The future of real estate practice in Australia

Transcript

Peter Fletcher

[00:00:00] Peter Fletcher: Welcome to the WA Property Q& A, the podcast where I explore the ins and outs of buying property in Western Australia. I’m your host Peter Fletcher and each week I interview local property experts to help you to develop a deep understanding of the nuances of buying property in WA. From markup trends to legal considerations, no topic is off limits.

But before we dive in, a friendly reminder. While we provide valuable information, it’s important to note that nothing discussed in this podcast should be construed as personal investment advice. Always remember to seek the appropriate professional advice for your specific circumstances. Now, let’s get started and unlock the secrets to successful property buying in WA.

Welcome to another episode of the WA Property Q& A podcast and I’m excited this week. I have with me none other than Peter Brewer. Now, Pete sent me this great, long, think the word you were looking for was diatribe. It was a big introduction and it’s an introduction big enough to fit the man. Like, it’s a big Queensland term.

[00:01:14] Peter Brewer: When you said this was going to be a long episode, I thought if I could beef it up with half an hour of introduction, it might at least fill up some of the time. Thank you, Pete. It’s awesome to be on your podcast as someone who has, no, I mean it, as someone who’s admired you for, well, four, four decades. It’s an honor, mate, to spend a bit of time and shooting the breeze between both of us talking about The thing that we’re probably most passionate about, and that is the industry of real estate.

[00:01:42] Peter Fletcher: Yeah, and I think that’s, that’d be a good thing to do, Pete, is just is shoot the breeze about the property industry and industry that served us pretty well, let’s face it. But I do want to, a bit of an introduction and when I think when I met, first met you in person was at a professionals conference in in, was it Queenstown?

No, it was actually at

[00:02:05] Peter Brewer: 517 Hay Street at the King’s Ambassador Hotel in Perth. That’s where I can reckon it was and yeah, it was it was a conference there. They had speakers such as the guy that had the motor dealerships over there Skip John John Hughes, yes, John Hughes Dr.

Tony Fountain, a guy called Winston Marsh, I think, spoke. It was a stellar lineup of really good presenters and it was such a great opportunity to get the

Queenslanders and the West Australians together, and the professionals at that time together, and we came back from West, from Western Australia back to sunny Queensland with so many cool ideas from the things that you guys were doing over there and doing so well around exclusive agencies and vendor school.

Paid marketing and really professional marketing. So it was, Leigh, and it was certainly something that helped to kickstart my real estate career. I loved my time there.

[00:02:59] Peter Fletcher: And the meeting that I was referring to in, was it Queenstown?

[00:03:06] Peter Brewer: We certainly have had another meeting in Queenstown.

Absolutely.

[00:03:09] Peter Fletcher: And that was the meeting where you Gave me a sneak peek at the Professionals, new Professionals livery. That was,

[00:03:17] Peter Brewer: yeah, that was, that’s fast forwarding. Yeah, it was about 2000. That was that was some people say the evolution of the Professionals brand. I prefer to call it the revolution of the Professionals brand.

It was an exercise that polarised the organization, but it was a much needed revamp to take it away from a very male dominated brand to a very female friendly brand, and a really good thing, I thought, but certainly we divided the country.

[00:03:46] Peter Fletcher: Yeah, it was a big shift for the pros back then because our font was Rockwell, which if you want a masculine font, you would look no further than Rockwell.

And it was just black and red. It, it was a big move back then.

[00:04:02] Peter Brewer: It was Pete. And I think one of the things that was really interesting and I’m cautious in, no, I’ll just say it because you know me, sometimes you just say stuff. But

[00:04:12] Peter Fletcher: I

[00:04:13] Peter Brewer: remember, exactly, but I remember when we did it, it was, like it freshened the brand dramatically.

It made us more female friendly, but I made the observation with the assistance of a couple of other people. I walked into an office we had on the north side of Brisbane, and before the branding changed it was a really conservative office. The branding happened, it looked magnificent on the outside, but when you walked inside there were still two 75 year old men sitting back with an ashtray and their durries sitting in the tray, and you walk in and they say, G’day, what do you want?

And it just reminded me, and it’s such a good, it was such a good lesson that all we did in a lot of cases there was we put lipstick on a pig and and it’s such an important lesson to so many people and so many businesses, you can rebrand yourself as much as you like, but unless you change the culture or make sure the culture fits the brand, then you’ve got some, you’ve got some challenges and that became a bigger challenge for us to change some of the behaviors across That organization and the offices and across the profession generally.

And I think there’s an underlying lesson all the way through of change that we need to embrace. Otherwise, we’re ultimately just putting lipstick on a pig. Changing culture is always the hard part. Tough. Tough. Tough. It’s one of the things that’s tough about leadership is, is those lessons of taking people on the journey with us.

And so many of us struggle to do that. We, we wake up with these great ideas or we go to a conference and we come back with Great ideas. And then somehow or other, we’ve got to get the team to buy into that culture. And and get them to be with us. Otherwise, all of a sudden, you’re three parts of the journey and you look around from the bottom to the top of the mountain and you go, hello, is anyone there?

Where are you all? So yeah, it is hard, but you know, it’s a worthwhile exercise because those businesses that do get the culture right and have got the people on the bus and they’re all facing forward. Business becomes a whole lot easier, doesn’t it? But I think we’ve got to be harder in doing that.

We’ve got to be, I love that, it’s cliched, but it’s, flow to hire, fast to fire. If you don’t fit in, do the other thing. F off.

[00:06:25] Peter Fletcher: Now, Pete, you had a very high profile office back in the day. And I think you were the chair of, um, the Queensland Professionals and I think you might have gone on to become the Chair of the PROs nationally

and now you are the Chair of the REIQ Queensland. Have I wrapped that up correctly?

[00:06:47] Peter Brewer: You’ve done it perfectly, mate. That’s exactly what it is. And Pete, that kind of stems for me from something my oldies said to me a bazillion years ago. If you see things that need change, don’t sit back and whinge about it. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

And so, if you want to see change and advocate for change and then get involved or, Shut up, and so, at various stages these things I felt that I wanted to contribute to both professions and also the, in the institute here. And so I put my hand up and I got involved and I’ve loved it.

I love that you know that blokes like you and I with. The time we’ve had in the industry and the knowledge we’ve got at all levels, because you and I have seen it all fledge, from, assistant property managers through to salespeople to business owners, we, we’ve done, we’ve seen every aspect of the business.

And so I think we can overlay some of that wisdom and and really help. Make this great profession an even better profession, so, yeah, and I know you’ve had your, the fact that you’re doing this I think is magnificent, I know you had some time on the REWA board so you’re a guy that likes to influence change as well, it’s important.

[00:07:59] Peter Fletcher: Do you think you’d move the needle in the right direction with the pros?

