OPINION
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How a pandemic could improve the traditional workplace
Having had to rapidly adjust to working from home due to COVID-19, many people are now having to readjust to life back in the office. Many will have enjoyed aspects of what is sometimes called “distributed work”, but some may be dreading the return. So is there a middle ground? Could hybrid work arrangements, known for boosting well-being and productivity,…
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PR isn’t what it used to be
In the last five years, digital and social media have fundamentally changed the way PR works. Once upon a time, media outlets had the power to decide which ideas, products and services the public wanted to hear about. Now, audiences hold the power. With search and social at their fingertips, consumers know what they’re looking for and have the tools…
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How to prepare your business for the economic recovery phase
The Covid-induced recession is causing strife for thousands of businesses across the country. At the same time, it is giving businesses downtime to examine their operations and their spending, and highlight where they can make improvements. Adjusting your focus and looking ahead to the economic recovery phase may, in fact, put your business in an advantageous position for recovery. Here…
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Australia is under sustained cyber attack, warns the government. What’s going on, and what should businesses do?
By Mahmoud Elkhodr Lecturer in Information and Communication Technologies, CQUniversity Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison had some alarming news for Australians this morning: we are under cyber attack. He informed the nation the attacks “hadn’t just started”, and that Australian businesses and governments are being widely targeted. It is unclear why the government chose today to make the announcement, or…
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HomeBuilder misses a chance to make our homes perform better for us and the planet
The Federal Government’s new A$688 million HomeBuilder package might protect residential construction jobs but according to academics, it’s a missed opportunity to deliver sustainability benefits that would save owners money in the long run. In an article in The Conversation, senior lecturers Trivess Moore of RMIT and Tony Matthews of Griffith University argue the A$25,000 grant for new homes and renovations could have…
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Stamp duty plan required to boost confidence
In the race to reach the post-Covid recovery stage as quickly as possible, the necessity is to bring confidence back. However, at a time when everyone is hanging on announcements, commitments and timelines from politicians and regulatory officials, it’s important that the communication is clear, transparent and detailed in order to boost confidence. Recent discussions surrounding changes to stamp duty…
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Break free from your agency and build a better business
The days of Australia’s high-performing real estate agents working for box-brand franchises are over. Why give away half of your hard-earned commission to somebody who does none of the work and offers precious little support? At UrbanX, we know the most significant factor in a successful sale is you – the agent. Sellers do not care about shopfronts. They want…
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My staff don’t want to return to work – coming back after COVID-19
As Australia commences its return to normality, the internet is already abuzz with questions about the return of employees to their workplaces. When will it happen? How will it happen? And, increasingly, can I refuse to return when my boss tells me it’s time? On Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia’s ‘3 Step Framework for a COVIDSafe Australia’. As…
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The Reserve Bank thinks the recovery will look V-shaped. There are reasons to doubt it
Shutterstock/RBA By Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Reserve Bank’s long-awaited two-year forecasts for jobs, wages and growth are frightening, but I fear they are not frightening enough. The bank looks two years ahead every three months. The last set of forecasts, released at the start of February, mentioned coronavirus mainly as a source of…
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Housing policies need change as COVID-19 widens renter-owner divide
The renter-owner gap will widen Despite concerns about house prices plummeting, the spread of COVID-19 is exposing a widening gap in housing markets between those who own zero housing wealth (renters) and those with substantial housing wealth (owners). Australians with little to no housing wealth were already experiencing at least three key types of vulnerabilities before the pandemic in the…
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All roads lead to real estate
Following times of crisis, real estate is traditionally the first to bounce back. COVID-19 bears striking similarities to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919, when despite the media creating fear and hysteria through alarmist headlines, capital city housing prices didn’t fall at all. They boomed in 1919 and then continued to rise by more than 10 per cent each year…
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A two-step strategy for sheltering everyone
This article was co-authored by Bevan Warner, CEO of Launch Housing and Ron Wakefield, Professor of Construction, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor, International, and Dean, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, and was originally contributed to The Conversation. The original title was The need to house everyone has never been clearer. Here’s a 2-step strategy to get it done.…
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Five steps to help agents thrive during a crisis
There’s no denying the Coronavirus crisis has been devastating to many. The health and economic implications run deep and, depending on the strategy adopted, they could also run long. The human toll on people’s lives and livelihood is immense, and like everyone else, I’m eager for us to move back toward a more certain future. That said, this current event…
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How to put together the perfect deal?
You have just sold a house in a prestigious suburb, at what you think is a good price. The vendor had negotiated a lower fee with you already. After the event, you feel that you had put in more than the fee warranted, but the vendor said they could have got a higher price for their property. Does this sound…
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McGrath CEO Geoff Lucas gives some insights of working from home as he leads a team of 1,800
While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic impacts all of us greatly, and for many working remotely is a great challenge, my co-workers at McGrath were well prepared. We had already trialled our teams working from home to ensure our tools and systems were in place, so we were fortunate to be ahead of the curve in that respect. Real estate is…
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9 things I’d do as a Property Manager during COVID-19
COVID-19: There is no point of reference for Businesses, Property Managers, Owners and Tenants to refer to, because we’ve never been through this before. This is not “Business As Usual”, and it could be quite a while before a normal operating rhythm returns. To negotiate this period, here’s 9 things I’d be focussed on. Scripts and PracticeThis is one from…
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Why property price growth always leads a crisis recovery
Just as it did with past crises, the adverse economic impact from this coronavirus health crisis will begin its rebound with a real estate surge before anything else. Safe as houses! Residential real estate is the one thing which is common to 25.5 million Australians. After all, shelter is an essential commodity. While we all take one for the team…
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The options so far for rent relief in Australia
What if I can't pay my rent? These are the options for rent relief in Australia Mark Giancaspro, University of Adelaide and David Brown, University of Adelaide You’ve lost income because of the coronavirus crisis and finding it hard to pay the bills. What if you can’t pay your rent? The short answer, if you…
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Federal Government comes out swinging in round 2 of COVID-19 stimulus plan
Following on from last week’s initial stimulus package, the Federal Government yesterday came out swinging with a second round of initiatives designed to support business through the challenge of COVID-19. Last week the Government announced support for business which included 50 per cent cashback on Pay As You Go Withholding (PAYGW), along with incentives to keep apprentices and trainees employed.…
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How will coronavirus affect property prices?
