Allan Resigns, the REIV Breaks Ranks and Deposit Flicking

Peter Schravemade (00:06) Welcome to episode 12 of Before the Weekend. This week, Victoria changed premiers after months of questions over debt, infrastructure, crime and integrity, and at the same time, the REIV took what it called an unprecedented step and stood alongside the opposition to demand major changes to new consumer legislation. Consumer Affairs Victoria forced changes to one of the country's biggest rental application platforms and a Melbourne band managed to blame real estate agents, landlords and property investors for almost every part of the housing crisis. We got allegations of land being flipped to associates, a seven figure defamation judgment between competing agents, a failed agency suing a former employee who has since died and a Supreme Court fight over what critics are calling deposit flicking.

Then there's Dashdot. We've seen a bit of that on social media. Two months after its collapse, which left hundreds of customers and employees owed millions, its founders are back offering business coaching. We'll have a look at the RBA's warning that housing has weakened more than expected.

Queensland's claim that a record 50,000 homes are under construction. The review of Queensland social housing tenants, Australia's 13 million spare bedrooms and who really controls the country's real estate commission pools. Kasey, where on earth do we start in this week's episode?

Kasey McDonald (01:27) Yeah, well, a lot to unpack today. Pete, definitely so much out there in the news. But I think let's kind of dive straight into the REIV. I think it's a nice lead-in from last week when of course we were talking about that with your letter that you also shared on social and of course just into Allan's resignation, which I think came at what is a good time.

However, what are they now saying? The new Premier is flipping and saying that he doesn't want any of that corruption. However, he's been in Labor and been a part of that party for twelve years. So yeah. Where do we go with that?

Peter Schravemade (02:07) Yeah, it's a bit of a weird one. I mean, number one, she had to go. I think the Roy Morgan poll that came out was damning. I've never seen a leader that more unpopular with her state constituents than Jacinta Allan.

And half of it's laughable. We're laughing because we're in Queensland, right? Well, we're not. You're in Auckland today and I'm in Sydney, so neither of us are in Queensland.

We're laughing because we're a little bit sheltered from that. But are

Kasey McDonald (02:26) Yeah, yeah. I am.

Peter Schravemade (02:36) We? Know, like I was watching a news channel this week that suggested that the other states were being canvassed about whether we should bail Victoria out of debt. And so, this is where this kind of poor behaviour, I think, and mismanagement from a government comes home to roost is that there is a real chance that Victoria will go under in a fairly spectacular way, especially if something doesn't change. Like I watched her, what do you call it, departure speech, resignation speech.

It was disgusting. Like, I cannot believe she played the gender card. I'm all for calling out chauvinistic behaviour or terrible behaviour towards any kind of gender, but women in particular. But.

I don't think she's had any of it. I just think she's been a really poor leader and she called out that she played the gender card. She said in a resignation speech, all of these things that she'd done that just were absolute fabrications. I think she quoted crime as being on the decrease.

The numbers don't say that and they don't lie. There are huge corruption shadows that hang over her shoulder. What did she actually do? You raised it last week, she wasn't democratically elected into the role.

Look, I've never in my lifetime, I've never seen a Premier being more out of touch, more unpopular and just clearly on the nose than Jacinta was before she resigned. And I really feel for the Victorians who were kind of stuck under that for the last 1,036 days.

Kasey McDonald (04:22) Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think just, then again, all of the changes that are being made through gut through parliament, right? Around the housing legislation.

And I think out of every state in Australia, they ha they have cocked it, right? The poor real estate agencies, property managers, and sales agents just seem to be going through one change after another change. And don't get me wrong, there might be some great ones that are also in there. But of course, most of the time we always talk About the bad things, which is kind of bringing us to that consumer legislation bill, right?

Where the CEO Toby is also saying we want greater transparency, but we've missed things. We're creating potentially more litigation risk. We're creating an increase of uncertainty. We've already got all of this within the market now already, but what they're proposing is going to create even more.

Peter Schravemade (05:18) Yeah, and that's, I think that's the greater issue is that there was policy on the run and we haven't even got to the new guy, the new guy that's in there. And whether he's, whether he's going to be able to, Ben, is that his name though? Like Ben, look, there's one thing that, there's one thing that Ed and I, my wife and I, for those of you first time listeners, it's a red flag when someone starts swearing on their daughter's life or their son's life. This guy before he got in he was basically saying that he was so proud to go home and tell his daughter that he would be backing Jacinta Allan all the way into the election. And less than three weeks later, he's, know, any, look, there's no need

Kasey McDonald (05:35) Yeah, I think so, Ben. Yeah.

Peter Schravemade (06:03) To make, there's no need to make that statement. He kind of cornered himself in. Like, we're in another scenario where clearly we've got a guy whose position has changed. What's the, no, the circumstances have changed.

That's the thing he said like 27, 30 times now. It just reeks. It reeks of the same, they've got the same old, same old in there. And old mate's going to make a tilt at the election to try and win the Labor faith for Labor.