[00:08:04] Peter Brewer: I certainly do. Yeah. I believe I did a hundred percent. I did. What would be your legacy there? Oh, good. I think that branding exercise was really important part for me. Changing our, I remember walking in one day and we’d employed a new CEO. In Queensland and I couldn’t miss her. I couldn’t meet him there on the first day and I rang and I said, welcome, great to have you on board. I’ll pop in and see you tomorrow. I said, how are you going? He said, I have to tell you, I’m a little bit underwhelmed. And I said, so what are you underwhelmed about?

He said, well, the way the place is laid out the paint job my desk, yeah. My chair, I’m just underwhelmed with that. And I went from day one, I realized we had a problem because this guy was more worried about how wide his desk was and how comfortable his chair was than the opportunity before him.

And that would actually made his career quite short lived and said to me, I need to get in and make this about the membership and about, what that organization

actually stood for. And that was about training and marketing and development and helping businesses run. Profitable offices. So I think that’s a legacy I’m proud of.

Our business management stuff. I’m very proud of building relationships across our great country with some magnificent people in WA and Kiwi land and the other states as well. We we did some good stuff to really build that brand and the culture inside of it.

[00:09:23] Peter Fletcher: Is the industry doing enough in training?

Do we actually do enough or are we paying lip service to it?

[00:09:30] Peter Brewer: I think we do enough in training. So, generally speaking, I think most of the institutes do enough in training. I think what we’ve got is We have an apathy problem in our industry that nothing ever suits people in terms of when the training’s on, or whether it’s online, or whether it’s in person, or whether it’s on a Tuesday, or whether it’s on a Friday, so, I think the offerings are there. There is no shortage of things that you can do in this business at your own pace or, but people find all kinds of excuses not to attend stuff and then whinge about it’s fascinating. Here’s an example. We put on a pretty fancy event here last year.

In Queensland for training and people say, Oh, look, it’s so expensive. And, for us, regional people, it’s really hard to come down for that event, and it’s on a Tuesday or a Friday, whatever it was, and and I came and said, well, what else do we change? How do we make it easier for regional people?

And two Saturdays later, they were down here for a U2 concert with their family. Okay. It’s all about entertainment. So you can’t go to the conference to better your skills and to make yourself a more professional real estate agent. But baby, hit me with that rhythm stick. Take me to that UT

[00:10:49] Peter Fletcher: concert. And maybe that’s where the Institute needs to be a bit smarter.

Maybe they could be doing package deals. You get a day of training plus a YouTube ticket. All for the low price of 1, 547. It’s

[00:11:04] Peter Brewer: an absolute bargain. So it’s where we put the value, isn’t it? Because I think there is some, there’s no shortage. And I think, we’ve franchises, marketing groups, institutes have all got a They think more creatively about how we deliver that training, five year or pre COVID.

So, four or five years ago, we bought a brand new building over here with room for 300 people in three training rooms and it was magnificent. And now, we’ve leased all that space out and 95 percent of our training is now delivered online because it just is, it’s convenient for people.

We still get a small percentage that say, Oh, I want to come and sit in the classroom. And we facilitate that as well, because you’ve got to be, you’ve got to do that. But no, I think there’s there’s lots of training. I think I think there is an absolute opportunity, Pete, in this world of AI and new technology for institutes and franchise groups, preferably institutes, to take a genuine leadership role in where business needs to go with things like AI.

All right. The opportunity is magnificent, but I think most businesses are struggling with just dealing with business as usual without layering on digital media Facebook websites, SEO. Tec Tok, AI. In the meantime, we’re struggling, so, which kind of takes me to what does that future real estate business look like?

And I think that suburban person suburban office with two property managers, 250 managements and two or three sales people is under absolute threat and is probably going to be gobbled up by the bigger, better and bolder ones that provide all of the services that allow people just to be, Go out and just be really good real estate people.

[00:12:47] Peter Fletcher: A hundred percent. Just, I want to come back to that point that you just made there about the big ones gobbling up other, the smaller operators, but let’s roll back to the issue of AI. Yes and training on ai. I attended a Rewa course on Tuesday and it was called Rewa Innovate.

And it was genuinely innovative. The speakers the one guy’s name is Day geez, I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten his name. But. Wow, he was amazing. And the guy that followed him was just as good. There was some really good stuff where it had people thinking how can I apply this to my office?

What can I do next? And there was, there were some people in the room that would Genuinely excited about about what’s going on. And I would say that it’s probably the best day of training I have ever experienced inside the professionals. Oh, sorry, inside, inside real estate, full stop. It was a real, it’s one of the best days very good.

[00:13:58] Peter Brewer: The bit that you enjoyed, was it around opening your eyes to the opportunities? Was that the key part? Did the light come on to go, wow, and we could do this? Oh my God, where can we take it? Or what was the

[00:14:12] Peter Fletcher: big buzz for you? So for me, it was just that sense of possibility that was evident in the room.

And it was for the longest time, and even up To today, we have conferences where people get up and talk about their, their story and how they grew up on the wrong side of the track and got their life back together and

now they drive a Lamborghini and a, and then they, watch your scripts and dialogues. And I, I remember. Some years ago at one of the pro one of the Rewa conferences where it was a CPD day it was the Rewa Connect Conference, which is the big conference for the year.

And I was doing the rewa social media at the time. And I grabbed this speaker one, one of the big trainers in Australia grabbed this speaker as as he was about to run out the back of the room and head to the airport. And I said, what is, if for all the real estate agents in the room, what would be your number one script or dialogue that they could use to make them more successful?

And he said, well, I would say Mr. and Mrs. Vendor, if I had a property, had a buyer that suited your home should I, Sell them something else, or would you like me to show them yours? And I looked at him and I go, and he was 100 percent serious. And it was like that line I had read in a Tom Hopkins book back in 1999.

I was going to say, Tom Hopkins and Galbraith. It was just like, compare that with what I experienced on Tuesday. And it was all brand new. It was all, wow. I’ve never seen this before. And I, and I have zero question that it is going to shake. The way we do business in the next three months, not three years, but the next three months.

[00:16:14] Peter Brewer: Totally with you. Totally with you. I, I know you’ve recently been to ARIC and neither of us would want to make this an ARIC bashing exercise, but I did write after last year’s ARIC, the 25th anniversary what had changed over 25 years and the only thing that changed was the lack of implementation.

It’s still the same scripts and dialogues that Tom Hopkins taught us. 25, 30 years ago, being regurgitated back out, it’s the, it’s all, I mean, look, those scripts, it stood me well for a long time in my real estate sales career, but people go along, they throw their panties at the stage, they spend a small fortune and they walk away and very few people actually implement.

And that’s going to be the challenge with the AI stuff is that how do businesses operate business as usual, as well as plugging these opportunities. I think you’re right, it is over the next three months, not the next three years, or not a slow burn, this is stuff that you can start to plug in a serious way today, if we open our minds to it, and if we work with the right people, and I believe that’s where the institutes preferably have a part to play in in taking people down that, that path otherwise.

If we leave it to others, I can see us becoming, it becoming a very expensive product that probably doesn’t need to be that expensive if it comes forward into the hands of the wrong technology people.

