OPINION
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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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Knowing your numbers could help you make more sales: Sally Tindall
Over the past year it’s become harder to borrow money, especially for investors. Yet many buyers continue to limit their finance options. Even though there are more than 100 mortgage lenders in Australia, three-quarters of borrowers use the big four banks. So your buyers could be narrowing their options if they’re restricting themselves to just ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and…
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Nathan Jones: The Importance of Bringing Gen Y Into the Leadership Mix
It’s not often that you will see a leadership team in a company comprising of most members under 50, unless the company has been founded by people below this age. However, for older companies that have a long history of having a team of ‘senior’ leaders, it can be challenging for them to accept younger generations into leadership positions. This…
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John Cunningham: In service of others
It is well known that all great achievers, no matter the endeavour, have one common trait: they have a clear purpose. The same thing applies to real estate. But do we really understand what purpose is all about in a service industry, or are we just considering our own purpose? John Cunningham says putting the consumer’s interests first must be…
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No limits to real estate success in bush country: Troy Kearney
One of Century 21’s leading regional agents, Troy Kearney, believes that geography is no limitation for success in real estate. He shares his top tips for operating in the bush. Mr Kearney opened his office, Century 21 Bathurst Region, two years ago and during that short period achieved prestigious Double Centurion status, placing him amongst the top one per cent…
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How vulnerable is the $100+bn property portal industry worldwide?
In less than 25 years, a whole new industry has been created. Property Portals, these digital platforms that span the globe, aggregate property listings that serve as the primary advertising for the real estate industry. To the consumer, this industry provides the most convenient method for searching properties for sale or rent, whether residential, commercial or industrial. Hundreds of millions…
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Why it’s important to have an open door policy as a real estate CEO
Being a CEO comes with a busier schedule than most, but there’s nothing more important than being accessible to both your staff and clients – even if there are over 400 of them. Having staff and customers who view you as an approachable CEO is extremely pertinent. It can translate to staff being friendly to clients and the overall company…
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3 Ways To Leverage Your Database Contacts: Tiffany Wilson
Successful real estate agencies cultivate a loyal client base. The service you provide your clients is not merely a transaction, but the start of an ongoing relationship. Building a solid database requires a huge amount of time and effort. Once you’ve captured potential leads, it’s your job to take full advantage of these contacts. Using digital marketing to leverage your…
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How self-driving cars will affect property values: Sally Tindall
The robots are coming. And believe it or not, they might affect the price of the properties you sell. The robots I’m talking about in this instance are autonomous vehicles, also known as self-driving cars. They already exist, and will one day become mainstream. Nobody can say for certain when that will happen, but some believe it could be within…
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Morgan Stanley report shows Airbnb growth has slowed overseas but Australian data tells a different story
According to a recent report from Morgan Stanley, as awareness of security issues rises, Airbnb’s growth slows. The third annual AlphaWise survey saw the researcher drop their prediction of Airbnb growth by over 50 per cent, from 29 per cent to 12 per cent, in the EU/US. However, the data in Australia tells a much more concerning story for property…
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How the Reserve Bank can help you reach out to clients: Sally Tindall
I’ve got an idea that will not only give you a credible reason to contact your database, but also boost your reputation as an informed market leader. Interest rates. The last time the Reserve Bank raised interest rates was back in November 2010. Since then, there have been 12 cuts. Sooner or later, there will have to be a hike…
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This is the slowest pace of change for the rest of your life: Greg Dickason