The question, the real question I've got for you Kasey is who the hell is voting for these people? Like is it? Are we that stupid that we sit here and go, look, I know he's lied a couple of times, but he's going to be better after the election. And I'm team red or team blue.

Therefore, I'm going to ignore all of the lack of policy, the lack of go forward, the lack of the 10 years that we've had in serious decline in the state. Who is it that votes for these people and actually goes, you know what, that might be good to live under that in this state. I think I'm going to give that another chance. And I really try and stay out of these political arguments, but it's like watching Dave Hughes, the comedian, go off at the moment at the Labor government.

It's like he's had an epiphany that all of a sudden after voting for these people for years, there's a problem. Like whatever political argument you're in, Labor, Liberal, Green, Red, Orange, I don't care. I don't get the whole, we're dyed-in-the-wool this way and this is who we always vote for, so we're gonna stay there. It's almost like, what do they call it?

Is it Stockholm syndrome where you love the person who's a captor for you? It really is almost a psychological problem. If these guys even have a chance of getting back in, let's say they get 40% of the vote, I'll be. I just don't know what to do and I think that'll send a clear message to the other states that there's no point in voting them out because they love this.

You know, last election I kind of got it, Kasey, because I spoke to a couple of the cab drivers when I went down there, the Uber drivers, and they said that the government had given them $110,000 to do nothing for a year. And the guy was kind of laughing. He said, I didn't even earn that last year, but that was the kind of money that I got from my state government. To do nothing that was coming out of COVID.

But now we're in a different ballgame and all of those economic policies have come home to roost. So I don't know how you feel about it, but it just seems like a three ring circus down in Victoria at the moment.

Kasey McDonald (08:47) Yeah, it does unfortunately. And I think look, maybe those that haven't agreed with it have moved interstate and have kind of, made their way north, which we do know there's a lot of people that have moved out of Victoria and that it's been, because of so many changes and things that are occurring there that they've just decided this is not the place where we want to be, right? Especially around the housing and, living and et cetera. More so I think certainly after COVID with the lockdown that they all had.

And so is that instead of them voting and wanting to stay, I guess, in a state that they do genuinely really love and they want to be in. Is it that they're just saying it's too hard, so let's just move? I d I don't know, maybe that's what they're thinking, but yeah. Hm.

Peter Schravemade (09:06) And more. Yeah, there appears to be a bit of that. I spoke to a guy only this weekend. I mean, it's only one guy, but he was saying, we've already made plans.

We're to pack up and depart next year. We've had enough of this. So I wonder how many more are in that boat. Anyway, if you're in Victoria, our thoughts and prayers and it gives me no pleasure in watching what's going down there.

I know I kind of laugh at it because I'm in disbelief, but I really actually feel for Toby and the REIV and to come back to the point that you make, it is unprecedented for a real estate institute to take a political stand and that big words from that. So the REIV yesterday, well it was two days ago now, it said that they supported greater transparency, price transparency, but they pretty much stood with the opposition on saying this is not a good deal. You mentioned that earlier. I don't hold out great hopes that they're going to get that redrafted in the next four months in the lead up to the election.

I think they're going to let that sit there and, he's going to say we don't have enough time and all of these things. And so it's going to be kicked down the road. So Victoria, I'm hoping that there are no more for the agents and the property managers down there. Really hoping that there are no more attacks on them to try and win cheap seats, cheap votes.

Because that's what this is all about. It definitely wasn't policy that was well thought through. I don't know, they're in a bit of a pickle there, I think, until after the next election and then we can hope that there's a dialogue for change.

Kasey McDonald (11:15) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, look, lots of different concerns in that policy coming into play. But like you said, hopefully, there can be changes made. But I do agree.

I think they'll sit on their hands, they won't do anything. He'll kind of he'll he'll try to see what he needs to do and have those conversations of let me kind of get my, you know. Feet under the desk, so to speak, before he decides if he's gonna make any changes. I guess his goal, the new premier now, will be to stay the new premier, right? And win the seat at election time.

Peter Schravemade (11:48) Yeah, Moving on, Consumer Affairs Victoria, more Victoria news. My God. Out of all of the regulatory bodies, Consumer Affairs Victoria are ones like, I genuinely, I hope a new government gets in and just guts them. I have heard three to six months on emergency tenancy applications at the moment from property managers seems to be fairly regular.

Yet they come out swinging about anything that has to do with the election first, the underquoting we saw. This Reapit thing's been going on for a while. I mean, really, there was much ado about nothing. They made them change the form.

Reapit had an incorrect form on 2Apply. They should have changed it because it was legislated. My guess is Reapit have been caught up. It was only a relatively small time since they took over IRE.

A lot of those Inspect Real Estate staff have gone on. They're no longer in those roles now. And I don't know whose job it was looking at the compliance side of the forms that they had, my guess is they got caught napping on that. And it really is a bit of a storm in a teacup, this one, how they forced the changes to 2Apply.

They said that they again reiterated their penalties, but I note there was none. That were actually handed out to these people. Massive press release, hit everyone, but no penalties, they forced them to change a form is what I see in that. So congratulations, Consumer Affairs Victoria, you big scary people.

