OPINION
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What goes on tour lasts long after the tour: Hannah Gill
One of my favourite things about our industry is the focus on and range of professional development opportunities. We have no shortage of conferences, forums, round tables and resources to choose from. There are also so many quality and diverse trainers, speakers, coaches and facilitators, we’re spoilt for choice! In the last few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend…
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How much will the first homebuyer scheme really help first homebuyers?
In the lead-up to the recent Federal election the Coalition announced the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme. The scheme will provide up to 10,000 loans to first home buyers each year and will offer first home buyers better access to finance without having to save a 20 per cent deposit. Additional details about the plan include: The Scheme will be…
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Purple Rain: 7 marketing lessons for any business
Purplebricks spent roughly 900 days on Australian soil, reportedly spent roughly $200 million in marketing, yet couldn’t make their business model work. With my marketer’s hat on, here are what I hope are seven useful and practical lessons we can all take away from the experience. 1. There is no point branding unless you can convert Homer Simpson can’t live…
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The federal election, the property market, and the elephant in the room
The Labor Party has pledged to make sweeping changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, while the Liberals have suggested they will be relying on the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut interest rates in a bid to regenerate market activity. But what both parties have yet to fundamentally address is just how much the property industry serves the…
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Sponsored content versus editorial coverage
The media landscape has become increasingly complex over the last five years; however, the options and outlets to promote your brand have increased dramatically. Knowing when to use what tactic is vital in promoting your brand and utilising your budget in the best possible way, but at the same time the landscape can also be challenging to navigate. When I…
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Always the bridesmaid, and that’s OK…
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. It’s a saying shrouded in negativity. It highlights that you’re forever in second place, the supporting actress and not the star. You’re the 2IC but never the boss. It’s a phrase that popped into my mind recently as I walked down the aisle, teetering on heels as high as Mt Everest, in support of…
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Negative gearing is not the biggest issue our property market faces: Charles Tarbey
The Australian property market has been consistently disrupted by false and misleading predictions which coupled with a widespread tightening of credit policy has created the real issue impacting our industry. A fallout from the Banking Royal Commission saw banks apply stricter lending requirements that made it difficult for consumers to obtain finance, particularly for investors. Whilst I have the greatest…
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An ongoing success: Mark Sinclair
We recently facilitated a sale of a business as a going concern with positive outcomes for both buyer and seller. While there was additional due diligence and settlement requirements, this deal was relatively seamless for everyone involved. With so much interest from agency owners keen to understand each selling option and which is best for them, we wanted to share…
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Making your time make you money
No matter what industry you’re in, once you’re looking to grow and take success to the next level, you’re no longer a real estate agent, lawyer, builder, baker, or business consultant. You’re a marketer. And your product is you.
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Leave no stone unturned
In a recent case brought in front of the Supreme Court of Queensland, the Court had cause to consider whether a Deed of Settlement and Release entered into between two parties could be set aside for fraud. The parties to the Deed were an employer and their employee. The employee was the office manager, who had been responsible for managing…
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The million dollar myth: Caroline Bolderston
As a coach, I constantly hear agents talking about the Million Dollar goal, almost as if it is expected and that anything less is not a worthy pursuit. I have seen firsthand what chasing the million-dollar dream takes and, in many cases, what it costs. Here’s the bottom line: most agents are not cut out to be million-dollar writers. I…
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Life by Design
I SPENT A significant portion of my time over the weekend doing one of my favourite things: packing bags for our upcoming family holiday. Now don’t get me wrong; I am not so sadistic that I rate the physical act of packing exhilarating (although I must admit after being on the road for 15 years I do get a kick…
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APRA’s ‘unnecessary’ intervention causing ‘economic destruction’
Propertyology Head of Research Simon Pressley said that the extent of recent intervention by APRA was completely unnecessary and that Australians should be concerned about its effect on the national economy. “The grip that APRA have on national credit supply is so tight that we now have a significant blockage in a major artery of the economy. If the Federal…
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Would a shorter auction campaigns get more attention?
Drifting in a sea of listings, it’s harder for agents holding onto the four-week campaign life-raft to be rescued come auction day. CoreLogic data from the four weeks to 28 October showed the volume of listings in Sydney (30,397 listings) was 18.6 per cent higher than the same period in 2017. In Melbourne (36,526) the figure was 19.5 per cent higher.…
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Why off the plan agents can earn a higher commission
With average residential real estate sales commissions generally around 1.5 to 2.5 per cent, earning six per cent on every sale sounds pretty attractive, right? Nice work if you can get it? As a suburban agent, your ‘work’ is primarily to secure listings. Get the listing, negotiate the advertising budget with the vendor and sell the property when the right…
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Why your buyers are being slugged with higher rates: Nick Bendel
Interest rates are rising. In the past few weeks, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac have hiked their rates. So have ING, Suncorp Bank and Adelaide Bank. Your buyers might find this hard to accept, given that the last time the Reserve Bank increased the official cash rate was in November 2018 – almost eight years ago. If your buyers ask…
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Why you need off-field and on-field support to succeed in real estate: Kate Strickland
The real estate industry is fast-paced, there’s no doubt about that, which is why it’s important to manage the high expectations that we set for ourselves as agents. The top-performing agents are hard workers, but driving yourself into the ground is not sustainable. Believe me, I found out the hard way. I am committed to ongoing professional development, implementing processes…
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37 lessons to 10x business growth
Before its acquisition by US powerhouse Douglas Elliman, California’s prestigious Teles Properties experienced 10x growth in just five years. Realising success leaves clues, Sharran Srivatsaa summarises a decade of learning into 37 actionable takeaways.