Wow – how much digital change happened in 2017? We saw the arrival of Amazon, the launch of the Google Cloud Platform in Australia, the rise of voice with Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa, Tesla’s model 3 was delivered, and Google’s Waymo self-driving car fleet passed the 4 million miles on public roads. We saw ransomware attacks demanding payments in…
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Elevation meets integration: The evolution of the property management industry
The property management industry experienced a significant shift in 2017. But that’s nothing compared to what’s to come in 2018, according to Rockend CEO Alister Maple-Brown and Antonia Mercorella, CEO at REIQ. Here they discuss the year that was and the year ahead in property management. With the dream of home ownership becoming more and more difficult for many, the…
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Josh Pyatt: What I would do if I was new
I was once a newbie in real estate, like we all were. I’ve been through stages where I was on fire, listing and selling week after week, month after month, and stages where I struggled to create opportunities for myself, win business and make sales; call it the real estate salesperson roller coaster. In my first six-to-12 months in real…
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How your people skills can improve your property retention rate: Danelle Hunter
The true value of a real estate business lies within its rent roll, and the number of properties managed can often mean the difference between a business running at profit or a loss. In order to really harness their true potential, it’s pivotal that property managers maintain a strong customer retention rate and leave a positive impression on their landlords.…
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Big data on track to drive big business in 2018: Lisa Claes
It’s in a fast-changing environment that data really gets the opportunity to shine, says CoreLogic CEO Lisa Claes, with the insights it generates having the potential to deliver true customer value. 2017 was a year of curveballs, contrasts and contradictions. The housing market has continued to deliver for sellers, with capital gains reaching their peak earlier in the first six…
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Millennials to eclipse baby boomer real estate spending in next 5 years: First National Real Estate
Despite 74% of millennials requiring more help than usual in understanding the buying process, it is anticipated that the next five years will see millennials eclipse baby boomers’ real estate spending power with 66.1% of those born between 1982 – 2002 choosing property over lifestyle. With millennials earning more money than earlier generations, their buying budgets are anticipated to be…
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No bursting of the development bubble in 2018, tips Investorist
As the new year dawned, Mr Ellis outlined his predictions for off-the-plan developments in the year ahead. Here’s an insight into his top tips. No bursting bubble As the head of a global property investment marketplace, Mr Ellis features a unique insight into off-the-plan property sales and believes 2018 will “certainly be a buyer’s market”, with things having returned to…
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The Rise of Facebook Advertising In Real Estate: Chris Rolls
While the industry is addicted to the reliable stream of buyer leads these real estate portals send them, the downside is that it costs more to market a property online in Australia than many other places around the world. This cost is borne in most cases by the seller of a property, but many agents also claim that the high…
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The irresistible pull of gravity
In business and personal relationships it’s not necessarily the loudest or the most confident person in the room who is the most influential. If you find yourself worrying about not having the “right personality” to stand up in front of people to present your solutions or ideas, Julie Masters explains how to use gravity instead to pull your audience in.
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Don’t let the mainstream media put you off your game
You wouldn’t know it from some mainstream media reporting, but housing affordability is actually getting better, not worse. That doesn’t mean it’s suddenly become easy for first home buyers to enter the market or for buyers of any kind to service a mortgage. All it means is that it’s now less hard. The latest quarterly Adelaide Bank/REIA Housing Affordability Report…
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How men can embrace a more collaborative approach to win female customers: Anna Thomas
It may no longer come as a surprise that Forbes has identified women as the world’s most powerful consumer; it’s well documented that women drive 70 to 80 per cent of all consumer purchasing through a combination of their buying power and influence. In fact, according to EY, the global income of women is forecast to achieve a mind-boggling $18…
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Is selling houses online the way of the future?
