’s it’s certainly something that that does get a lot of um attention for various reasons, but um, but yeah, um so going through that process was was great, but I went through it at the same time as uh everything going quite a bit wrong in the property market. So this we’re talking about the the sort of two seven to the 2008 crash. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. So that hit us. And we we came through it relatively unscathed within within the business, but that basically as part of that came the sort of evolution at the same time. I suppose we had the crash, and then at the same time we had the evolution. Well, actually, we’ve got all these offices over the UK. What do we need to do to kind of cut costs, save money? And in came the evolution of the technology at the same time. So we started closing offices, and I ended up being, as a result of this, moved. So uh my bath location got closed, which was really sad. And the next location I was moved to was Exeter, which uh was quite random at the time. Oh yeah, quite quite a trek, but I did it. I used to commute every day down to Devon. Uh yeah, every day. I worked out of there for a while, then that closed, and I moved to Truro office, then that closed, I moved to Taunton, and then Taunton, yeah, and then Taunton was like the final, final one, really. Um, and then when that closed, it was essentially the surveyors were that was the point we all got effectively based from home, but we then had like satellite offices. But this is where the tech then started to come in. So the tech was introduced, I want to say, probably around about 2011, maybe 2012. Right. And oh my goodness, it was revolutionary. It was revolutionary.

Speaker 1: 10:55
Tell me a bit more about the tech. What what what do you mean?

Speaker: 10:57
So really quite similar to similar in a way to what surveyors are working off now. So where we’re working off iPads, um, this wasn’t an iPad. Think um, oh, how can I compare it to you? Almost think like the size of a shoebox, a bit a bit not as thick as a shoebox, but maybe think a lid of a shoebox, but my god, it was it was it was a big heavy thing. Heavy duty. Yeah, heavy duty, oh heavy duty, but absolutely incredible with a little air card. So again, we’re still in the area where what you know, I don’t I’ve not long had a mobile phone, I think, at work, but suddenly we had these big contraptions. But what I used to think was incredible, so I used to be like when I was travelling back up from Devon, because I ended up just covering the whole of the southwest because I’d got so used to working in all these areas, and people know that work in the southwest, the M5 motorway is a nightmare on particularly on a Friday and particularly any time through the summer, the channel into Cornwall. And I remember being so thrilled to be able to be stuck in traffic, engine off, obviously, not moving, being able to just sit with this massive block, finishing my reports, getting them all signed off. So by the time I eventually did get home, I didn’t have to do anything. And honestly. Obviously wasn’t driving at the time, just to caveat that. But um, oh my God. I mean, and and when I think back to the days of turning back up to the office, and we all used to sit in a little queue waiting for the waiting for the computer to sign off our reports on on Quest, you know, yes, that obviously still exists in the background, but to have this was just oh God, it just That’s amazing.

Speaker 1: 12:38
That sounds early to me because one of the things I have of, you know, I’ve seen over the last six, seven years in in this space is around the fact of many, but this is more, I guess, from more SME side, is the reluctance to adopt this kind of new tech. I mean, you literally there are still clipboards and pens. I mean, there’s nothing I’m not saying there’s anything against that, but it’s interesting because if it was back then, that was really pioneering, wasn’t it? Really?

Speaker: 13:05
But you know, it was in I look back on it and I think how incredibly pioneering. And what was a little bit sad was this technology we had been able to bring in, and I can’t remember the reasons why this then ended up happening. But after a year or so, it was quite short-lived. Um, a decision was made, or or I don’t know what the reason was. We ended up having to stop, and we ended up having to revert back to effectively using paper and going back to using laptops then. It was like a laptop thing that’d come in. I don’t know what had happened, but I just remember the time being like really quite sad that this was the case. But then not too long after that, I think we were into sort of um like 2013, 2014, we did then manoeuvre onto, you know, the sort of iPad territory, which was again amazing. And I think what I would say, Nina, I suppose in the world I was in, we were very much heavily weighted

Speaker: 14:05
in terms of valuations to lenders, you know. So we’re producing excessive amounts of reports every week for the lender. Huge, huge volumes of versions, surveyors in the industry, perhaps in the resi space, where they are doing the level twos and level threes, building surveys, home bar reports, they were back then, where they’re doing those. I can understand how there is perhaps more of a hesitation with the tech, just because if you think from a valuation point of view, it what we’re what we’re doing is very much tick boxes, ticking the boxes to map onto lender report forms. Yes, there’s not so much involved in terms of the whole capturing of the floor cover. And detail and absolutely it’s quite a different space to be in. Okay. Um yeah, and I think that’s perhaps why the tech needs to be look in in that level two, level three space, the tech really does need to be supreme, you know, to be able to capture what what the Savere is recording on site versus and you you can’t really on a site note, you can do it to a point, but you you can’t really fully do that this to the same extent as you can with mortgage valuations.

