Leading agent opens up about mental health issues in the industry

A respected lettings and sales agent has opened up about his own mental health issues and those which exist thanks to the pressures within the industry.

David Votta leads Votta Lettings and Property Management at Ramsgate in Kent and is the ARLA regional representative; he also has several years experience in the industry. 

Now, in a video interview with property consultant Christopher Watkin, he has opened up about his own mental issues and those which exist within the sales and lettings business.

“If you’re a negotiator in sales or lettings you have targets, you have pressures, you have stresses, you have conference calls to attend to, you have meetings to discuss webinars of sessions and meetings and all that stuff. There’s a lot of pressure” he says.

Votta believes all industries - including agency - are now more understanding because of recent publicity given to suicides and mental issues, but he believes that some company chiefs still turn a blind eye to the issue.

He admits that he himself dismissed the problem in years past, and during the interview admits how he was unsympathetic to a friend who had what he now understands to have been mental health issues.

The most personal note is when he describes his own six months’ treatment with weekly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions after depression which he realised was Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from an event six years before.

It’s a remarkably candid interview which touches upon issues many in the agency industry and any other sales-focussed sector may recognise from their everyday pressures.

Our thanks go to David himself and Christopher Watkins for sharing this video with Letting Agent Today readers: you can see it below.