Regional round-up

I have spoken to a lot of members in the rural part of Northern Ireland and the market is doing well, especially with first-time buyers and new build properties. The market has been excellent and the rental market is also doing well. A lot of members are asking for more Propertymark courses in Northern Ireland so that people don’t have to travel as much.

We have a lot of members in Northern Ireland and it’s about including them more and giving them more opportunity to get onto courses and improving their standards and encouraging new members. I think this is a big year for Propertymark in Northern Ireland. A big boost to this has been that we now have more regional reps covering the whole of Northern Ireland. There is also the exciting news that Kirsty Finney, the first Northern Irish president as well.

We have hit the ground running in 2020 and we want to continue to be proactive and get bums on seats for courses and conferences, promote more local meetings and also make a success of our conference in Belfast.

Regarding the Regulation of Property Agents (RoPA), I have definitely had a lot more non-members contact me about joining Propertymark and how much information is available. There is a lot of positive feedback from both members and non-members which is great.

The biggest challenge for us is still mortgages. There are a lot of first-time buyers buying new build houses so it’s the chain of the second home buyer that is slower.