EA31
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FEATURE INTERVIEWS
Bread and Butter
Bread and Butter LJ Hooker Narrabeen’s Grant Matterson started out as a baker, but when the time came to change roles, fate ensured he got his start in real estate.
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EPM: Productivity
How to know when to go
It’s a question most employees and many employers will consider at some stage in their careers. Change, as they say, is inevitable. Perhaps you have lost the passion for your job. Maybe you’re in a rut or find yourself heading in a different direction to the business. Then again, you may just want a new challenge. Before you make the…
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BEST PRACTICE
Accepting responsibility
A famous Winston Churchill quote says you must never waste a good crisis. For many, the past 12 months in real estate terms have been a crisis. Much of the pressure may have been successfully navigated post-election, but have agents learnt from the situation, or will they face similar malaise when another crisis hits? And it will hit. Over the…
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EPM: Technology & Social
6 tips for property managers to thrive in the customer experience economy
The CX economy is already here. Let’s begin by stating the obvious: the property management industry is in flux right now. Owners have more options than ever and expect more value from property management services as a result. Agencies can no longer compete realistically on price, with margins already wafer-thin across the industry. Add difficult market conditions and marketplace disruption,…
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EPM: BD & Growth
Jo-Anne Oliveri: Win the cost war
When it comes to your property management business, there are good costs and bad costs. Good costs provide a return on investment (ROI), while bad costs negatively impact your profitability. Here are some of the most common costs and why they are good or bad expenses. GOOD COSTS TRAINING Training is a good cost and a good investment. Effective training…
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EPM: Best Practice & Legislation
The do’s and don’ts of landlord insurance
When you are in a highly-regulated industry such as real estate, things can change quickly and get complicated. Throw in the complexities of insurance, and we wouldn’t blame you if you started pulling your hair out. START AT THE BEGINNINGTo keep your locks intact, it is a good idea to know your rights and responsibilities as a property manager and…
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LEADERSHIP
Leah Jay – The quiet achiever
At 4.40am on May 22, 2017, Leah Jay looked out at the curvature of the earth from the top of Mt Everest. It marked the achievement of a major personal milestone, drawing on “30 per cent physical ability and 70 per cent mental strength”. Leah describes summiting the world’s tallest peak as much the same as building a business. It…
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EPM: First Person
Whose goal is it anyway?
What do dresses, my parenting skills and real estate have in common? You’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you – goal setting. More to the point, collaborative goal setting and the ability to know when to take over and when to co-operate. I came to the sudden realisation recently that collaborative goal setting may not be as simple and automatic…
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TECH + SOCIAL
Together with technology
One day, in the not too distant future, instead of booking a photographer you might find yourself launching a flying drone into a property. It will scan the house in a few minutes and allow you to upload three 3D portal images directly to realestate.com.au. Maybe it won’t be you who does the launching. Maybe you’ll post the drone to…
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BEST PRACTICE
How to beat real estate fatigue: Joel Davoren
Career fatigue is not often talked about openly in our industry. But career fatigue is real. As agents, we tend to be conditioned to accept tough outcomes, rejection and negativity, and react by getting on with things.
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EPM: Ask The Expert
How to stay productive in the lead up to the silly season
Q: It’s almost the end of the year and I am feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know where the year has gone. Help! Ain a society where consistent connection into the matrix has become the new normal, it can be easy to become overwhelmed. As we head towards the end of the year, it is wise…
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LEADERSHIP
Blood, Sweat and No Tears
Debt collection and resolving disputes in court are not usually at the top of employees’ most-loved work tasks. But Simone Firns is different. The Network Pacific Owners Corporation Manager loves the jobs others despise. “The legal component of my role is one of my favourites,” she enthuses with genuine passion. “I like doing debt collection and I like going to…
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Elite Agent
Finding your inner futurist
I’ll never forget the moment the managing partner of the mid-tier accounting firm I was working for looked up at me standing in his doorway for our scheduled 4 pm meeting. He peered over the top of his reading glasses and beckoned me forward. I felt like Melanie Griffith’s character in Working Girl, suffering a major case of imposter syndrome…
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LEADERSHIP
10 ways to future proof your real estate business
IT CAN BE HARD TO KNOW where to start when implementing technological changes in your business. Futurist Gihan Perera has done the head-scratching for you and explains what to do now to remain relevant for tomorrow’s consumer. Australia is perfectly positioned for growth in this “Asian Century”, and Australian real estate will be highly-sought and…
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BEST PRACTICE
Future proofing in the tech age
Working closely with many of Australia’s leading agents allows us to see what separates the best agents from the pack. Despite the transformation in real estate right now, it almost always comes down to the same factors. The best agents have mastered four things: prospecting, listing, negotiating and – of course – selling. We believe that as digital disruption continues…
