Article from the January 2026 edition of our Communique newsletter.
The latter part of 2025 saw a surge in training activity, resulting in December being my best revenue month since June 2023!
Many clients using the period between the Budget and Christmas to put their teams through a raft of training and development ahead of the New Year.
This activity is carrying forward in early 2026 and my first open course of the year – a Money Laundering Regulations course on February 4th is all but sold out already.
All of my open courses for 2026 can be found on my website and bookings made to ensure your places are reserved.
I have been undertaking more face to face training as well as online sessions for individual companies in recent months and also working with a number of businesses providing individual mentoring/coaching sessions for staff. These usually start as one hour sessions spread a week or so apart and then , as the member of staff grows and develops, they reduce to half hour sessions every couple of weeks – just enough to ensure that their knowledge and skills continue to grow alongside their performance.
The Renters’ Rights Act has been occupying the minds of many and I have provided strategic insight and knowledge to many businesses to help them develop their pricing and operational strategies going forward. These have usually consisted of a series of one hour online conference session with the key players within a business who can ask questions and get a better understanding of the wider marketplace and help formulate their own plans.
I have recently been appointed as a Strategic Adviser to Homing In and will be helping them bring their innovative and exciting product to the market – you can read more within this newsletter including how you can get your business on board at no cost.
I remain in a similar role with You Convey who are helping reshape and improve the conveyancing service and space.
I am currently also in discussions with three other businesses about getting involved as an external adviser and providing them with the benefits of my fifty years of industry and business knowledge. These are exciting opportunities and often involve me in taking a stake within the business and therefore closely aligning my return with their success.
It is very important in these quasi-NED situations that there are no conflicts of interest and that my role is clearly defined as to what it is but also what it isn’t.
If you feel that my experience, knowledge and skills would benefit your business, let’s arrange to talk and see if we feel that there is a mutual advantage to moving forward together.
As 2025 drew to a close, the property industry sees a plethora of conferences and award ceremonies taking place.
On November 7th I attended the inaugural Voice of the Agent conference organised by We Are Unchained held in the historic setting of Bletchley Park (home of the Enigma Code breaking teams led by Alan Turing that change the course of the second world war).
It was an excellent event, hosted by Simon Leadbetter and Toby Martin with high quality presentations and speakers and insightful, data led, content.
November 28th saw the Negotiator Conference at the Grosvenor House hotel in London and, in the evening, Integra were shortlisted finalists at the Negotiator Awards (Professional Support category). Whilst not gong winners this year, we were Highly Commended in a category that had twenty six short listed finalists!
Integra were also rated as Exceptional in the EA Masters Supplier of the Year awards – the ninth consecutive year we have been rated within the top 5% of industry suppliers (there are more than six hundred!).
In December I was honoured to be asked to be a guest on Chris Webb’s estate agency podcast – a fun hour or so flew by – the recordings should surface early in 2026.
Also in December (and covered elsewhere in this newsletter) I reached the milestone of having completed fifty years in the industry (I started when I was three – honest!). There were a number of articles in the trade press and there will be a couple of longer interview pieces appearing early in 2026.
Finally, as covered elsewhere in this newsletter, my Christmas charity single generated net revenues of over £2000 for two charities – The Propertymark Trust and Diabetes UK.
Thank you to everyone who donated and to the trade press for their publicity and support and Agents Giving likewise.
Michael S Day MBA FRICS FNAEA FARLA
