IN DECEMBER last year, Maria Eivers was let go from her job as an estate agent in Dublin. She had worked handling new homes for Finnegan Menton, then left to work for one of its directors when he set up on his own. But work was slow, and her job ended.

For the next six months, the 28-year-old kept going by working for an agency in Athboy, near her home in Trim, Co Meath, as well as in a Dublin office4. Then in May she decided to move to London.

Just a year later, she is new homes manager for Pedder Property, an estate agency operating in southeast London, handling £35 million (€41 million) worth of stock.

Eivers landed the job through property recruitment agency Deverell Smith. She’d heard about them through CBRE, where she’d applied for a job and got down to the third round of interviews.

She didn’t get the job but “one of the guys who’d interviewed me said Deverell Smith were the best recruitment agency for the property industry in the UK”.

Deverell’s said it had just the job for her and, in August, Eivers – who’d been a negotiator for five years in Dublin – walked straight into her senior management job with Pedder, a leading new homes player from Crystal Palace to Dulwich.

It’s an opportunity she reckons she’d never have got in Dublin, but she wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t had to, as one the hundreds of estate agents who’ve lost their jobs in our property crash. “I hoped it would get better, tried to ride it out, but couldn’t.”

Now she couldn’t be happier: she works closely with managing director Alex Pedder “who imparts a lot of his knowledge to me. He’s given me all the tools for success and said, ‘Go do it’. The pace is very quick, if you make a mistake, it’s all over in seconds, and you move on.

“I’ve got an excellent salary, just got a pay rise, my quality of life is good here – I have a company car and I’m 20 minutes from work. And I’ve learned I’m resilient.”