Yes, they're now doing the right thing, but how about you get back to sorting out the tenancy emergency applications that are going on? How about you actually look at the operation of what you're doing? Absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous that we're seeing this on a fully fledged PR media circus campaign.

There's no penalty handed out. We forced them to change it for well, no dirt that I'm sure they agreed to do that at the start and said it was a mistake. So, man, storm in a teacup.

Kasey McDonald (13:55) Yeah, definitely remember our first episode we had Hayley Mitchell join us, and because this is when this first originally came out. And I think that 2Apply even, kind of admitted that yes, okay, there are some things here and we'll get them sorted. But to kind of take it this far and be this big scary beast, I don't think it's proving anything, to be fair.

Peter Schravemade (14:20) Yeah, I would 100% agree with that. I like, just think they're coming out saying we're doing stuff therefore we seem to be doing stuff. We're hitting these under quotas. Yeah.

We're getting these bad real estate agents. We're rounding them up and therefore you should vote for us. It'll be interesting to see if the rhetoric dies down now that she's, now that they're gone. But.

Kasey McDonald (14:27) Soft. Yeah. Maybe, yeah. I mean look at the end of the day, the onus is still of course on the real estate business.

And I think that's something that you and I always kind of I guess Make sure that we are very fair in saying on our podcast is that whilst there are providers out there and yes, you have a level of trust because you pay them a subscription fee and you would expect them to be compliant and all of those things. But you know, yes, sometimes we all do drop the ball. So just, those agencies who are using these platforms as well, just make sure that you're not going to get a big scary email from consumer affairs saying you're gonna owe all this money because you haven't also done your checking internally.

Peter Schravemade (15:19) Yeah, I did like the fact that it really didn't impact the agents in the end. They went after the PropTech and it's probably a bit of a kick up the butt for PropTech is that if you're in that compliance sector and you are responsible for issuing forms, and we've seen a bit of that out of Queensland, recently you've got to make sure that those forms are compliant. There's still an onus on almost everyone to be checking that and going,

Kasey McDonald (15:24) They did, yeah.

Peter Schravemade (15:44) Look, this is something that we need to be looking for. Let's move on. I saw this week and I went looking for, I'm just looking for it now, the lyrics to this Playlunch song. Did you actually see this Playlunch song at all? Have you heard?

Kasey McDonald (16:00) Yeah, I think you did send it to me, but I think I was actually watching it while I might have been on the plane. So I'd put the volume down, not knowing what video Pete has sent me, and I better not have it loud in case it's got something terrible while I'm on the plane. So

Peter Schravemade (16:15) Jeez, I would be completely trustworthy in sending you a video. It would never be like me to send you a video that you couldn't watch in.

Kasey McDonald (16:24) I was like, was it gonna have swearing on it? And if I turn my volume up, everyone's gonna be looking at me on the flame, you know? So no. I actually saw the video, but I haven't even listened the actual words, so yeah.

Peter Schravemade (16:38) Yeah, I'm getting there now. Playlunch lyrics. I did have them up in front of me just a second ago, but I've lost them. But this particular song, you know how we were talking last week, here it is, the real estate apps lyrics.

That's what it's called. The song's called Real Estate Apps. We were talking last week about the fact that real estate agents were being blamed for the entire housing problem. The governments who haven't built enough houses have basically said, right, we're going to go after those nasty real estate agents because they're stopping you from getting the rentals.

And they're underquoting stopping you buying houses. Well, none of that's actually true. And the reason that we're in this is generally because of the state, federal and local governments. It has nothing to do with the real estate agents who, for as long as I can remember over the past four years, have been saying there is a supply and demand issue coming and we don't like it.

We would prefer for you to fix it up at the moment because it leads to a catastrophic. But I like to read you these lyrics. I'm sick of real estate apps and landlords wasting my time. This is obviously from a tenant.

Stuck out the front of a crack den at the back of the line, black mould inside my lungs so I can save for a loan. It's the price you pay to call Australia home. Verse one, ex meth lab in a great location. Include your blood type on the tenant application.

20 minutes late and we're trying to be patient. My God, it's the real estate agent. Well, let me show you around. It's got headroom.

They took a cupboard and made a fourth bedroom. Here at Jellis Craig, they actually mentioned Jellis Craig. You know we get 800 a week. We'll pretend we never met you.

20 something volleyball type boozer. You're pulling up in your white land cruiser. Coke-stained suit from your trip to Noosa. And now you're here to make our dreams come true, huh?

Well, hot shit, I bet you're not complaining. We'll find a gas leak and you'll still get paid man. Rotten floorboards in a bucket for rain. Just hand us the lease and we'll sign the back page.

It goes on. Chorus again, I'm sick of real estate apps and landlords wasting my time. Stuck out the front of a crack den at the back of the line, black mould inside my lungs so I can save for a loan. It's the price you pay to call Australia home.

