A particular search. A strange property. A conversation at a council. A problem that seemed impossible to solve. Or perhaps one of those moments when you got something completely wrong and learned far more from it than you ever would have done if everything had gone perfectly.
That is what we want to talk about on this week's IPSA Kind Of Magic, live on Wednesday at 1pm.
Over the years, Gareth Wax and Hamish McLay have spent plenty of time talking about changes within our profession. We have discussed technology, Local Land Charges, AI, homebuying reform and what the future might look like for independent search agents.
This week, we want to forget all of that for a while and talk about the people behind the searches.
Because if you put a group of experienced IPSA members around a table and ask them about the searches they remember most, I suspect you could be there for quite some time.
There will undoubtedly be some funny stories. There will probably be a few involving council offices, enormous old maps, microfiche machines and desperately trying to find the right person five minutes before everybody goes home.
There will also be mistakes.
Nobody who has worked in this profession for any length of time can honestly say they have never made one. Sometimes those mistakes are uncomfortable to remember, yet quite often they become the experiences that make us better at what we do.
You learn to double-check something. You learn which question you should have asked. You learn never to make an assumption simply because something looks straightforward.
And perhaps most importantly, you learn that experience isn't about knowing everything. It is about recognising when something doesn't look quite right and having the confidence to investigate further.
That instinct is difficult to put into a training manual.
It comes from years of searches, conversations, problems, mistakes and occasionally getting yourself out of a situation you would rather not have got yourself into in the first place!
Which brings us to another question.
Why are we still doing it?
After all the changes, all the frustrations and all the challenges that have come with being an independent search agent, what keeps us here?
For some, it may be the satisfaction of solving a problem. For others, it is the independence of running their own business. It may be the relationships built with clients and councils, or simply the knowledge that what we do genuinely matters to somebody making one of the biggest financial decisions of their life.
And for many of us, I suspect the people have quite a lot to do with it.
IPSA has always been about more than searches. Friendships have developed between people who, technically at least, are competitors. Knowledge is shared. Phones are picked up. Help is given when somebody needs it.
Perhaps that is where some of the magic really lies.
So this Wednesday at 1pm, Gareth Wax, Hamish McLay and Jackie Dyson will be putting the serious industry discussions to one side and sharing some stories.
The searches we will never forget.
The mistakes we would rather forget.
The lessons we learned from both.
And after all these years, we will ask one very simple question:
Why do we still love doing this job?
I have a feeling the answers could tell us rather a lot about what makes IPSA special.
IPSA Kind Of Magic: Mistakes, Memories and Magic
Live Wednesday at 1pm
Watch live and catch previous episodes on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@SpillingTheProper-Tea
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