Speaker 1: 15:16
That’s a really good point. And I’ve not heard that being mentioned before, but it it does make sense. And it would go a long way to explain the because the tech hasn’t been there because it does need to be so good. Yeah, it lagged behind the valuation side. Yeah. What was it you would say about residential that you enjoy, but also, you know, why it’s such a a great thing to do, residential surveying?

Speaker: 15:42
So, look, I mean, our homes are it’s everything, right? It’s everything pins on your home, like in life, having that stability and having that space. And I think for me, I’ve I’ve always felt so incredibly grateful to have a job that has allowed me to get a real perspective on, and it’s gonna it’s gonna sound very phil philosophical now. It’s like, oh my god, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like quite deep, but getting into a role that has allowed me to have such a an insight into people’s lives, the world, what’s good, what’s going on. And I felt really privileged to be in that position, Nina. Um, you know, there’s look, there’s times in Rezi where we will witness things that we really wish we hadn’t. And we see, we see the the dark side of how people are having to live and survive and get by. And you know, sometimes that’s that’s not pretty. But equally then you also see you see the really amazing side of it as well. And yeah, the the spectrum is is huge. And I think for going into a role like that, what I would say is it’s not just about, you’re not just about providing a valuation to the bank so they can confirm they can lend the mortgage or providing a survey to a customer that wants to buy a property. You are doing so much more than that. You are giving them some stability in their in their overall lives. Does that make sense? Like in terms of their, you know, this is like, like I said, homes are the biggest, biggest thing in your in your world. Without, without a roof over your head, it’s life is pretty tough, right? So I think being part of that journey, and I think if you are thinking of a career and surveying, what I would say is that yeah, think of it as the bigger picture. Think of how how important surveyors are in the in the cog and in the journey of all that, if even where people don’t have surveys, which by the way, I completely disagree with, you know, if you’re buying a house, get a survey. If you’re listening, a member of public survey. But, you know, ultimately, yeah, I think that we are we are a really important cog in that journey. And the social side of it as well, there’d often be a lot of banter over the years about surveyors being quite insular, you know, they work on their own and and we do, you know. I’m sat here on my own today. Obviously, I have your lovely company virtually over this platform, but you know, we are on our own. We’re in our spending an awful lot of time in our cars out on our own, and we’re going in and out of people’s houses and we’re meeting very different characters every day. And socially, we do have to be very adaptive in that space, you know, and surveyors they really are, and I don’t think they get the credit for that.

Speaker 1: 18:30
You know, it’s the point, isn’t it? Because every day is different.

Speaker: 18:34
Every day is different, every person you meet is different. I mean, every surveyor will have a story about characters they have come across over the years, good, bad, indifferent. But, you know, you have to be a certain character to be able to go into those situations and handle that. And I think surveyors don’t get enough credit for that.

Speaker 1: 18:55
I totally agree. Totally agree. And that’s why I think something I wrote about recently was that that side of what residential surveyors have to deal with day in, day out, and also that there’s a lot of resilience there because I would imagine, you know, if I was to do to do this role, the difficulty that you have the good days, but then like you say, you see everything. And how you don’t take that home, because you must take it home.

Speaker: 19:19
Like well, you you look, I think I think over the years, absolutely, you do. I think I’ve been in scenarios before where I’ve seen situations with young children involved, and you know, you have to follow certain protocols. And it’s it’s really difficult. And there’s times that you’re in situations and you just think, oh God, I I need to step in, and you have to know how far to take it. And therein comes sort of surveyors’ protection and loan working, etc., which perhaps we’ll go on to shortly. But um I think that, yeah, certainly some of the things surveyors

Speaker: 19:55
do witness are challenging. And what I would say is that’s where we are really fortunate to have the benefit of the Lionheart charity. So obviously having them there to provide counselling support. But do you know, even even just contacting them and they’ll just have a really nice chat with you, you don’t have to go through anything formal. Do you know I mean they’re such a lovely, lovely bunch of people? They are amazing for what they do. And so so having that, and then I think obviously companies have a responsibility to their surveyors, to their employees, um, to obviously make sure they do wrap around certain controls in regards to that. But yeah, it, you know, you do have to have a resilience, you absolutely do, in coming into this. But what I would say is I would never want anyone to feel hesitant about coming into a career like this because of that. Because again, as I said, as an employer, we we owe a duty to make sure we support that resilience and we build that up and we give you the right preparation and the right tools to be able to go into any scenario and know exactly how you’re gonna handle that.