[00:17:30] Peter Fletcher: So, on the subject of the institutes they are effectively a franchise Or a marketing group or a something.

Is there a tension between the REIs in Australia and and the big marketing groups, so your Harcourts and your Ray Whites and your Hookers?

[00:17:50] Peter Brewer: I’m going to say yes. And I know that some people want to, there’ll be shock, stun, horror, REIQ Chairman, slams franchise scripts. Look, I know that someone will want to pick that up as a headline, but I think what tension is there is a totally Unnecessary tension that’s been, it’s, it’s one of those things that gets passed down through generations, institute bad.

It’s even the word’s a horrible word. I hate the word institute, it kind of, it conjures up, thoughts of, the Royal and Ancient Order of the Frothblowers, it’s kind of, That is a good

[00:18:27] Peter Fletcher: order, I’ve got to say.

[00:18:28] Peter Brewer: All the pewter mugs on their heads. So I think, so, it’s a poor word and, it’s in, in 2024, I, it’s not a word I’m comfortable with, but anyway, it is what it is.

But I think it’s a long held thing that people go, oh, it’s the Institute, oh, those old boys, I don’t really understand it. Yada. I think if you start to look at the institutes around Australia now and this, this gets into hairy ground for a lot of people. Most of the institutes now being the CEOs are women, there’s strong representation on the boards and they, I’m just going to say it, women get shit done.

And I think we’ve got some really proactive and aggressive CEOs doing some amazing stuff. And potentially that might be a threat to some of the franchise

groups as well. I’m not sure. See, I think there’s a tension there that doesn’t need to be there. There is only one voice in each of those states that’s fronting up to the respective state parliaments or the legislative lawmakers and advocating for property owners rights and for, for a fair and healthy real estate profession.

And that’s the REIs in each state. And if you don’t have those in there fighting for you, I can promise you, It’ll be anarchy, it just will be. I, I get to spend a fair bit of time looking at proposed legislation and it scares me, Fletch some of the stuff that these crazy pollies and their department heads propose.

We get to look at it and go, you can’t be serious. I think in the last lot of, Legislative reforms and bear in mind in Queensland, we’ve had five consecutive years of rental reforms. Five consecutive years of rental reforms. How does a property manager or a real estate agent keep pace with five consecutive years of rental reforms?

And and in the last round we managed to achieve 39 changes of stuff that was brought up. Now, if you haven’t got a, a good healthy REI with a focus on advocating for your profession and for a healthier real estate profession, then you’re going to have serious problems.

And that’s why I think the franchise groups and anyone that says, oh, what are the REIs do? Well, what they do is they keep the industry pretty healthy for you and without them, you’ve got some trouble. So I think, put all the crap that you might have, all those past craziness that’s gone through your head aside and support your REI because they’re good people who are trying to do good stuff for you.

[00:20:47] Peter Fletcher: What is the role of the Real Estate Institute of tomorrow?

[00:20:52] Peter Brewer: Great question. It’s a great question. I think it is to continue to advocate.

[00:20:57] Peter Fletcher: I didn’t even write that down before, so I said to you that we were going to get off topic. Yeah,

[00:21:03] Peter Brewer: no, that’s good. No, I love it. It is a great question. Because, different people will tell you different things that they believe.

My belief is to absolutely maintain its relevance to the profession. It’s to keep the battleground fair. So not to weight it strongly towards real estate agents, or

to home sellers, or to home buyers, or to tenants or landlords. Just to keep it fair and reasonable. We’ve had five consecutive years of of reforms.

Something says to me there’s a bias that’s probably headed in the wrong direction. It was a great, Kerry Francis Bulmore Packer that said every time you introduce a new piece of legislation, you take someone else’s rights away. And we have governments that continue to, to give us those challenges and to take people’s rights away.

And so I think it is to maintain a healthy environment for The real estate profession, I think it is to keep the standards as high as we possibly can. And I know, Pete, you and I have talked about this in the past, that it absolutely craps me to tears when we wake up each year and see the latest, because the AC Nielsen report that talks about real estate agents and sex workers and politicians are on the same band.

You and I have been around this crazy business enough to know that probably represents 10 percent of the industry. The other 90 percent are just really good people doing the right thing. And so it’s to uphold the standards of that 90%, try and take the other 10 percent with us in some form. Educate push for harder CPD and push for government to eradicate some of the crap.

It still manages to find its way into our profession. So I think it’s important for us to be there. I think it’s important for us to be providing great education, great marketing, educating consumers on what a transaction is. Again, I’ll go back to it. If you look at five years of consecutive rental reforms yet not a dollar spent, not a serious dollar spent on educating the consumers or real estate agents on how that all works.

That’s just crazy, isn’t it? Like, bring in all this legislation. Don’t actually teach anyone how, how and why, and then expect everyone to sort it out. So, for us, I think there’s a massive opportunity for us to be able to do that. Educating consumers on rights and responsibilities and otherwise people just make shit up as they go.

So we’ve got an important job to play to explain it to real estate professionals and also to the public.

[00:23:23] Peter Fletcher: Here in WA, we’ve we’ve got a, well, Kath’s no longer. New but recently minted CEO, shall we say Cath Hart and just a super powerful human being and really doing some good things.

And what is interesting is that she’s taken the local institute, I think, in another direction and from where it was. And the key focus as I see it is lobbying. So, Cath is super involved with lobbying at all sorts of different levels of government.

And and Doing a great job and having a real impact. The other thing that she’s doing is is a lot in education. And, this Innovate conference that we had on Tuesday, one of the best I’ve been to, and that was as a result of Kath and her team. That’s I think it’s creating a better industry or, better membership.

[00:24:22] Peter Brewer: Marty, that is awesome to hear, and I think that is, sometimes it takes Good people from outside our profession to give us a bit of a wake up call and just to not regurgitate the same old stuff a different year. So, to look at those opportunities and well done to Rewa there.

I saw REIV have put a new CEO on which is awesome a lady. And it was interesting watching some of the old guards saying, She’s not from real estate. What would she know? How would she qualify for this stuff? And I actually challenged a few people on LinkedIn over that, but the fact that she’s not of real estate world is a really good healthy thing.

To fresh set of eyes, she comes from media and she comes from sport and good commercial background. So, that’s awesome. Well done.

[00:25:08] Peter Fletcher: So do the CEOs. Of the modern real estate agency, do they need to have a real estate practitioner’s background? Or could we potentially see some CEOs of some of the bigger organizations be non real estate practitioners?

[00:25:28] Peter Brewer: Oh, I think that’s a, I think that’s very healthy. On the proviso, I mean, I don’t think they have to have a real estate background or have spent time on the shop floor. I think your boards can look after that stuff. I think that’s the, it’s the balance that, that a good board can bring or membership directors or member directors.