There's a bridge. Welcome to [insert address here], a beautiful secluded part of paradise. I'm Steve from Barbage Real Estate. I'm a massive, I can't say that word on this.

Let's take a look inside. Well, look at you, Mr. Big Property Investor, the backbone of the nation's housing sector. You can't make repairs because the interest are, sounds like you should be effing arrested. People need homes.

You've got 200 of them. You're all OYO stacked fat and the ATO funds it. Anything you want and CommBank will front it. You're negatively gearing economically stunted.

This ain't the 80s anymore. We're post Howard. Halving the capital gains in 2000. Now a whole generation is without houses because you can't get votes if you F with housing.

Another share house getting knocked down, digging a grave out of my savings account, crashing at my mum's until I figure it out. While a school can sing this song out, is there anything else to add to it? The bridge - give me a home among the gum trees with lots of plum trees, a sheep or two and a kangaroo. And then yeah, it goes back into the chorus after that.

You see, like I hear the frustration in their voice. Obviously, this was an ABC, right? ABC is the only channel that would get away with posting this up there, which is a blatant attack. Like I saw the one that they did on Gina Rinehart this week, which was a pornographic rape attack is what they put out as a comedic sketch.

So I don't have high hopes from what the ABC are putting out at the moment. But this completely ignores the fact that it is not the real estate agents. It's not the property managers fault. Like it touches on some funny things in there.

The Coke at Noosa made me laugh. We do have a drug problem in our industry. The rich real estate agent rolling up. Half the time, again, what this song doesn't know is the real estate agent they're seeing doesn't actually own that Land Cruiser.

It's been rented, it's all smoke and mirrors. And I can't hand across my heart, look at this guy or look at these people and say, you know what, we're the pillar of society because we do have that rogue element. But this is definitely picking and choosing. I don't support anyone who lives in a mould-affected house.

We now have national standards that cover that. So that really shouldn't be the case. And if that is the case, then go and do something about it. This is a perfect example of what we were talking about last week.

The consumer actually believes that real estate agents are at fault, property managers in particular, are at fault for all of this. And I just, yeah, I find that sickening. Think the governments who have been responsible for it have turned, successfully turned the focus on the real estate profession.

Kasey McDonald (21:43) Yeah, definitely. And I think consumer Affairs or you know, whatever they're called there in Victoria, they're that like you said before, they've got these massive delays in kind of emergency cases, which in some of those, to be fair, would be relating to tenants and in fact property managers who can't get the results that they need from unfortunately those landlords. Yes, there are some within our industry who don't abide by the rules and don't choose to abide by the rules. And we've got great practitioners who say, sorry, Mr. And Mrs. Landlord, but you're not the type of customer that we want to deal with.

But then unfortunately the tenant still has to reside there, right? So they've then gone to consumers to try to get through tribunal to see what can be done about their mould situation. That's not actually the property manager's fault. And I think You know, like so from a renter's perspective, they absolutely have rights.

But again, the government is not seeing what are the important aspects here? What is it? Where should we be prioritizing our attention? What should we be looking at?

Why are you not finding the actual property owner in some instances if they are actually to blame for not doing what is required when there's clear evidence that the real estate agency has followed everything? So you know, I think. I you can probably hear quite passionate about it because being an ex-property manager and incredibly still passionate about that side of our industry, I really dislike the fact that the government has put so much of this on us as a property management space and we are now getting the blame for the fact that tenants are living sometimes in mould-affected houses or repairs don't get done. And sometimes that's not because the property manager is not genuinely tried to do the right thing and do their role really well.

Peter Schravemade (23:30) Yeah, and I know, like having spoken to the real estate institutes, they don't like any of this. They don't like the supply and demand issue. They don't like rogue landlords. They don't like rogue real estate agents.

In fact, in many instances, they're the ones reporting it. And this is all what is missed. If you have a problem with the way real estate agents are behaving, then the direction should be turned in particular. These are obviously Victorians.

The fact that they've thrown Jellis craig's name under the bus. Like I've met a lot of really good Jellis Craig real estate operators in my time. I would be raging that my brand name is associated with this mess. And there's another real estate agency in there as well, but it's simply just not factually correct.

And my issue is this song's gonna go out to a whole nother generation who are going to treat the real estate agents with completely. Disdain, in particular the ones that are doing the good job out there. So, I'm in support of a complete overhaul when it comes to even the regulatory authority. I don't think they're holding on.

Like we spoke about that bloke episodes ago, who was the bad apple in New South Wales, like where that one ended up. Another that was in New South Wales. But how can we honestly look at the industry and go, look, we've got such a rotten apple here. And that was the outcome of that type of behaviour is just, it's just not on.

I don't think there's anyone that would sit their head across their heart and go, look, we're doing a great job of actually policing that. And I suppose it doesn't help that our next topic is about, look, of

Kasey McDonald (25:10) Yeah, I agree.

