CEO’s Foreward
2023 has been a year of further evolution for the organisation.
We have welcomed our new Chair Bill Butler joining Propertymark to lead the board and in addition, Allison Thompson and Stephen McCarron joined, having successfully achieved the member vote. We are also delighted to have appointed independent Non-Executive Director Nicola Wood.
Propertymark has continued to see growth both in terms of income, staffing numbers and the additional facilities to support our members through the current economic challenges.
The impact of higher interest rates and soaring inflation placed considerable strain on many of our members. A conscious decision was made to support our members through the cost of living crisis. As a result, Propertymark absorbed the increased costs due to inflation and also froze fee increases at 2022 levels for all individual members. We also absorbed Client Money Protection increases, delivering real time savings when it was most needed for individuals and companies alike. Membership retention for 2023 rose to over 90%, which is considerably higher than the average for membership organisations which sits between 83% and 85%. With additional new members joining we finished the year with 17,943 active memberships.
Propertymark was able to support its members at a time of need due to the strength of its balance sheet carefully built up over the past few years. We are aware this action will have a material impact on the performance and balance sheet for 2024 accounting year, however the organisation deems it has sufficient reserves to absorb the resulting impact.
The focus to invest and increase member services has seen the organisation develop its own internal lettings helpline in Q4 successfully handling over 3,000 enquires during that period. We can now deliver in house specialist support to our members and the visibility of queries enables us to focus support, training, and resources in the areas our members are seeking help and guidance on the most.
We also launched our “Free for 23” campaign which saw over 20 full sized regional conferences delivered for members entirely free of charge across the UK. A substantial investment, these have proved to be a phenomenal success with more members attending, learning, and engaging. The organisation has developed its own internal events team to deliver constantly which has been a major achievement and success.
On the back of this the organisation held its first full multi-disciplined national conference “Propertymark One” seeing over 1,500 industry professionals come together from all divisions to attend the inaugural conference at the iconic Wembley Arena, placing it as the largest agency conference of the year in 2023.
Propertmark’s industry supplier initiative continued to thrive and members have directly benefitted from access to more industry technology and services across our regional conferences.
The consumer awareness campaign grew significantly during 2023, reaching an audience of over 1.2m consumers across our related channels. The member Facebook group has proven to be a popular resource for members and the new Property Professional magazine has received a 83% positive feedback score, with 72% actively using information from the magazine for personal development for themselves or their team. The internal PR function has increased our industry voice in terms of both trade and national consumer press and media. The team have averaged 553 pieces of coverage per month, a 26% increase from previous year averages, with a new record of 1,120 in November 2023.
Politically we exhibited at both the Labour and Conservative party conferences which served to increase Propertymark’s profile in government and political circles. Political engagement increased substantially throughout the year across all the devolved administrations as a result. We responded to 36 consultations across the sector and continued to engage with all the main political parties mindful of the election due during 2024.
Our ambassadorial contingent continues to work hard and the Presidential Teams and Regional Executives continue to thrive. The ambassadorial group benefitted from two structured training events throughout the year helping to provide all our industry representatives with the tools they need to represent members across the UK. Many also undertook an initiative to meet with their constituency MPs to further drive home our position over many areas of legislative reform.
The financial resilience of the organisation has continued to improve and 2023 also saw the organisation achieve a completely clean financial audit. From an operational standpoint I am elated to announce the organisation hit all of its operational KPI’s with staff members going above and beyond in the service of members.
Despite increased competition we remain the leading provider of industry qualifications. The launch of the new Level 4 qualification and the introduction of remote invigilation sees candidates able to take examinations remotely from the comfort of their home or office at extended times during the day. This has proven to be a popular and successful migration with over 8,525 examinations completed in 2023.
The regulation and compliance function has continued to expand its auditing and regulations capacity to enable us to visit, assist and support more members within the compliance and regulatory functions. Despite being the largest Government approved Client Money Protection scheme operator, we had a very small number of claims in 2023. While any claims are regrettable, the low number of claims is in part due to the enhanced monitoring which now takes place.
Closer working relationships with international professional bodies has been beneficial for the organisation and with closer ties being formed throughout 2023 with NAR in America, IPAV in Ireland and CEPI across Europe as the organisation continues to increase its support and influence framework.
As we move forward the organisation has a number of exciting key deliverables it is focussing on in order to benefit its membership base further during 2024 and I look forward to reporting on this in due course.
Nathan Emerson
CEO, Propertymark