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Is there a place for ego in real estate? Kate Strickland
Let’s talk about ‘ego’. The concept of ‘ego’ can translate to many different things. For the purpose of this article I am referring to the drive to think about yourself in a positive light, your level of self-promotion and a sense of your own importance. People often talk about ego as if it’s an evil beast; however, from where I’m…
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Smoothing the path to settlement through eConveyancing
From searching for the perfect property to bidding at auction and ultimately negotiating and settling, purchasing and selling their home is a stressful and complicated process for most buyers and sellers. And, despite a property’s booming sold sticker, the purchasing process often continues long after the auction hammer has slammed. Real estate agents are the public face of the property…
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How my pit crew has helped me get to where I am today: Kate Strickland
Growing up as a competitive athlete I have always worked to implement the most efficient tactics to reach peak performance. Operating at a high level is not about working harder and exhausting yourself – it’s about working smarter. But what does that even look like? In business, we should be working towards this same ideal. If you consider any elite…
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How to make outsourcing in the Philippines work for you
The idea of outsourcing often conjures up images of large factories or warehouses with bad working conditions, but the Beepo offices in the Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone in the Philippines look much the same as any you would find elsewhere in the world. Split across two levels, with offices upstairs and a reception, canteen and break rooms downstairs, the…
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Should your agency be targeting offshore buyers?
As a global company with offices in Australia, China, the US and the UK operating a leading marketplace for off the plan property, we’ve learned a thing or two about attracting and targeting buyers all over the world. If you’re an agent who currently only sells to local buyers whilst your competitors seem to get a bigger slice of the…
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Who is measuring customer experience? Leanne Howard
The customer experience will keep the industry relevant in the future. But to be truly successful in delivering someone needs to 'own it' says RER Network Head of Growth and Engagement Leanne Howard.
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Should anyone working in off the plan property be optimistic?
I’ve worked in the off the plan property industry for almost 15 years now, so have seen the industry shift gears more than a few times. But recently we have been confronted with an unprecedented storm of activity causing uncertainty, from scathing media headlines to banking Royal Commissions to cash-grabbing state governments. So I did what any CEO of a…
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As rates go up, open home traffic might go down
Don’t let the Reserve Bank’s inactivity fool you. Interest rates are actually rising. That might seem strange. After all, the Reserve Bank has left the official cash rate at a record-low 1.50 per cent since August 2016. The last increase came way back in November 2010 – and some economists believe the next one might not occur until 2019 or…
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Online, connected models of selling show the future for agents: Matthew McGrath
The Australian real estate market is at a major tipping point, and agents need to look beyond their own backyards to online and connected selling models to survive changing market conditions. Leading the charge on these shifting grounds for real estate agents is the decline of housing prices in major capital cities, following years of rapid and often unsustainable levels…
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EOFY – The time to move business forward: Joel Davoren
This years financial end preceded the decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia’s board to hold the cash rate at its current record low of 1.5 per cent, where is has been now for 21 successive announcements. The previous record was in 1995-1996, where it remained unchanged for 17 RBA meetings. The housing market, which we all recognise as something…
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The days of investors getting easy finance are gone: Nick Bendel
There’s been an important development in Australia’s mortgage market that real estate agents need to be across. APRA, the banking regulator, recently told lenders to be wary of letting investors borrow at “very high debt-to-income levels” – which it defined as any mortgage more than six times their income. Although APRA didn’t categorically ban loans above this six-times-income benchmark, banks…
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How agents can overcome ‘digital fatigue’: Justin Nickerson
The new wave of proptech disruption is seeing both residential and commercial agents introduced to a myriad of new technologies to streamline their sales process, showcase properties more favourably and reach new buyers (such as Gavl, Purplebricks, REALas, Next Address, StoreMatch, OpenAgent, Snaploader and Sellable). Auctioneer Justin Nickerson explains what agents should consider when choosing the latest quality tech to…
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We ain’t saying anyone is a gold digger…
When he’s not launching prefab affordable housing with YEEZY Home, Kanye West still #blessing us with some of the best gifs on the internet. Lucky for us, today (8 June) is his birthday, so we’re taking the chance to celebrate with some Yeezus reactions for your most frustrating agent situations (Shout out to our faithful band of readers who had…
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How to Stop Making Noise and Start Adding Value on Social Media
Let’s face it: real estate agents aren’t well beloved by the public. Which is a pity, really. As a nation who’ve built their wealth variously on the sheep’s back and on real estate speculation, you’d expect that homeowners would have more reverence for the role of the negotiator. Real talk is: the responsibility of improving our industry’s reputation lies with…
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Kylie Davis: Could Robots Rescue Real Estate Franchises?
The franchise model is being disrupted by technology that’s making it easier than ever for individual agents to run their own show more flexibly and efficiently. But could bots – backed by AI, automation and big data – come to the rescue and help the big real estate brands deliver new value to agents? To explore this idea, let’s look…
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How to transition suburbs as an established agent: Mark Earle
Many real estate agents would never consider transitioning suburbs. Those that are looking to move house in a neighboring suburb often stay as an agent in the same area. But it is possible to transition suburbs, even as far as to the opposite side of Melbourne, but when there is no synergy between suburbs, there is sure to be a…
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The results are in, the investor crackdown has hit hard: Nick Bendel
No, you’re not going crazy – investors really have been piling out of the market in a big way. The latest seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics prove the point, with investment lending in March 2018 falling to its lowest level since January 2016. The value of investment finance commitments dropped 9.0 per cent over the month…
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