Many industry leaders have supported the push by governments around Australia to improve vaccination rates by encouraging members of the real estate industry to get vaccinated.
Raine & Horne chairman Angus Raine is one of many real estate industry leaders to speak out about the potential vaccination mandate.
“As an industry, we need to support the government’s messages about the need to get vaccinated,” Mr Raine said.
“Yet the messages about the value of vaccination are taking time to sink in, so any incentives that may encourage real estate professionals to get vaccinated should be considered.
“This could be something as simple as a gift voucher or a day off in lieu. As a highly consumer-oriented industry, we always put our clients’ best interests first and as such real estate principals could look at ways to incentivise their teams to get immunised.”
Real estate coach and auctioneer Tom Panos told realestate.com.au that agents who are double vaccinated will have a distinct advantage in the marketplace when it comes to listing properties.
“We will see it happening in the next week, real estate agents will be saying in correspondence ‘we are vaccinated. When an agent comes to your door, you have security,” he said.
Similarly, Luxe Listings Sydney star and Laing and Simmons Double Bay principal D’Leanne Lewis agreed that “safety is key”.
“I’m getting my second vaccination next week and we get COVID-tested every two days for the show,” she told the publication.
“If we’re coming and going from people’s houses and dealing with the public it’s important that we are safe and they are safe. We should all be doing it, without question.”
Real Estate Institute of New South Wales (REINSW) chief executive Tim McKibbin recently suggested agents who have to be on site to work should be given priority access to vaccines.
“For those who are out in the community and attached to essential services, as opposed to those who can work from home, logically it makes sense to immunise or at least offer to immunise them.”
The Federal Government aims to ensure 70 per cent of Australians aged over 16 are vaccinated before the end of the year.
However, they have remained firm that they will not mandate vaccines on a federal level for any industry, excluding frontline workers.
This means the decision to require vaccinations for employees will be a matter for individual businesses, correlating with existing workplace legislation.
“Australia’s policy remains that vaccines should be voluntary and free”, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.
“We do not have a mandatory vaccination policy in this country. We do not have that. We are not proposing to have that. That is not changing.
“But an employer may wish to make a reasonable directive to staff, and if they do so, they would need to do so consistent with the law.”
Internationally, real estate companies are electing to mandate vaccinations, including New York City-based Related Companies and the Durst Organisation.
Major international organisations like Facebook, Google, Disney, Lyft and Slack have also made vaccination a requirement for employees to return to the office, according to Inman.