Peter Schravemade (25:20) Flipping land through rogue agents. I mean, this is an investigation by the age and it's suggesting that landowners in Melbourne's growth corridors have been encouraged to sell development land to buyers connected with the selling agents. Now, in every single manual that you and I have ever looked at, this is called a conflict of interest in it. If there is one, needs to be disclosed that, at the outset, I would say that I have in the past as a selling agent declared There is a conflict of interest and in certain cases I've stepped out aside from a sale because of that conflict of interest in the past when I was in acquisitions and representing a purchaser, but not with a signed purchase agreement I would list the land and there was a conflict there I would get out of the way I would get that land listed with someone else and then go and list the purchaser so I can hand across my heart say that I have been involved in this type of scenario.

Now, this is all allegations, but the land was allegedly marketed or on sold at substantially higher prices than what the original people are listing at. Now, this happens a lot. This happens more than you think. I have listed a property at X and then sold it.

And before that settlement actually went through, somebody has come in and placed another contract. As the market is rising at that particular time. It's not unheard of. And when I looked at this article, the amounts of money that they're talking, like it's $2 million, but the site is, between five and seven.

And it could just be there's sour grapes in there. The owners accepted the five, but then saw the seven and went, well, why is that not deserved of us? So when I actually read through this, was. I don't know, was not, it's a $40 million worth of land, but they're actually only disputing $2 million from what I can say.

And in a $40 million transaction. Two million would be a price guide variance, you not say? Like it's going to sell between 38 and 40 million? So like I'm looking at this going, I'm not particularly buying what the age is putting out there that there may have been.

Maybe there was a conflict of interest in the parties and we don't know the full details yet. This is a court case that's going to go on for a bit, would you agree?

Kasey McDonald (27:56) Yeah, I think so. But yeah, and I do agree. I think that With a lot of transactions or with every transaction, even when you are providing I guess, a market appraisal as a property manager or a sales agent, you are saying, hey, we're kind of seeing that it's sitting here in this pocket, right? And what we look to do is go to here.

So we're gonna put this price on it, because that's what we have to do, but bearing in mind that we could be within this pocket. So that that is typically how we operate and we get in price guides, right, through comparative market reporting in all of the systems. That provide us to say this would be on the lower end and this is on the higher end, but this is where it sits. And there is sometimes a lot of variance within that.

But I think I guess probably what I pulled out of this was maybe the non-disclosure, like the conflict of interest, I think is what probably made this go a little sour. I think it was, well, hang on a minute, you didn't disclose that to us. And what are you telling us? We probably could have got a bit more money from it.

So yeah, I think because of the connected parties, the associates, And how in which that non-disclosure was presented or how it came about, I should say. I think that's probably what has started this. But it'll just again make the tribunals look at the practices. They'll then potentially go and change some legislation without any consultation. And all of a sudden, if this has actually occurred, then it'll potentially mean that we'll have some change come in around the way we price.

Peter Schravemade (29:27) There, which is more of a concern because we've got people doing that, actually responsible for that policy, who don't understand it. I think Tim McKibbin hit the nail on the head last week from REINSW. He said, the housing affairs minister doesn't even know, wouldn't even be able to operate as a property manager or real estate agent if they came into the industry because there's that many regulations. I think he cited 488 in his state alone.

Yeah, and that conflict of interest is a concern. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out because I think the amount of money will be irrelevant in the end if there is proven to have been a conflict because that is more than anything that's a breach of your fiduciary duty to the landlords in the first place. So we'll see where that one goes. This is an interesting one.

This next story. Is from what I understand, I had no idea this was going on, it was floating under the radar. This appears to be within the Thai community, the Thai real estate community. So I think these are agents who have specialised in selling to Thai purchasers, right?

And from the way I see it is one party has jumped on social media and started slagging off about two other parties, one organisation, two people. And those two people have been able to prove that they had suffered significant damages from what was said in the Facebook page. And the Facebook page had about 15,000 followers and that it had significantly damaged that business. And in the end, the court agreed with that.

And so they were awarded a million dollars. I think it was in damages, 100,000 to one agent, $80,000 to another, and then $850,000 in damages. To the agency that they represented as part of what was said there. And it was interesting.

I think the defendant was restrained from making any kind of comments on social media or doing anything to those two after it. We saw this early on. We've seen other agents poorly behaving in competition and just only minutes ago, stealing.

Kasey McDonald (31:48) Stealing signboards and hiding them behind the rubbish bins.

Peter Schravemade (31:52) Yeah, do you remember the story in Brisbane of an agent who started posting negative reviews on her own personal website of the competitors in the area? So it would go SEO harder in that area. No court case there, but they would have had every right to actually sue for defamation. And I wonder how you would have proved for damages is what's coming up in a Google search engine, right?

It's an interesting one, but what is it about this industry? The thing that does my head in is what is it about this industry that makes real estate agents not want to compete on a fair playing level like that, wants them to slag off about each other rather than just go, I'm going to do this of my own accord. I'm going to run my business as a professional and let my actions speak more than my words.

