Industry body calls for improvement to agent training

REINSW CEO Tim McKibbin estimated the reasoning behind the delay was due to Fair Training potentially considering that more training would reduce competition.

“Competition is a positive market influence, however it must be competition between well-educated, experienced professionals. Competition alone is not the panacea for all that ails a market,” Mr McKibbin said.

“The current education requirement not only fails to prepare agents to respond to the reasonable expectations of consumers, it fails people wanting a career in real estate practice. Eighty (80) per cent of new entrants leave the industry in the first year.”

In order to address this industry-impacting issues, Mr McKibbin would want to see an appointed commissioner for property services, a position the REINSW has been adamant on in the past.

“The industry, and more importantly consumers, need a regulatory authority that will work in a collegial manner, and support it. The industry’s current relationship with Fair Trading is adversarial, which benefits no one,” Mr McKibbin said.

The expertise of a commissioner for property services is needed rather than NSW Fair Trading, according to the REINSW, surrounds three main issues:

• The specific nuances of the property industry may be lost in the 40 other industries handled by NSW Fair Trading;
• NSW Fair Trading has allegedly made “poor legislative decisions” in the past, with REINSW giving the example of removing the requirement for auctioneers to have a license in 1993, reversed the decision in 2003, and then recommended removing it again in 2018, as well as amending consumer protection legislation related to trust accounts; and
• Real Estate agents require minimal training of less than a week, while property managers have the expectation of inspecting “important property safety devices” with no training, as opposed to trained inspectors.

A statement from the REINSW stated: “Real estate transactions require an experienced and dedicated specialist, not someone who has acquired a certificate with four days of training and no practical industry experience.”