Speaker 1: 21:02
Tell me more about uh I’m interested to sort of explore the loanworking side. I think you’ve been doing some work on that.

Speaker: 21:08
Yeah, so I I kind of um through the women in residential surveying space, actually, albeit I just want to caveat, this is not just a women in residential surveying topic. This for me is an industry-wide topic in terms of loan working. And loan working has really evolved over the years. I mean, again, when I look back on my career, and I think in the early days, nobody would have known really, or the office would have known the addresses I was at, but nobody would have actually known if I’d gone in or out of those houses till I got back to the office at two, three in the afternoon. Nobody really knew if I was safe or okay. And so back then we, you know, we we didn’t really have anything. When the first kind of um, I suppose, lone working devices started coming in, it was a huge relief actually, because again, I I remember on my first day, my Career being handed a massive brick of a rape alarm, being grateful for being handed it. And uh, I remember my boss boss at the time sort of trying to teach me how, and he said, You’ve got to pull the lid really, really hard, pull it really hard. It’s on really like that because you know, otherwise you’ll be setting it off all the time. Pull it back. I said, Right, okay. So he pulled the lid off and this bloody alarm starts going. And I’ve just stood there looking at him. And he said, And you put it back on to switch it off, right? Okay. I said, uh, but if I’m in the house on my own with someone, I said, in all due respect, by the time I’ve ticked the lid off, it’s probably gonna have happened. You know, because these things are so bloody awkward. Yes. Anyway, um, when we when we first got the first devices that came in, which are now, I mean, honest to goodness, what you’ve got out on the market now, all singing, all dancing, and these are devices that you know can track GPS-wise, they can track where you are. And I know not everyone will really like the thought of that, but I just personally think, why wouldn’t you if you’re out there working on your own? And you can get devices now that are so small, they’re almost like key fob. They can attach to your belt, they can attach to your keys if you keep your keys in your pocket. You can just push a button on there that literally in your pocket, you can push the button, an SOS button that links to a security centre. They can hear what’s going on. It’s great to go. There is the most amazing things, and I know surveyors who have been given these devices now have even been sort of letting their kids, you know, the kids that are the age going out to nightclubs and things like that. Young kids were actually something like this is just really useful for them to have, just they’re walking back late on their own at night. So these devices came in amazing, and um, but I felt I felt like there was there needed to be more than this because just handing a device to a surveyor maybe, maybe just isn’t enough in preparing them for perhaps how to handle themselves in certain scenarios, right? Because if you’re confronted with a very difficult situation and over the years I’ve had, I’ve been fortunate not to have too many, but I’ve had one or two, there is a sense of panic that sets in. And particularly if you haven’t got in your mindset, what do I need to do? If I walk into this house now, what is it I need to do if something were to potentially happen that I’m uncomfortable with? What’s my exit plan? And it’s little things about working out when you go into a house not to not to perhaps shut the door behind you, so you’re shut in a room. So you you know that effectively you you can get out. So surveyors, for example, they have to test the doors, they have to make sure the doors are shut and close. Don’t be on the inside of the room when you test that door. The amount of surveyors that have like got shut in a room because then the door doesn’t open again and all their kit is on the other side. Can you can you see where I’m going with the and it’s a really good tip? Yeah, and and it’s stuff like that. I mean, we had uh bust or we had a young uh woman who was she was expecting at the time everything fine in terms of protocol with her still being out and about, and she did exactly that. She shut herself in a loft room, everything was outside, no way of getting any attention, and the poor love was in there for hours. I mean, it was the most harrowing situation. So again, it’s it’s little things like that. And you know, I’ve always got this thing about I had a scenario once where I turned up to a property and uh there was a cellar, and I it was out in the back garden, it was a right old dump of a property. Yeah, it was I’d be really honest. It was right, you know, and I’m thinking why me. Anyway, the guy I’d met there, also, you know, you just get I I just had a feeling. I just had a vibe. I just had he just was very close, like he was very close following me round. Just had a vibe. Anyway, we go out to this back garden and uh he uh he said, Oh, I’ve got uh I’ve got one more thing to show you, and I said, All right, and he said, uh, yeah, it’s it’s here. And he really weirdly, there was this rug over the top of this trapdoor that was outside, within like this patio area, and he pulled this back and he lifted open this cellar, and there were steps down. And uh he said, uh, after you, love. And I said, um, no, I’m I no, you you go first. I said, I actually I said, I I don’t I don’t actually think I I need to look down there. Well, no, you really need to see this. You will need to see this, you’ll need to see this as part of the survey. I was doing a level two, and uh you just kept insisting, no, you you need to go first, you need to go first. And uh, I just said uh I just made my excuses and then I said, uh no, no, no. Um I said, oh gosh, actually, I looked at my watch, I said, I need to, I need to actually, I’m gonna have to go. I said, look, I tell you what, we can come back and do this. I’m so sorry, but I literally need to need to go. And I came out of that house and I thought to myself after, I felt really guilty. That was my first feeling. Oh my god. A, I’ve not gone down the cellar, so I’ve let the customer down. I feel really bad about this. B, maybe everything was fine and I should have just gone down the cellar. Have I have I overreacted? And then C, how the hell are we getting out of this now? Because, you know, my boss is gonna have to go back and do this, and he’s probably gonna be like, what the hell are you doing, Rebecca? Anyway, I to this day think I did the right thing.