I think someone that’s got a good board. Outside business background can break some of the shackles of the old norms that we get used to, because we do get used to some old norms in this industry. And so no, I think there’s a massive opportunity for them to open our eyes up and for us to start thinking about different ways, as long as they spend a little bit of time, like, it’s that old saying, Pete, you got to spend two moons in the other man’s moccasins.

And so to spend a little bit of time with your top eight or ten customers at various levels, so you get an understanding about what the challenges are and what works for them, what doesn’t, where they might know their hand. You’ve got that grapple, you’ve got that, it’s then, oh, I don’t think you need to have a real estate agent certificate as well.

It’s, you weren’t employed to be a real estate agent, you’re employed to, to transform or modernize or, take this institute on to what’s next. Evolution.

[00:26:37] Peter Fletcher: Let’s go back to the Office of the Future. A mate of mine you know him reasonably well has been operating a reasonably successful office for the past, well, since 19, let’s say 1990. So a while. And his model is still six reps, 300 plus property management, and I just think that he is setting himself up for failure. We’ll, no doubt there’ll be moments in that he’ll make a decent profit and do okay, but by and large, he is a training ground for the agency. So, he’ll train people up.

They’ll shuffle on to the big commissions offered by the agency. And I just question whether that model is sustainable. Oh, I think

[00:27:34] Peter Brewer: you’re absolutely honoured. I think those words, that those businesses operate as a training ground a platform for people to further their careers, so you know, they’ll probably train for the next two, three years, get them up and running, and then they’ll lose them, and they’ll say, well, what happened there?

Well, it’s just evolution. That’s what happens there. They’ll go for bigger dollars, they’ll go for a, a flashier car, a bigger name on the signboard. More support. And so, I, I don’t believe that’s sustainable. I think those businesses will continue to churn, you’ll just, it’ll be, six people, two coming, two going, two not sure what’s going on.

And that’s not, that’s not sustainable. People hit the cost, Pete, of running a business these days. So you’ve got the cost as well as trying to be at the forefront of innovation. I mean, I sat at the RISA South Australian REI Conference a couple of weeks ago, and I watched their Chair Kane Cook interview Susanna Toop from Toop’s, legendary business in in South Australia, in Adelaide.

And Toop’s have got their own in house developers to look after their technology. They talked openly about what they’re doing with AI. They, they are unassailable, the stuff they’re doing and the size of the business. They were

just happy to give it all because they know that, probably 2 the room have actually got the ability to do, most of what’s there, unless they invest in it.

So, I kind of look at that and I go, the model is, for me, the model is changing. You’re going to have these big offices, and we’re seeing them already, whether it’s the UrbanXs, or, there’s a variation of Place, or there’s a few of them floating around, where someone else is looking after all the back end support, So, don’t all Book work, all the trust accounting, all the innovation, erasing the tech stack, making it happen and just saying, there you go, just go out and sell real estate because that’s what you’re probably pretty bloody good at.

But asking a business owner, asking that the guy you’re talking about there to be a leader in AI and digital marketing and we’ve fallen into a trap and reality just says this, you and I go back, let’s go, you and I spending time in the States in the, the late 2000s. Or, 2009, 2010, 2011, looking at the opportunity in the evolution of social media and websites and so much that it can do, but our industry and our practitioners abrogated their responsibility to actually do something about it. And that’s why REA and Domain and I can’t comment on REWA, I wouldn’t be fair to do that, but that’s why they have prospered and grown, because our people abrogated their responsibility.

There was so much opportunity, but they did nothing about it, and now they sit back and bitch and moan and groan and carry on and say, oh, they’re taking our money away. Well, sorry. You did nothing about growing a really nice website or providing great content or writing weekly blogs or doing wonderful videos or, understanding Facebook ads or any of that kind of stuff.

So, that’s why, those businesses that think they can ignore the new opportunities and just continue to do what they’ve always done are destined for failure. That’s a long way of saying exactly what you said before. It’s not sustainable.

[00:30:40] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. So I read that I watched a video recently of somebody who said the single biggest predictor of success in in sales is, amount of time facing the customer.

So, if you spend a lot of time facing the customer, you are going to make more sales. And to your point, it’s with those small operators, they’re always juggling. Well, do I spend time researching how to advertise on Facebook or do I spend Two hours in front of a customer on a listing presentation, and it’s a tricky balance.

[00:31:27] Peter Brewer: It is, but it’s a balance. You don’t have much choice. In in saying, you go where the dollars are, and that’s belly to belly, toes to toes,

nose to nose. It’s talking to the customers. It’s creating opportunities. And it’s that, there was a great old saying, you and I learned, a bazillion years ago, when we were talking about social networking, and it was only when people would say, oh, I’m social networking, and you go, actually, you’re actually social not working.

Let’s be honest about it. You’re messing around on Facebook. It’s not social, it’s not social networking. It’s messing around on Facebook. So be honest and say I’m messing around on Facebook. I thought my

[00:32:03] Peter Fletcher: TikTok addiction was going to pay off.

[00:32:06] Peter Brewer: Well, look, isn’t there an opportunity there?

Isn’t that a massive opportunity? And you and I, the company acts about that. Some people that you’ll see really carving it up over there and, there’s a guy

[00:32:17] Peter Fletcher: called Corey Adamson over here. And look, he is a very good looking rooster. And he just answers. Answers questions all day long on TikTok, and he’s got something like 85, 000 plus followers.

It’s just like, and this is just a real estate agent from Florida. That’s he’s doing okay.

[00:32:39] Peter Brewer: Good on you. And that’s someone who’s identified an opportunity and said, that’s where I’m going to go. I love it, Pete. I, for a period of time, I, well, I still own a website called, it’s a Leigh Generation website.

It’s dormant, so I’m not trying to plug it. And I, it’s having a conversation. It is for sale at the right price. Just call. It is for sale at the right price. It is for sale. But it’s, I ran a series of Facebook ads for Former client up in Toowoomba. And and we generated in a week, we spent 75 and we generated 22 opportunities.

There were 15 people that filled in the online form that said, I’m interested in the market. And seven people filled in the online form to say, I’m thinking of selling. 22 responses for 74. And so I said to the client, it’s a pretty good response, so you should be really happy with that. I think it’s amazing.

Do you want to go again with some more next week? He said, no, I’m going to drop those. And I said, what do you mean? He said, I’m dropping them. That’s not working for you. And I said, why is that? There’s two parts. One, he said I emailed each of those people and none of them were ready to list today. But the fact that they filled in an online form says that, let’s buy them a bottle of

champagne, let’s take them on a slow dance, let’s nurture, let’s create an opportunity, let’s create a relationship.

So I said to him, this is the second file, I said, so, Darryl, or Darren, so what are you going to do instead? If we’re dropping that, and that’s cool, what I’m going to do is I’m going back to letterbox dropping. You’re going to buy 10, 000 bits of shit for 700 bucks. And you’re going to pay someone 700 bucks to drop those 10, 000 bits of shit in people’s letterboxes, that’s 1, 400 bucks.