You’ve heard of selling your pre-loved furniture or clothes on eBay, but would you sell a house through an online bidding process? Recently, our Stockdale & Leggo Ringwood office utilised online offer management system Click & Bid, to sell a home located at 3/7 Fortuna Avenue, Croydon, by private treaty, achieving a result well in excess of the vendors expectations.…
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Jonathan Lui predicts downscaling properties are the way of the future
Australia’s properties are now the smallest they’ve been in the past two decades, with an incline in apartment-living. And apparently, that’s OK. Having lived in Australia most of his life and recently moved to Singapore, Lui says he has noticed a significant difference in property sizes. He says big properties are out, and small houses are in. “Asia is the…
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The Sydneysider’s guide to renting; based on RAI findings
Property commentator and valuer Anna Porter looks at the Rental Affordability Index (RAI), released on November 29, and what it really means for Sydney’s renters and prospective house buyers. BAD NEWS, LET’S GET IT OUT OF THE WAY “Firstly, the most curious part of this data is that the only ‘affordable’ location within Sydney catchment shown on the Rental Affordability…
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Douglas Driscoll’s property market forecast for Sydney in 2018
Douglas has forecasted the following 10 property market trends for 2018: 1. House prices to grow. We saw prices drop slightly at the end of 2015, and we’re seeing this again at the end of 2017 – possible evidence that prices could rebound once more. Overall, I think we’ll see the median house price grow by around three…
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Why your buyers are finding it harder to get finance
Fun fact: did you know that we’ve had one interest rate rise in 2017? That might sound like a strange thing to say, given that the Reserve Bank of Australia has left the official cash rate at a record-low 1.50 per cent since August 2016. However, between 1 January and 1 November, interest rates gradually crept up, ultimately increasing by…
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Agents need to sharpen communication with vendors in a slow market: Andrew Cocks
As the auction market softens and the gap between vendor and buyer price expectations widens, agents would do well to begin honing their communication skills. Despite some properties continuing to attract bullish prices the 65 per cent Sydney auction clearance rate, which is artificially high through manipulation of listings, and 32 per cent in Brisbane recorded on the weekend, suggests…
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Doug Driscoll reveals his 2018 Sydney suburb hotspot predictions
Douglas Driscoll, CEO of Starr Partners has announced his top 10 Sydney suburbs to watch in the upcoming year. 1. Leppington Leppington has seen significant housing development after re-zoning and is very family-centric. With Coles and Woolworths moving in this year, I think we can expect to see this area go from strength to strength. The new NSW rail changes coming into…
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First timers homing in to opportunity: Andrew Cocks
There’s been a predictably mixed response to the release of CoreLogic figures showing another month of declines in Sydney house prices. From some there have been howls that the sky is falling, the boom turned to bust, and the imminent collapse of lives and livelihoods. But there is one group for whom the slow-down we had to have has given…
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7 Reasons Why Quick Sales Are Good Sales
There are many reasons why a quick sale can be a fantastic result for all parties involved. Evan Broadbent lists his seven top reasons why every agent should have strategies in place that facilitate these transactions. The buzz you feel from a quick sale that has resulted in both a happy vendor and happy purchaser more than compensates for that…
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The Truth about Clearance Rates: David Holmes
With price growth slowing in Australia’s biggest housing markets, many sellers have been pondering what is the best strategy for a strong sales result. Prospective sellers keenly eye the auction clearance rate as a leading market barometer, and with a bumper volume of properties to go under the hammer this weekend, property pundits will have their opinions on what figure…
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First Homebuyers Making the Right Moves: Michael Davoren
The REIA recently reported that first home buyers, as a proportion of total owner-occupiers, are at the highest level since July 2013 and the number of first home buyer home finance commitments is the highest since December 2009. New stamp duty exemptions and concessions in NSW and Victoria began on the 1st of July this year, which were designed to…
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Adelaide takes investor attention off Melbourne and Sydney
Anna Porter, a property market author, commentator and former valuer who works with first time and experienced investors on building high-performance portfolios, says she is directing clients towards the forgotten state of South Australia. “For the past three years all eyes have been on Sydney and Melbourne as the markets that have been outperforming the national averages. Many suburbs across…
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Catching the right wave: Michael Davoren
On the Queensland coast the humpback whales are slowly heading back south to Antarctica with their calves after their June to August migration to tropical North Queensland waters where they mate and breed. This month we are hearing about another migration. A 130,000-strong people-wave is tipped to move from southern states, and more specifically Sydney, in coming years for Queensland’s…
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