Kasey McDonald (32:43) Yeah, totally agree. I think f I don't know what it is, but we just seem to love attacking each other. And instead of lifting each other up, and hey, you've done a great job. And don't get me wrong, there's many of us that do that, but we always just seem to hear about these ones that don't, who for whatever reason seem to be disgruntled because maybe they lost that listing, but you might have lost that listing because they the vendor liked the other person.

They might have it there's a reason why, right? People choose, and sometimes and in most cases it's because of the person I genuinely believe. And sometimes, of course, it's fees, right? Related.

But you know, we don't need to attack each other to your point. Like let's just all we should all get along. We should all be lifting each other up and we should all be able to stand on our own two feet and to be able to perform our roles and put our best foot forward in every time and go, well, yeah, you know what? I didn't get that one, but I'll get the next one.

Right. It's not that it's not the sales agent's fault as to why. And I don't think we should be, certainly lying and being disgraced graceful publicly, especially on social media, because you know, I think we've certainly seen that by doing that in that social way, it really has mental wellness. I guess that kind of comes into play, right? Around the mental wellness and ability then for their for those agents to continue to work within the industry, which is really sad.

Peter Schravemade (34:09) Yeah, we have an interview coming up also in the not too distant future with Peter Hutton from Hutton & Hutton where he speaks about Hutton & Hutton for those who aren't Queenslanders was a, I would say a fairly successful real estate agency until it wasn't. And he's speaking quite frankly about the downside and the darkness in the industry he saw when he was on the tail end of that. And he goes into this quite a bit. But focusing on this particular one, there's a couple of things that come out of it.

Number one, I like the sanction. Like a million dollars is a fairly hectic sanction. That's great. The secondary thing I like is that I do not believe, well, I'm not sure if I like it, but I think a lot of agents are not aware of it, that I don't think professional indemnity will cover you from this kind of.

Of misdemeanour. Think if you intentionally go out there and say things that are untrue about competitors to gain a business advantage over them, I can't see any kind of insurance covering you for that $1 million in damage.

Kasey McDonald (35:20) No, yeah, I agree. I don't think, so I think it kind of comes back to, as individuals, how and which you want to behave, right? How do you want to represent yourself in this? And if that's that you want to go along and slag people on social media, what does it really actually say about yourself?

Yeah. And I think, to kind of bring it back to some of that and just to quickly kind of add in here, the Kolmeo property management survey that they did, actually highlights about the pressures already undertaken within our roles and what that actually means I guess, for those the next generation coming in. More importantly, those that are currently in the roles with so much change and pressure, the conflict, the challenge that we're seeing more than ever before property managers leave. And I guess, these types of posts, right?

Well, not targeted at property management specifically, but to use that in reference, that again just makes people say, well, why do I even want to work in this industry? And I think it's a fantastic industry to work in. But when you see those types of things coming out where we're having to be slagging each other out on social media, you then say, well, is that the kind of culture? Is that really what I want to be a part of, right?

Peter Schravemade (36:33) Yeah, yeah. And we were, I referenced the Hutton & Hutton interview of real estate agencies going under and that'll be an interesting one. I'll be looking forward to feedback from that. But the next story is about a double bay agency which collapsed.

And from my understanding, the principal of that agency is placing the blame squarely on his personal assistant or his EA. I think it was, I'm yet to understand exactly what she was. She was Chief Financial Officer and personal assistant, and personal assistant, so both of those roles. But in a twist to the case, it appears that that person is now deceased. And so

Kasey McDonald (37:04) CFO and PA, yeah.

Peter Schravemade (37:18) The administrator has no chance of finding out where things went on. It's more, I think they went under for 2.58, 2.6 million to unsecured creditors. And like we've seen this kind of thing before and I'm not trying to get blasé about it. I think anytime a real estate agency goes under, it's not something that we should be celebrating or throwing out there like it's a good thing.

I think, in the Hutton & Hutton interview, I was really focusing on the fact that I think people, when they're going under, failing to understand that there's a business and then there is a there is the actual operation of an office which is selling or leasing or whatever it is that you're doing. And quite often where I see this is somebody is good at one of those things but probably not the business aspect. And to have a personal assistant who's also a chief financial officer, like I'm just questioning that dual role that person is placed with. It's rare that you go from personal assistant to Chief Financial Officer.

That sounds like my personal assistant was good with the books and therefore I'm going to throw them all the responsibility now of which, is overwhelming when you're running such a large operation. But, the principal's suggesting that she misappropriated, this woman misappropriated $700,000. Look, we're never gonna know. I think it's a.

It's a sad scenario when I don't know the circumstances around the person being deceased either. So I'm not going to comment on that, but just all in all a tragic scenario for an office to be $2.58 million, $2.6 million owing to creditors. That's another, I don't know how many creditors who are going to be really annoyed with the real estate industry. You know, we lose.

We lose another office out of it. Yeah, there's nothing worth celebrating in this to me.

Kasey McDonald (39:30) No, no, definitely not. And I think it always has a domino effect, right? To your point. Ma you know, there's been someone maybe appointed in a position not adequately qualified.