I said, just remind me, when’s the last time that someone came into your office with one of those bits of shit and said, Oh my God! I can’t wait. I can’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity. A real estate agent will be in my street next week offering free appraisals. This is unheard of. It’s amazing. I said, tell me, when’s the last time you got a response like that?

And he said, well, it’s never happened. And I said, then what? Are you going to spend 1, 400? So we miss the opportunities. We miss the market. We don’t understand how to use, how to convert those. 22 and take them on a slow dance and put them into a CRM and, nurture them along. We’re going to go back to those old tools.

And so, the long way we’re saying that young fellow that you’re talking about, who’s got those Brazilian followers on TikTok has identified an opportunity and he will nurture and grow those over time. And, and a percentage of those people will become advocates for him and they’ll do business with him.

And so good on him. I love that. It’s a great story.

[00:35:14] Peter Fletcher: Where’s the career path for the new breed of real estate agents coming through? When I started out, I started as a commission only sales rep. How, why David James and Graham Brown gave me a job, I’m really not sure. But they did, and I’m very grateful for it. Thank you. But that career path of commission only sales rep and then you do your license studies, become a licensee, start your own business, it’s pretty much no longer there. What’s the career progression from here? Where does all the newbies in, in real estate, How will their career play out from here?

[00:35:58] Peter Brewer: Cool. So I think it’s not there because we’re not making it be there. We, I think we’re attracting some of the wrong people with the wrong motivations. That want to express, fast track themselves into celebrity and BMWs and all this stuff straight away. Straight to the Lambo. Thank you.

That’s it. That’s it. And I think it’s incumbent upon us or business owners to just get people to cool their jets and probably not put those people on with those. Look, it’s good to have aspirations. That’s fantastic. But it’s got to be tempered with reality. For a period of time, I was running the careers nights for the REIQ over a year.

And I, You would get people, say young people, I get people say to me I’m thinking about a career in real estate, I’m really excited about this I can go to the XYZ office at Sunnybank and get 92 percent, why would I want to go there somewhere else for 50 percent? And I said because 92 percent of nothing’s nothing and I don’t want to say, if you can get 25 percent, I’d be inclined to run with that on the basis that you find a business where your values are aligned with the business owner, where the business owner is there to help to nurture your career over a period of time.

If you’re coming to this business with stars in your eyes, you’re going to be doing five deals a month, in three months time, then you are going to be a freak if that happens and there aren’t too many freaks around. So I think we’ve got a responsibility as business owners to temper things back a bit and actually Give people almost an apprenticeship in real estate.

It works for plumbers, it works for electricians, it works for everyone else. We try to fast track people into fame straight away and Jesus, they create some havoc on the way through and it becomes about the BMW and the watch collection and the fame and the, like, can we just hit the reset button on all that stuff and look at the long term opportunity and the long game?

I seem to have survived pretty well and most good operators. They’ve still got a relationship and a family and a, and some assets and some sanity of people who have played the long game in this business. So I think there’s an obligation on business owners and as a profession to stop propagating this bullshit myth of celebrity real estate agent.

It’s not good for anyone that’s out

[00:38:22] Peter Fletcher: That, that is Oh, it’s, that is out there and it’s, I that genie’s not getting but put back in the bottle. We’ve we’ve got Luxe Listing Sydney, where Yep. The whole premise of the show is built around. Well, unlike the US versions of let’s say Selling Sunset, where they they actually put the amount of commission that they earn on the screen, which, they’re staggering numbers over here, they just hint at the commissions they’re earning via their cars and their fancy boats and their their fancy suits. We. I don’t think there’s a way of putting that genie back in the bottle, but is there a way of creating some form of competing narrative that is less money focused?

[00:39:14] Peter Brewer: Yeah, absolutely. I think there is. I think, absolutely. I think there is. I don’t know. I can’t say that I’ve seen anyone that’s nailed it.

There’s probably one of the larger independents over here that’s doing a relatively good job of talking about where you started this about career progression. So we’re going to start there. Oh, here’s an example. I was recruiting a guy for a client of mine. We found a guy who’s 25 years of age.

He was pretty, he was very interested and he said, I’m deciding between whether to work for you guys or this rather large independent group. He said they’ve offered me three days in their office just to get a feel for what they’re like and he said, so I’m thinking I’ll spend, I’ll take that free, those three days, sorry, and just see what they’re like.

Before I consider coming to you guys. And that’s fine. That’s great, Josh. Go and do that. Anyway, I rang him the day before he was due to start. I rang him on the Sunday afternoon before he was starting for this three day trial. And I said, Hey, how are you going? What are you up to? And he said I thought I’d just check in with him.

And he said, I’m out prospecting. And I said, You’re prospecting. He said yeah, he said and I said, but I thought you’d start tomorrow. He said yeah, but he said, before I can start, I have to identify the addresses of 25 properties that I believe could be available for sale, had characteristics of big properties that could be for sale.

The fence was falling down, the grass was overgrown, there’s an old car wreck in the front yard, whatever it might be. He said, I have to drive around my farm area. And write down the addresses of those 25 properties, and I can’t start on day one unless I have those 25 addresses. And he said then my, I’m told my first task on day one then is to search those properties, put them into the database, find the phone numbers of those people and ring those people and talk to them about their property and their thoughts about selling, yada yada.

Now that is, that’s been really clear of that’s what you’re doing and that’s what you’re going to be doing and he was told that would be his job for the first 12 months. Identify opportunities, create a certain amount of leads for the, for the sales people above him. And anyway we ended up winning him and he did an amazing job.

And as a sideline to that, it was funny, I said to him, I said, look, part of this job is part of this job will require a bit of door knocking. This particular agent that

we’re just going to be working for. Doordalking was important in the inner city area. And he said, I’m okay with that, I’m really happy to doordalk.

And I said, you’re 23 or 25 years of age, you’re happy to doordalk? Where’s that come from? He said, my family is Jaharan’s Witnesses. Since I’ve been, since I was three years of age. My parents have been pushing me up the driveway saying, there you go, it’s your sugar first. And he said, no one ever slams the door on a three year old kid.

And I’d had out the whatever the book was that came out. So he said, door locking is no problem for me. He actually excelled at it. So maybe we’re going to start prospecting with all the drivers. The Mormons.

[00:42:05] Peter Fletcher: I don’t know whether you ever, I’m not sure if you knew this, but that ground is very familiar with, for me.

Because when when I, yeah, when I was asked whether I had any problems with door knocking, I was just going, man, that’s my bread and butter. Just bring it on. Just like, and all the people that ever worked for me, they’d come in, oh, I don’t like door knocking, I’m just so frightened. Dude, what’s there to be frightened of?

Like, if you just say no, just knock on the door.

[00:42:43] Peter Brewer: It’s funny. It’s funny because this particular guy’s case, he would do that all day. And I said, okay, we need to start making some calls. So we started talking about telephone calls. And and I said, so we need to do two hours phone calls this afternoon, after a few months of being with us.