Speaker 1: 27:08
My boss just that makes me feel very uncomfortable, you telling me that.

Speaker: 27:12
Yeah, yeah. It’s it’s it’s not uh, you know,

Speaker: 27:15
nothing, nothing happens. It might not have been, but then it really could have been. Exactly, exactly. And I think for me, it’s just about it was about some of the some of the work I do in the workshops is about allowing, I suppose, people to understand that you do have a permission, you do have a permission in these scenarios to follow your gut. Yeah. If if we have a bad feeling about something, normally our gut is telling you there is something off. Yeah. And I think it’s about giving that permission. Yes, we sit within tight controls, yes, we we are there to do a responsibility to the customer, but ultimately there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this industry more important than the safety of our surveyors. End of.

Speaker 1: 28:02
And a customer is not one to wouldn’t, if they were aware of the situation, wouldn’t want you to put yourself at risk. People wouldn’t want that anyway. But I know what you mean about the fact that you’re representing the the buyer and not the seller. So it’s kind of a bit of a different situation, isn’t it?

Speaker: 28:17
It it is, it is. And actually, so since um we’ve done a couple of these workshops now, and since we’ve been doing them, I think some of the firms have been quite grateful. You know, I have worked with some firms now on this because again, it’s just things about bringing in, it’s just bringing in life experience. It’s not, it’s not taxing or difficult, but it’s just about sharing experiences so people can learn from that. And again, with some of the smaller firms, sharing, I suppose, our advice around some of the sort of health and safety protocols that go on behind the scenes that are just really helpful and supportive so that you know if you’re out there running your own business and you’re employing individuals, you have a comfort that you’ve got this nailed, like you you’ve got this right, and you’re dealing with these workshops that you’re running, are they how are they how do people find out about them? Whether it’s yeah, just um we have a surveying page which is Women in Residential Surveying. Uh, you can join that. Alternatively, just feel free to reach out to me directly and I can obviously give you some more information. We’ve done the workshops we’ve done, we generally say that they are better done in person in quite small groups. Yeah, um, it’s quite nice to be in a face-to-face situation, particularly when you’re you’re sharing sort of experiences and for people to feel that they can be open. But equally, you know, if needs be and they did gain traction, we could consider doing something more in a virtual, virtual world. But yeah, I think it’s we we talk so much in the industry, rightly so, about the technical, yeah, about the regulation. Yeah. But we I think sometimes we don’t always hit the mark with the human side. And that’s that’s the side I’m just trying to sort of gently kind of bring in to this.

Speaker 1: 30:00
Yeah, and I think it’s but it’s crucial because also, you know, when going back to that scenario and knowing what to do in a difficult situation, you know, uh the the loan tracking devices and things are absolutely brilliant and they’re priceless, but you can once you learn certain skills, you can mitigate something before it escalates. You’ve got someone that doesn’t want you in the house. And if you you learn how to deal with something really calmly, stay calm, don’t get frustrated, don’t show that kind of emotion. You you can literally put someone at ease, make them relax, and then you can get on with it. Whereas if you don’t know how to deal with that, then it could. You could, it could, not saying it would be the surveyor’s fault, but it could escalate well out of hand before it needed to.