You know, also thinking maybe that person is doing the right thing. You know, but you know, from an overall business sense, we then continue to do business and continue to get creditors to do jobs and we've got commercial building rent to pay and all of those things that come a part of it, and then we haven't actually, performed. So, again it Just becomes back as a snowball that we haven't made right decisions within our business and maybe we haven't known what that is. And I think there's sometimes a fear factor, right?

You don't know where to go for help. You're a bit embarrassed, maybe, as a business owner, to do that. And don't I don't think that we should be able to reach out, speak to others and kind of understand: hey, we've got ourselves in this situation and how do we kind of move forward from it before you dig the hole even deeper. Don't take on extra technology and all of these extra things if it's if you're just.

Genuinely can't afford it, right? Look at what you've got and how can you make what's in your four walls work best for you.

Peter Schravemade (40:36) Yeah, yeah, exactly. What do you know about deposit flicking, Kasey?

Kasey McDonald (40:43) Well, actually I've actually not heard of this before, so you need to talk me through this. Deposit flicking.

Peter Schravemade (40:50) I've never heard it called this until this article popped up, but I was well aware of the practice. You would understand that when a contract is placed, generally the deposit monies for that, the purchaser pays deposit monies and they go into a trust account, right? That sits there. And normally that trust account is typically the seller's solicitor.

It doesn't necessarily have to be that. We have, money held in trust everywhere. For example, you're paying, sometimes when commercial leases are paid, there's considerable amounts of money held in trust. But all around the nation, there is a substantial amount of money held in trust at any one time.

What if somebody said, like, let's go to property development, for example, where it might be 36 months that a developer has from start to finish to complete a development. And for an entire development that is 300 units, or let's just go 100 units, and the deposits of those are $25,000 to $50,000 each, you're talking about a substantial amount of money sitting in trust, right? There is an opportunity or people in the industry have believed that there is an opportunity to put that money into another account, still technically held in trust, that is accruing interest on that and that interest would go to another party. And if you do the maths on the interest there, that's a lot of money for doing nothing but putting it into another account.

Now, we have contractual obligations to hold the money in trust. This article I actually think was incorrect. It said that there's nothing else you can do with those deposit monies. That's technically not correct.

My understanding is you could hold the money in another trust account if both the seller and the purchaser agree as to where it should be held. You can put it wherever you want. In trust would be best. But what trust account?

The seller solicitors, the purchaser solicitors, or let's say a third party account where it just sat there and who gets the money from that. So deposit flicking is the practice. You're coming to me, I'm a developer typically, you want to buy a property off me, you're going to put 50,000 smackaroos on the table. I'm going to take them and I'm going to put it into another trust account, not the seller solicitor, not the purchaser solicitor, another trust account and I'm going to do my best to accrue.

Generally, it is about the interest on that. I will accrue the interest. Now, My understanding is in order to do that, if I'm the seller and you're the purchaser, we both have to sign forms to say that we agree to that. What seems to have occurred in this instance is that the purchasers have not agreed that this is a good idea.

And when you look at it, there is an argument going on between conveyancers where Jared Zak, the founder of Dott & Crossitt Conveyancers + Solicitors, had created a petition criticising the practice and referring it to it as deposit flicking. And then obviously the other conveyancer came in and sued them. So that petition's been taken down. I didn't see it.

I didn't get a look at it. But the petition was removed. Apparently it had dozens of signatures on there. But where we're sitting at the moment is New South Wales Fair Trading.

And by the way, all the officers of Fair Trading and Consumer Affairs, et cetera, they're all kind of caught on the hop by this because there's no, they're exploiting a loophole. Like technically that money that is held in trust should be held in trust to protect you. If you're purchasing from me, Kasey, to protect your interest. If the deal goes south and I disappear, you would want your deposit back.

If you disappeared and you didn't complete on settlement, I would want to hold you to the contractual obligation that you had agreed to. So it's really important that this, trust, the whole idea of a trust account is that it's held in a place that we can both get access at it, or we can relevantly dispute it without the money going missing. Like, in the case of, which we're going to be talking about later, the bloke who had the buyer's agencies, all of that money should have been held in trust until deals were completed, right? We would never have had that problem.

He couldn't sell it to a Cayman or Virgin Islands account for $1 or $5 or whatever the heck it was that he did. So there's a bit of interest on this because at the moment, I can foresee some regulation coming in that says it needs to be in approved trust account, whether you like it or not, rather than in a third party trust account, and it sits over there. So whilst I don't think there are any purchasers that are out of pocket on this. New South Wales Fair Trading is saying that they're investigating the broader practice.

I'm aware that Queensland are looking at it as well. And then we've got AUSTRAC releasing just a fairly standard statement saying, we still need to know where that money has come from. We need to know your client, know your buyers. So very interesting times because I think this loophole was being exploited. I'm hoping this is an instance where regulation probably could or should come in and close this loophole before purchasers are out of pocket.

Kasey McDonald (46:38) Yeah, definitely. Th I agree. I think kind of in hearing that and now having that un I've just never heard of it like kind of being spoken about like that way, deposit flicking. But I think you if there is a gap in that sense, because absolutely right, you want to make sure that both parties are protected.