He had everything perfect on the desk. He had the spreadsheet, the telephone numbers, the addresses of the people, it was just looked magnificent. I said, I said, so we’re now one hour and 45 minutes into the two hours, he still hadn’t picked up the phone. He had a fear of picking up the phone and talking to people.

Couldn’t do that. He could do that. Build on doors every day, but actually picking up the phone and talking to people. Fascinating, isn’t it? Which is, I mean, do people need, do we need phone calls these days? That’s a whole other conversation. But But yeah. So, I don’t know, what was the point there?

You look, so I think the obligation is more on, on us to recruit the right kind of people and explain to them that this is going to take time. And we’re with them for the long haul, and we will, and our values will be shared, and we’ll help

them on listing presentations, but we need, we need their support on the way through.

And as I used to say to people at our careers nights for the REIQ, look, you are a liability to this business for probably the first, 6 to 12 months. In all honesty, you’re going to cost me business, you’re going to be a distraction, you’re going to cost me time, but I’m prepared to invest in you but I need, but I need you to be in for the long haul with me.

And if you could, and I’ll pay you 25 or 30 percent now, and don’t worry, I’m happy to pay you more if you absolutely build it out of the park. So, if you build out of the park and do a bucket load of business, we could renegotiate the fee. Anytime you like, if you’re doing the numbers, but this is going to be a long term relationship that I will nurture you through and give you a great real estate career.

It’s like this, there’s a young bloke playing for the West Tigers football club in Sydney at the moment. He’s 18 years of age and he wants to be released from his contract because he doesn’t think the team’s going well enough and he wants to go somewhere else. Buddy, you’re 18! You haven’t got hair on your chin yet.

You’ve got another 20 years left in your football career. Just do the apprenticeship where you are before you,

[00:44:54] Peter Fletcher: There’s part of me that loves that about the new kids coming through, that they have this sense of self belief that I’m going to ask for what I want. And They step out and get what they want, and there’s another part of me that cringes a bit and thinks, oh, just have a bit of humility and just earn your stripes. So I’m fascinated by the likes of Gavin Rubenstein Simply because that personal brand, the Rubenstein brand, is situated inside of or alongside of a very big brand called Ray White. And traditionally the personal brands and corporate brands haven’t worked well together, yet somehow Ray White have managed to let that brand off the chain and yet somehow include the Ray White component in there.

Is that something that businesses of the future are going to have to juggle and get right? And how are they going to do it? Have you given any thought to that?

[00:46:09] Peter Brewer: I don’t see it. Simply the answer is they don’t have a choice. The franchise groups don’t have a choice. It’s really simple. Is you’ve got those freaks like Gavin and others that come along who are just, they’re just going to knock it out of the park.

And so you either find a way to work with them, otherwise they’re trailblazers and they’ll continue on. So, caution’s insane, but stroke their ego enough, give them the right support that they need, put them on a few stages and support them That’s what you’ve got to do.

I remember Pete and so we talk about Ray White, and I’ll get the years wrong, was when RE MAX came to Australia. And I’ll talk from my own position. So we had the office in Manly for professionals for many moons and Ray White brought, Ray White had made the decision at the time they had 21 salespeople, I think, in their office at whi, and they’d made the decision at a corporate level that no longer could you have after hours stickers on for sale signs with the salesperson’s name and telephone number on it.

, that there would just be one telephone number on the sign Ray White Winham phone number, and, there’d been a, the new award had come in for salespeople, and it was just one of those magic moments in time and at the same time Remax entered Australia, and they came in and said, You want a bigger sign?

[00:47:30] Peter Brewer: You want your name in a bigger font on it? You want some after hours tickets and your own number on it? Knock yourself out, baby. You want 92%? No worries, we can do that for you. Go as hard as you like. And so it was that, the moons aligned and, in one week there were, 17 people walked out of the Ray Watt office.

To the Remax, to the brand new Remax office down the road, paid their monthly desk fee of 3800 bucks or whatever, and away they went. They had their name as big and bold as they wanted on the sign and their own photos and all that kind of stuff, and So, so, there was the alternative and, that’s why I said, nah, we’re not weakening to any of that kind of stuff.

Well, the market kind of dictated that they had to do that, otherwise the losses were just going to continue and I bring it forward to 2020 through 23, 24, and we’re seeing more and more of that now. So absolutely franchise groups. Have to reconsider what their offering is. If you look at it, Pete most businesses If they’re honest, we’ll tell you that 90 percent of most businesses on the eastern seaboard will tell you that 90 percent of their business comes from REA.

So if 90 percent of your business is coming from REA, then why are you paying 10 percent or 8 percent of whatever it might be to a franchise credit? What are they actually delivering? That’s, that makes you, if you turn over, I don’t know four million, five, four million, five million bucks for the fees what are they delivering for that three, four, five hundred thousand dollars a year that you’re giving them?

And I got to start thinking real long and hard about what that is, and if it doesn’t relate to more stock and more staff, then it’s probably a challenge. Because if you can solve that problem for a suburban real estate agent of getting them more stock and more staff if you solve that problem, you’ve probably got a franchise, franchise C for life.

So I, I don’t think the franchise groups have got any choice, but to start seriously looking at their model and allowing for business owners like Gavin and those entrepreneurs underneath them. The latitude to do some, to be a bit more be a bit more flamboyant in the things that they do.

The days of Fedian, well, and our logo has got to be, I think that’s over.

[00:49:42] Peter Fletcher: So some of the franchise groups such as Harcourts and both Harcourts and Ray White Hang their hat on training. They invest a lot in training. And from what I understand from talking to some of their people, the training is excellent. At that conference, one of the third speaker of the day was his name escapes me but he’s the head of digital strategy for Ray White. Okay. And Mark, yeah, you might be right. Jason, Brett That’s right. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Older guy, be, about my age, our age, really switched on and gave us a bit of a demonstration of their nurturing Model they, like, they’ve got this database of kind of a customer.

Yeah. Nurture

[00:50:44] Peter Brewer: Cloud. Yeah.

[00:50:45] Peter Fletcher: Yeah. Nurture Cloud, that, I think that’s what it was called. Yeah. And I thought, wow, that is, that’s an offering there. That’s something that would a, attract people and b, keep people there.

[00:50:59] Peter Brewer: Yeah, I agree. I, so I’m aware of their tech stack and I think it’s like there’s 21 different products they’ve got that, and, they had Volt and I think that’s on the way out and NurtureCloud’s coming in to replace that.

So I think it is absolutely those kind of tools that help our business out. I mean, I’m aware that NurtureCloud not only will help you with prospecting for new business and also help you prospect for salespeople. So we’ll interrogate the market and come back and tell you the salesperson’s doing this and this.

Here’s some, here’s some things you might consider talking to competing salespeople about in a recruitment drive. So, they’re kind of doing that really

well really well. Back to general training. Yeah, I think most of the franchise groups are having a good crack at at providing good quality training.