Speaker: 30:45
100%. Those de-escalation techniques are really crucial. And what I would say is that I think there was some research research done not long ago, and I don’t know, I don’t know where it was from, but I remember reading it and thinking I’m so not surprised about this, knowing um how I’ve dealt with things in my previous role and and certainly in the role I’m in

Speaker: 31:05
now, but physical assaults are aimed at men. Like it’s it’s our male surveyors that are getting the physical assaults. And, you know, again, it it’s shocking to think this does happen, but you know, think about it. You are going in and out of people’s properties and you’re on their territory. Yes. And if you are not saying something they’re liking, again, you know, it’s it’s just about how to protect yourself in that situation. And I think that, yeah, like I said, we owe it to our, we owe it to our today is to make sure that we we give them that right support. It’s as important, it’s as important as understanding how to identify doubt. It’s more important than understanding how to identify doubt.

Speaker 1: 31:48
Do you know what I mean? It enables you to get on with it and focus because once you’ve settled that side of it, you can just get on with it. Exactly. Absolutely. I think one of the things that must be so frustrating, it would drive me mad, is being followed around the house.

Speaker: 32:01
I think it’s just, and our surveyors will talk about this. I think it is just something that happens all the time, honestly. It’s just, and again, certain surveyors will have amazing skills at trying to detract. And I did used to, I used to always suss out the house before I did this. I’d walk in and you know, and your feet are sort of sticking to the carpet, a bit like a nightclub, and you but or it’s really clean, you take your shoes off, and then I judge whether or not I asked for it. If she said, Oh, do you he or she said, Oh, do you want a cup of tea? And it would be either a yes or no, depending on, but actually that was great because oh, well, you just yeah, that’d be great. If you don’t mind making me a cup of tea, I’ll just do downstairs. And it would just, you just try and distract them. And that was a good distraction technique, but only if you’d want the cup of tea.

Speaker 1: 32:47
That’s it, yeah. I know there’s some students have said they’ve seen the kitchen, they’ve gone no.

Speaker: 32:52
Oh, yeah. And I I do remember so many times getting um a cup of tea, like with the milk would be off, and then you’d feel really rude, like if you didn’t drink it. So it would be like, How do you how do you dispose of this tea without anyone noticing? So you used to walk around the house with it, get to the toilet, get rid of it that way, just flushing the toilet to check it works, yeah, all good. Thank you for my tea.

Speaker 1: 33:12
Oh my goodness, yeah. And it is, but it is such a it’s such a high emotional environment immediately, as soon as you’re going to knock on that door, because nobody’s gonna be really comfortable about a total stranger walking around your house looking for things wrong with it. Nobody is, I mean, it’s it’s gonna like you, come on in, find everything you want. Yeah, it’s just not gonna happen.

Speaker: 33:35
You imagine the nervousness of a seller in a situation where that is happening, and especially if they have, you know, like things in the property they don’t really want you to find or see, then absolutely their whole behaviours are gonna are gonna come out. It’s just human nature.

Speaker 1: 33:57
Well, intelligence is a really good, I think it’s a skill that’s not talked about, is it? Because that emotional intelligence is crucial to how to read the room, read the read the person.

Speaker: 34:06
I think um emotional intelligence is massively important and it should form part of any employee as onboarding, you know, effectively when you’re recruiting. Again, you you’ve got to know that those individuals can communicate effectively, obviously, with others. Um, something that was really interesting actually when we uh years ago, when we started running our ASOC RICS initial trainee program, one of the modules we set up internally that wasn’t RSES requirement, it was our requirement, um, was effectively that it was how to how to communicate with people. Because I think again, as as we watched life evolve, and I can see this now with with my kids for sure. My kids will be sat upstairs and they’ll text me a question, honestly. Now, whether or not that’s because they they’re too scared to ask me to my face, because you know, you think that might get them a yes. I don’t know, I don’t know. But you know, and I will go and challenge them on it. I’ll be like, I’m downstairs, like you can just come and ask me this. What are you doing? But you know, I think there’s there’s a generation that are more comfortable hiding, I say hiding, but operating behind technology. Well, when you’re visiting people’s houses, you can’t hide behind the iPad. You’ve got to talk to people, you’ve got to have those skills. And we’d run that as um, we would run that as a workshop that would just give some support in that space on how to communicate with people, even things, Nina, like what to wear. Because again, you know,

Speaker: 35:35
being in that surveying environment, it’s really important to make sure that you are taking care of your own safety. So something I always advise surveyors to do is always wear something where you’ve got pockets. You’ve always got something on your person where you can keep your phone in case you ever need it. Again, that situation of getting stuck in a room. Many surveyors will go out and they’ll wear like the man bags, bum bags, you know, um, just where they can put their stuff. And footwear, again, super, super important. Again, it’s all about that safety piece, isn’t it? I mean, I only turned up once to my surveying job in Bath in my early days in my high-heeled shoes. And I can honestly tell you, the telling off I got from Derry, that was I’d never did it again, put it that way. Can you imagine? Yeah, never again. No. I think I was kept in the office that day answering the phone.