Guest contributor: Nigel Stapledon, is a Research Fellow in Real Estate, Centre for Applied Economic Research, at UNSW The bottom line is it will be negative – prices will go down. People, up until now, have been talking about the property market developing a bit of momentum, with the interest cuts we had last year and the easing in credit…
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The Australian Government is writing cheques to small business owners… this is how much you’ll get
Governments around the world are quickly responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. Italy has basically shut down it’s entire country. India has closed the borders and suspended all tourist visas. Both demand and supply chains are being disrupted, with many economists fearing the virus could trigger the next economic recession. In order to stave off a…
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Slow and steady steps to success
News cycles are often easy to predict. There will always be fireworks on New Year’s Eve, mothers having lunch on Mother’s Day, children having their photograph with Santa at Christmas, the Boxing Day test match and the grand finals to provide foreseeable news cycles. As the decade rolls over and we head into 2020, it’s…
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Stamp duty: A bad tax that has to go
You have to look long and hard to find a notable figure who had a good word to say about taxes. One such person was US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr who in 1927 declared, “Taxes are what we pay for civilised society”. There’s plenty of truth in that statement, but who pays and how much is a…
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What does Agent 2020 look like?
Technology In 2016, as the industry sat on the precipice of major disruption, Ouwens and Casserly posed the question, by 2020 will the world’s largest real estate service have no agents? Uber owns no taxis. Alibaba owns no inventory. Facebook employs no publishers. Airbnb owns no properties. Was real estate headed down the same path? The pair predicted the relevance…
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Here we go again
The housing downturn gave us a two-year glimpse of what it takes to achieve housing affordability and not all of us liked what we saw. With rates of home ownership in decline and a boom that had gone on too long there was justified alarm as the housing affordability crisis took its toll, before the downturn finally happened. But while…
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Call for industry to stop using the term ‘off market’
A real estate expert has spoken out against using the term ‘off market’, claiming it is confusing and misleading customers. Starr Partners CEO Douglas Driscoll urged agents to reassess their use of ‘off-market’, which is used to describe properties up for sale without being advertised on the major property portals. “There’s no such thing as an off-market property – in…
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Auctions aren’t simply for the top-end properties
Sellers who have taken their homes to auctions in spring have been scoring results well above the median prices for their respective cities. Analysis from Domain showed the median price for properties sold at auction in Sydney on Saturday was $1,177,500. The amount is in stark contrast with Sydney’s median home price of $805,424 (CoreLogic).…
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Are your landlords the right fit for your business?
I spoke at the PPM National Property Management Conference on the Gold Coast in June and posed the question “who is the real boss”?
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How to differentiate in your listing presentations: Alex Ouwens
Different dynamics are at play in the real estate market in cities across the country. The eastern seaboard has tanked with prices dropping, while Perth is going through a recovery phase. In South Australia and Tasmania, the market has been more resilient and even growing, while Brisbane has remained reasonably steady. It’s important to remember no two markets are identical.…
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What happened in Vegas: Dave Stewart
Last month I made the long-haul flight (in cattle class) over to the States to attend the Inman conference. For those of you who don’t know, Inman has two major conferences a year. One in January in New York and one in August that was, up until this year, held in San Francisco. This year they ramped it up and…
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The myth of urgency: When time is your friend
In our industry, and particularly in real estate sales, we guide our clients through periods of change. We are taught to act quickly as agents and, over time, our natural instinct kicks in to often tell us to act urgently. It's what we think we must do, which can cause us to adopt a mindset…
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Morton & Morton: Culture Kings
This isn’t an article about stress balls, workplace yoga and office zen zones that miraculously transform your business into a place where every employee is eternally happy and shares a united positive energy.
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The importance of your real estate company’s strategic plan
The real estate industry is changing at an ever-increasing pace, with agencies and agents facing the prospect of being here today and gone tomorrow. Ouwens Casserly director Alex Ouwens explains how a strategic plan could be your saviour.
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Where are the next tenants coming from for ‘high street’ shopping strips
The typical ‘high street’ shopping strip is really now becoming a neighbourhood village where the traditional retailers of fashion-related businesses (clothes, accessories, handbags, jewellery, etc) are really no longer viable to due online retailing and the choice offered at shopping centres. This is most evident in legendary fashion destinations, where fashion shopping streets such as Chapel Street have reigned supreme…
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18 things that will make you a better leader: Chris Hanley
Don’t ask successful people what they do now; ask them what they did back then to go from there to here. What did they change and what did they implement? I have found most people know what they need to do to be a better leader or salesperson or musician. When tested on what they need to do, most people…
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