My question there is, and I think it’s got a place, my question is, Why aren’t business owners taking that responsibility on internally themselves to train? And sometimes it’s, sometimes I get it, you might want to outsource that stuff but I think, nothing better for me is good training sessions with your own people, doing it your way.

I love the old, the Merlebach team of Jeff Ernie and his crew that had, they have a policy of one best way. Not sitting at a 65 sales people. Not 65 Best Ways was one best way. I loved that Jeff would have his team in and say, when you work for us, it’s black pants, black shoes, black socks, white shirt, company tie, name badge, on the pocket.

And if you turn up at a sales meeting or a meeting with anything other than black pants, Black socks, black shoes, white shirt, company tie, then your job is to explain to the other 64 people why they should go buy your green tie or your brown shoes or whatever it might be. And if you can do that, everyone goes out and buys 64 green ties and whatever.

If not, one best way. And that might seem a

[00:52:51] Peter Fletcher: little bit clearly you didn’t work there, otherwise they’d be all wearing colourful shirts.

[00:52:57] Peter Brewer: I’m amazed they actually allowed me to train for them. But it’s, but a great business and that may be too extreme. But you know, but I love the fact that they did a lot of training in house and it was just one best way to do things.

So anyway, it probably doesn’t mean a lot, but I, I think, I think we got to take the responsibility of training our people internally on the way that we do things around here.

[00:53:19] Peter Fletcher: Do the, does the Real Estate Institute The franchises, do they, and the marketing groups, do they have any sort of responsibility in the affordability space to address the problem of homelessness?

Is that the real estate industry’s problem? Or is that a government problem? Or is it a bit from column A and a bit from column B?

[00:53:43] Peter Brewer: Yeah, I think it’s the latter. It is, it’s government’s problem. But it doesn’t mean that we should, shouldn’t. Get involved and be supported. And because, we want a healthy real estate market.

I think we have a unique position in our profession to influence change and to provide a healthy market. And that means responsibilities with with the 10 bazillion dollar homes, as well as the people who are doing it tough. I’ll give you a couple of things that we’re doing over here that are important to make.

Is more than Queenslanders rent, and that number’s continuing to grow. We’ve got a vacancy rate across the state of less than 1%. So clearly massive pressure on the rental market. And we’re starting to see more and more people, in fact, up to 15 percent of rent rolls now, starting to see a new A cohort of people who are all of a sudden experiencing financial crisis they never thought they’d experience through cost of living and through increased rents.

We’re talking people, Pete, that are, earning really good money, 150 grand a year or better, all of a sudden are finding themselves, Oh my God, our rent’s going to buy 100 or 150 bucks a week. The cost of living has gone crazy. And all of a sudden they’re going, Jesus, we can’t make ends meet. And on the research that we’ve done suggests that up to 15 percent of rent rolls, I’m sorry, 15 percent of tenancies are at risk from these people who are now forced into this situation to go into something that they’ve never experienced before.

And those people are now, pride is a massive issue for those people. And And the work that we’re doing with the Tenancy Skills Institute, which is a relationship we have with the REIQ, is trying to do the best that we can to sustain those tenancies, to stop those people ending up on TICA, because once they end up on TICA or on a tenancy database, they’ve got some problems.

And so, so that’s the initial part. The part that supports that is that I was, and I was lucky enough to be at a presentation at a school towards the Gold Coast a couple of weeks back where we presented certificates to the 20, 000th student that we put through the Tenancy Skills Institute course.

It’s a two day course, two days in person or eight hours online, where it teaches you to be, how to be a good tenant. And it’s not a, it’s not a remedial course. In fact, I think it’s actually a course that everyone should do, starting at school. And it teaches people, and some people will be offended by this, but it teaches how to budget, it teaches how to clean, it teaches how to communicate with your property manager, it teaches how to be a good neighbour.

All the skills that help you. And at the end of that course, you get a certificate. Now, I don’t know about you, Fletch, but when I went to school, they used to send the Commonwealth Bank along to teach us how to get a credit card. I’d much rather that we were sending people like the Tenancy Skills Institute along to teach kids, young adults that, that, You’ll be moving out of home at some stage and to have a fair chance of being in the rental market, these are the things you’ll need to do to be, to show that you know how to budget, that you know how to clean, that you know how to communicate, that you know how to be a good neighbour and that here’s the significance of the course, that you’ve done the course, so.

[00:57:05] Peter Fletcher: And they’re all skills that we just abundantly qualified to teach.

And so I see that. Property managers know that. They just eat, sleep and breathe that stuff.

[00:57:21] Peter Brewer: That’s it. So if we can start to change behaviours from the early stages and have that as, not just a remedial course for people that are doing, that have had troubles, but for everyone and give them these life skills that give everyone an equal opportunity when 50 people turn up for a rental for a rental viewing that they can say, well, here’s my, you’ve done this The course on, the two day course is my certificate.

I understand about budgeting, planning, communication and and how to be a good daver. It starts to even things up a bit. In fact, it probably starts to give an advantage to people in the past that might not have had it. So that’s one of the things that I’m, Really pursuing it. And and then there’s also that how we deal with these, this 15 percent of rate rolls of people that are this emerging, we’ve got some challenges, how do we make sure that we work with them, that we don’t just.

And then the other thing we’re doing is working with a project called Homes for Homes. And that’s just a project where it allows people to bequeath I think it’s 0. 5 percent of the value of their home when they pass on or wherever it might be. So, when you pop off the perch.

A contribution is made from the sale of your home, and it might be several thousand dollars, and it goes to the Homes for Homes, whose sole focus is about providing accommodation for homeless people in or social housing in the respective state in which you reside. So, so absolutely, I think we’ve got, we’ve got a responsibility to do that stuff, and we have the ability to, Pete.

That’s the thing we’re in that unique position of power that we can influence this stuff. So, let’s flex for the right reason, instead of flexing about a suburb record, let’s flex about, in fact, we don’t even need to flex. We just need to do it, if you want to do a PR, launch about it as well, that’s great.

But, just do it, makes you a better human being, makes you feel good and we can contribute.

[00:59:09] Peter Fletcher: And possibly. Let’s have change the narrative in Australia from I’m just renting to have it, have renting a property not be sort of a second option or a, let’s be okay with people renting and renting for, in some cases, life.

[00:59:32] Peter Brewer: Yeah well, totally. No one can really give me an answer on this now, but why wouldn’t we? Why wouldn’t we consider giving someone a five year lease on a property? People go, oh, well, I’ll never do six months lease.

[00:59:45] Peter Fletcher: And less inspections, Pete. We earn, like 95 bucks every time you go out and do a routine inspection.

Well, how about we, we recognize that some tenants, a lot of tenants, I should say, a lot of tenants are quality key. They live a quality life they’re clean, they’re neat, they’re not, never going to cause any damage. Do an inspection once a year or once every two years instead of once every quarter. We

[01:00:15] Peter Brewer: are, our processes are prime, For a serious shake up.

