What’s the best advice an agent can give? At this point I’d love to sound profound or prophetic but, after more than 30 years riding the peaks and troughs of the property market, my answer is more mundane. Be realistic about price. Oh, and beware of angry turkeys.

I cut my teeth in the industry at the tail end of the Eighties boom when the houses I was selling in the Norfolk countryside rose by 48 per cent in a year. Exact valuations were impossible and so estate agency had to coin a new term – guide price. Most of the houses we sold went for more, many went to best and final offers.

Then came the crash and prices plummeted only to increase – eventually – then soar, then tumble, then recover....

The main advantage of living and working through such extremes of fortune is the ability to learn, to see the patterns and advise clients on sensible and realistic values at any given time. Putting your house on the market for more than it’s worth is a terrible move – it will stick and you’ll never get that fresh appeal back.

Knowing I’ve given sound advice based on experience, sharing that experience with colleagues and being part of the thrill of a successful sale is incredibly rewarding. As, indeed, is the experience of three decades spent meeting people and exploring the lanes of Norfolk in order to bring countless houses to the market (it was on one of these visits that I came across that bird – trust me, an aggressive turkey is quite alarming).

Sometimes the house I’m invited to see is new to me, but after all these years often it’s an old friend.

Voices of Experience

'Knowing the worth of a realistic valuation' is part of Voices of Experience, a series of blogs inspired by the new Savills marketing campaign. In this series some of our most experienced agents share what they’ve learned about the property market over the decades.