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BEST PRACTICE
Leveraging your assets
Leveraging your assets With so many new and exciting tech offerings in real estate, it would be easy to become swamped without knowing if what you’re doing is working. Caroline Bolderston explains why sometimes keeping it simple is best. Humans are a complex bunch. Many of us are attracted to what is new, exciting and…
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Elite Agent
Business without borders: Inside eXp Realty
Since its inception in 2009, eXp Realty has broken new ground with its cloud-based real estate brokerage. Now that the USborn realtor has expanded to Australia, Kylie Dulhunty takes a look at what the virtual agency has to offer on our shores. The rapidly burgeoning cloud brokerage, eXp Realty, has hit Australian shores with its…
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LEADERSHIP
Empathy and Understanding the key to service
In an increasingly technological world, David Holman knows people are more important than ever. The Direct Connect Chief Executive Officer says the moving services company’s employees and the vibrant culture within the organisation are what makes things tick. Of course, technology aids their workflow and makes things easier for customers, primarily renters who are moving house, to connect services such…
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TECH + SOCIAL
The new frontier of auctioneering
David Scholes has carved out a hugely successful career as a real estate auctioneer. His former business AuctionWorks handles over 70% of commercial property auctions on the Australian Eastern Seaboard and David has personally called about 35,000 transactions. But he didn’t necessarily start with aspirations to be in real estate, nor in auctioneering. Instead, the self-confessed country boy started in…
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BEST PRACTICE
How to set yourself free from negative thinking
OUR MIND IS PERHAPS the most advanced piece of technology in existence, but it is not without a glitch or two. Pancho Mehrotra delves into negative thinking patterns, how they can hold us back and how to set ourselves free. In the current challenging economic climate, many people struggle to change the way they react…
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CUSTOMER SERVICE
Move over Airbnb, it’s time to share the pool and the backyard
The world of real estate services enabled through PropTech changes so fast we’ve completed a round-up of some of the other innovations that have caught our attention. Torii Boston-based disruptor Torii knows that buying a home can be hard. Founded in 2017, the PropTech startup offers homebuyers a full suite of services, including…
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TECH + SOCIAL
Tech startups making waves
Wouldn’t it be great if you could predict the price a home would sell for? Don’t you wish you could pay your selling agent a set fee based on the listing price of your home instead of the sale price? Do you yearn for a real estate assistant to help you wade through the millions of property listings and find…
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LEADERSHIP
How to use technology to solve your problems
Tech-driven problem solving In a world that moves at an ever increasing pace, it can be hard to know how to keep up. Josh Phegan takes a look at how using technology can solve your problems and which apps he thinks are game-changers. The problem is not the problem. The way you think about the…
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Ask the Coach
How to focus on the process first and the goal second
Q: What would you suggest I do to finish the year strongly? Matt Newey, Fitzpatricks Real Estate, Wagga A: If you need to bring your A-game to the rest of the year, there are several things you need to ‘marry’. Most agents get stuck focusing on a goal, a result or an outcome, and if you’re not on track to…
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FEATURE INTERVIEWS
Don’t stop me now – real estate’s elder statesmen
Ken McCarthy doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘slow down’. At the spritely age of 89, the Ray White Helensburgh Director is one of Australia’s oldest real estate agents. There must be something about the name Ken as down south, in Geelong, Elders Rural Real Estate Sales Manager Ken Drysdale, 69, is also one of the profession’s elder statesmen.…
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LEADERSHIP
Three ways to boost employee engagement
Insights from Forbes, PwC, HBR and human resources professionals show the cost of replacing staff can fall anywhere between 20 and 231 per cent of an employee’s salary. Negative job growth has struck the property industry in the past five years, while the employment outlook nationwide indicates a rise on the horizon, with an estimated growth of 5.9 per cent.…
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TECH + SOCIAL
5 ways real estate businesses can save money on technology
I may not be across every technology opportunity in the industry, but I do see the impact it can have on a business. More specifically, I see the impact technology changes can have on its bottom-line profitability. If you can juggle the changes required to introduce new technology, the rewards can be huge. Get it wrong though and it will…
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LEADERSHIP
Steve Carroll: Leadership in a digital age
By 2020, millennials will make up 50 per cent of the workforce. Whether or not you think technology has changed the face of leadership, three things we can agree on are: 1. The expectations of our employees, driven by millennials, are increasing dramatically. 2. The fundamentals are in place. However, they only keep our employees engaged for a short time.…
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Elite Agent
Divide your database in order to conquer
Have you heard the term “divide and conquer”? Of course you have, but what does it have to do with real estate, you’re thinking? When it comes to your database you need to divide in order to conquer. More gently put, I’m talking about long-term nurture versus an active, short-term pipeline of potential vendors. Your strategy around these two similar,…
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