And I heard Nigel Dalton, who his former life was Nigel had the best title in the world. He was the chief inventor of the REA group, and he used to walk around their offices in a lab coat. I don’t believe so. We’ve probably met Nigel. And Nigel talked about how key we are, how open we are for disruption, but he talked about Amazon coming in and looking after property management.

If you just, you paid your rent through the Amazon app, you went to the Amazon app and you booked a period, you said, oh my heart would have just assisted staff to do the building’s cleaning or whatever, you just did that and Amazon just went. Farm the job out to five tilers or five plumbers or five, whatever it might be.

This is all automatically done. We are absolutely primed for disruption in that. I was at that, I think I told you this, I was at the RISA conference last year, I think the year before, and there was Chris Rowles did this wonderful

presentation, and he had he had two property managers on stage, each with their own whiteboard, And he said, okay, he said, I’d like you to write from start to finish all the steps, all the things that you do from the time that the phone rings to the time that you issue a lease to a prospective new tenant.

And so the first property manager, a lady of senior years, jumped up and she said, answer the phone call, take the tenant’s, the applicant’s details. Arrange a time to meet or describe the property, arrange a time to meet them book the time go, go to the key cupboard, get the keys, go to the car, drive to the property, put the fans on, check the letterbox, put the bins out, put it back, blah, blah, blah.

Ends up with 60 steps to the time that the lease gets signed. Property manager number two wrote, take phone call, send link to virtual tour, send tenant application form for lease. And the room erupted. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. We did it all the way through COVID. It worked really well.

It’s no problem. And so we don’t meet people at properties. We send them a link to the virtual tour. We send them a link to the application form and we send them a copy of the lease. That’s it. You go, ah, so, all of these things that we’re doing, because that’s the way we’ve always done it around here.

So, I kind of think if Jeff Bezos jumped in and said, could be a dollar in this problem, and it might not be him, it might be someone else. It’ll be a really smart, like, there’s been a whole heap of people about a crack in that space. Someone’s got to nail it and get it right because the market is right for it.

And then you can see him reciting, I want spade. Oh, it’s simplicity. I want personalization. I want transparency. They’re the four trends that drive our world. So, and nail those. And all the hoops. That we make people jump through will start to disappear because there’ll be a new process.

That’s all of the conversation.

[01:03:09] Peter Fletcher: What what is the biggest challenge that is facing the industry right now that kind of, if anything, keeps you up at night?

[01:03:20] Peter Brewer: Oh, lack of humility. There you go. That’s probably that’s, that I think is one of the biggest challenges for the perception. The

[01:03:31] Peter Fletcher: 500, 000 cars and the 35, 000 suits and the the 50, 000 watches.

It

[01:03:40] Peter Brewer: does nothing to warm us to the consumer. I think most consumers sit back, think most, not everyone but I think most consumers sit back and say what a friggin tosspot. What a wanker. And I, I mean, do we see, that happen in other professions? No, not really.

And seriously on an industry or a profession where the barrier to entry is pretty low. These people, I mean, I look, I’m the chairman of their institute over here. I love them, so many of them, but the behavior scares the living hell out of me. Guys, you’re not curing cancer, you’re not saving lives, you’re selling houses.

And at the moment, in a pretty simple kind of market, my daughter Lauren, who you know, is in the process of trying to buy at the moment and the behavior and the lack of communications that, that’s, Being afforded to her as a buyer is embarrassing and I think so many of our people, in our profession aren’t remembering that Lauren will be a seller at some stage, and that she has a strong social circle of friends, who she will be on the weekend explaining to those friends.

Or who the wankers were who ignored her during the week or didn’t put her office on paper or didn’t treat her with courtesy or, so, I think we just need to reassess. What we’re about and what values, there’s a, actually he used to do business with down the Gold Coast, too.

This was classy. He had a beautiful Mercedes Benz that lived in his garage all week. But only came out on weekends and he took his family for a drive. The rest of the time, he drove a Commodore. And And, because that was his market, and, and feed his market.

If he’d been seen driving around in his fancy Mercedes Benz, people would have gone, you’re not one of us, again, a whole other conversation. But yeah, I just think we’ve got to get back to, humility. This whole celebrity agent thing. I don’t know, Pete, I think it does bad things for the consumer.

I think it also does some really bad things inside the industry around the expectations of people, and I think we have a serious mental health problem coming across the profession where people are, if you’re not earning a million bucks a year, if you’re not driving a BMW, and if you’re not snorting coke with your mates, or if you’re not doing all these things, you’re a failure.

Are you even a real estate agent if you’re not doing that stuff? And quite frankly, if you’re knocking out a hundred grand or 150 or whatever, I don’t care. Your customers appreciate you and you’re doing a good job and and you enjoy what you’re doing and it’s about you and you’ve got a happy family and you’re

not snorting up coke and you’re, you’re not overly stressed about where the next feed’s coming from.

If that’s you, baby. Bring it on. I want more of you. Yeah, that so, look, I could rant about this forever because this whole, we lost a we lost a young bloke on the Gold Coast a couple of years back now, David John Newlands, who left us 16th of January 2020. Two, I think. An amazing, a ridiculous amount of pressure on him to fit in and be everything that everyone else wanted him to be.

And he just felt that he wasn’t, keeping up with where he, he thought he should be. And so he left this world. And that to me is crazy that we’ve got young people feeling all this ridiculous pressure.

[01:06:49] Peter Fletcher: So, I think that’s that’s a topic for another podcast, Peter. This one, this podcast has gone, this episode’s gone for roughly twice as long as my usuals, but it’s just been fantastic to just shoot the breeze with you and talk about some of the issues that we think are important for the industry that, as I said earlier, has served us very well.

[01:07:15] Peter Brewer: Yeah, it has. Pete, thank you. Mate, look, love having a great chat with a good human being and it was both of those. So anytime I can have a chat, love to.

[01:07:28] Peter Fletcher: All right, well, I’ll I guess we’ll leave it at there the next episode of the the State of Origin, when’s that?

[01:07:36] Peter Brewer: Oh, I think Wednesday week, I think Queensland is one up at this stage, hoping to get the second one knocked over.

So, I think, yeah, I think Wednesday week is our next game. Thanks for a very

[01:07:48] Peter Fletcher: dubious send off decision I’ve got to say. Oh,

[01:07:51] Peter Brewer: no, not at all. Not at all. No, it was a great decision. I loved

[01:07:57] Peter Fletcher: it. On that note Pete, thanks again. And until next week, this has been Fletcher for the WA Property Q& A Podcast. And that wraps up another episode of the WA Property Q& A.

We hope you found our discussion valuable and gained some valuable insights into the world of property buying in Western Australia. Remember, while we strive to provide useful information, It’s crucial to consult with the appropriate

professionals before making any investment decisions. Don’t forget to tune in next week for another exciting episode where we continue to unravel the mysteries of the WA property market.

If you have any questions or topic suggestions, feel free to reach out to us. Until then, happy property hunting and remember to seek the right advice for your personal circumstances.

Thank you for listening.