Speaker 1: 36:29
Oh, brilliant. Is um so we’re coming coming towards the end of of today. I always like to ask this is there anything else that you’d like to share with listeners or anything you know you feel you you wanna want to talk about before we wrap up? Anything particular?

Speaker: 36:44
I think in terms of what I would just, I suppose, like to share, I think that in surveying, we have to be really mindful that for the career I’ve had now, which spans over maybe about 22 years, I think, showing my age, but I have seen probably the most significant transformation in the last five, six years that we’ve ever had during my career. And I think that what I would say is that it’s moving at such a pace, it’s an extremely exciting pace, which is amazing, but it is moving at such a pace that all I would kind of say out there is that we all need to remember to be a bit kind to ourselves on this. The journey we’re going on with technology, it’s gonna take a bit of a while to get our heads around it, the the AI space as well. And it’s trying to remember that at the root of all of this is our skills that we bring as surveyors. And, you know, ultimately, you know, what you do know as a surveyor, in my view, can can never be fully taken over by technology. And I just want to make that really, really clear. I think there’s a lot of surveyors out there right now, valuers and surveyors, probably with a bit of um hesitation over what might be coming. This this last five, six years has been so fast, the next five, six years going to be as fast, which you know, what’s that gonna mean for my my career? But I just wanted to echo that, you know, there there’s always gonna be a a place for people when it comes to this career.

Speaker 1: 38:10
I agree. I totally agree, and you’re right, there is so much disruption, there is so much change, there is a lot of fear, there’s a lot of anxiety out there, you know. I’ve had just surveyors say that to me, you know, is my job gonna exist in years? You know, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a this is my business, this is my life. And then you’ve got the the announcement, which was, I think yesterday, the government’s, you know, home buying and selling. Feeding on his neck. Yeah. Just like that’s something else on top. Yes. It’s a big thing. And it obviously it has been ongoing for a long time, but the disruption that that will bring down the line. And, you know, there is, and I think you’re right, I don’t think, especially in in the realms of residential surveying, that

Speaker 1: 38:50
surveyors are going to be replaced by tech anytime soon. It just you can’t, and somebody has to be accountable at the end of the day. Someone has to put their name to something and handsome distress. So there is responsibility. And and people will always want to hear from people, like on the condition of their home or future home, should I say. And I think that’s not going away anytime soon, but I think there is lots of advancements around it to take away mundane, the mundane side, because I don’t know how you feel about it, but I know a lot of surveys say to me that the the one thing they really are not keen on is the report writing. They love going out to properties, and that’s a fit they don’t really enjoy.

Speaker: 39:30
The administration, it and you know, that has not changed in 20 years. Right. The administration is is uh you know, is a challenge. I was very fortunate. We used to have a dictation system, so we um we were able to kind of dictate our reports down the phone. Um, but you know, yeah, it’s always been the bane of a surveyor’s life. So anything in that space has to be a super positive, right?

Speaker 1: 39:54
It has to be yeah, to free up surveyors to do what they love. That’s what I kind of see it as an enabler, not a replacer. Yes. I think that’s what it is. Super. Well, I’ve really enjoyed today, Rebecca. It’s really yeah, it’s been lovely to have you on today, and thank you for sharing some of these, especially the tips. I’m loving the one with the door. Like I never ever thought of that. Never shut a door while you’re inside the room. I know, I know. Well, thank you. And especially that that uh that story of of going down into that cellar and and the fact that you didn’t go in, I think was a very good move. And it’s a really powerful story. It is. Because I really felt you stood there and in the I stood there and I panicked, yeah.

Speaker: 40:37
And and you know, and it’s it’s something that stayed with me forever. So it’s something not a massive deal, but it stayed with me forever.

Speaker 1: 40:43
And it will be it’s almost when you have something like that, it’s then setting up for the future of being always really hyper-alert and aware of that situation. If you’re in that situation again, you’ll feel comfortable with doing it as opposed to feel guilty. Exactly. But no, thank you very much for care. It’s been lovely. Thank you, Nina. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 41:02
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