And so, yeah, I guess the sensible thing to do here is that the revision is to remove any ambiguity in regards to how and which people might interpret what that means. Third party provider, what does that mean, right? And so that can be anyone's interpretation. Yeah. Let's re just remove that.

Peter Schravemade (47:12) Yeah, having said that, just to present the other side of the argument, like I have purchased off the plan in the past and I would have loved for that interest payment, like so that deposit that's going in there, I would have loved for interest payments to be fed back to me for the time that it was sitting there. Otherwise it's dead money, it's just not doing anything. Where's that money going to? Who is accruing the commission on the trust accounts now?

I believe I am not a. On this, please write to us and let me know if I'm incorrect. I think the government actually earns those funds and it goes towards the protection of this actual area. You know, I don't think the government would be keen on relinquishing those, that area.

So I'd love to hear from anybody who actually knows what happens to those funds when it sits in that trust account. Does it go to the developer? Which it could, but from my perspective, I would have loved to see, that's my money that I've put forward. That is in trust at the moment and I will agree that it should remain in trust.

What I would love to see is interest from that be shared across both parties because the product hasn't been delivered yet to me. So, you the transaction hasn't gone through and it's my money sitting there as cash, just sitting there

Kasey McDonald (47:59) Yeah, good point.

Peter Schravemade (48:26) Doing nothing. You know, I think there would be the other side would be saying, well, it's our money. Yeah, there's always two sides to the story. Now let's go to this.

I've seen. I've seen a lot of real estate agents up in arms about this Dashdot thing and so they should be. I don't think it helps that his name's Goose. Do you think that helps to the story?

Kasey McDonald (48:49) No, not really. Also holds a pretty prominent surname, I guess, as well, right? Like McGrath. Yeah.

Not if it not affiliated, but that's what I mean, right? Like so that's also a bit of a scary thing, but

Peter Schravemade (48:54) He does, not affiliated, not affiliated. Well, and it's a name that was associated with former gambling debt too. So, there's been a bit of mud around there.

Kasey McDonald (49:07) Yeah, exactly. But to having seen the business obviously go from, where it began, to then obviously the revenue it generated and where it got to, which was in the millions, right? Sixty odd something million, to grow to a hundred and thirty employees during that time. They're on the fast growth list, they've won industry awards, like all of those things, and then they collapse.

Right. And that was probably what, two, three months ago? To now promote themselves openly, so confidently that, hey, you should come and have and employ us to be your business coach. Like, yeah.

Peter Schravemade (49:52) Look, all I can see them coaching

Kasey McDonald (49:53) I don't know how I don't know how I feel about I don't know how I feel about that.

Peter Schravemade (49:58) Is how to set up a scam pretty quick and leave squeaky clean. That's what they've effectively done. I think the book needs to be thrown at these clowns. They've taken people's money and in a lot of cases, mum's and dad's money to buy properties.

The majority of investors, think 72 per cent is what Mike Mortlock said last week. Were owned by mums and dads who only have one house. And so I imagine a lot of the money going missing was from investors trying to find a way through this who might be mums and dads and some of them might be sophisticated as well. And that doesn't mean I don't care about them, but they're in a better position to ride this through.

So these guys have gone away. They've taken away every accolade and now they're saying, well, guess what? We'll trade you. This reminds me very much of a New South Wales agent that we spoke about not long ago who went down in flames. He was given all the accolades by the wrong sections of the industry, by the way, by the wrong sections

Kasey McDonald (50:48) A hundred percent. Yeah.

Peter Schravemade (50:57) Of the industry. He was given all of the accolades. People were shouting his name from the rooftop until they weren't, until, and all of a sudden he was cut clear. Like there was, nobody was talking about this guy anymore.

And he turned out to be a real estate coach. And we've got a business coach. We've got a real estate coach. Anyone that gives money to any of these clowns at this point, I would go as far to say deserves what's coming to them. They're just, what do you

Kasey McDonald (51:28) Yeah. I it just ruins the entire credibility, right? Of yeah, it j th that's how I kind of feel about it. I mean, there are We've got some fantastic people in this industry, coaches included in that.

And you know, in the past that I was one of those. And man, it's a hard slog, right? You're out there and you are trying to do the best because not only do you want to succeed, but you genuinely are passionate about the business and the people you're working with for them to succeed. Not that you're going to go into their business.

Trying to implement solutions and you know technology and all of those things for them to somewhat fail. Like you don't even think about that. But to then have people like this that have literally done that and owe millions and millions of dollars back to creditors and more importantly, people, to then have their money transferred, to the Virgin Islands themselves. So now they've still got cash, but no one else does, to then come out and market so confidently that they don't, they're starting up this business consultancy.

And coaching advisory service, what are you really going to teach people? You're just gonna teach people the wrong things, as far as I'm concerned.

Peter Schravemade (52:38) Yeah, 100% agree. On this particular podcast, neither of us like giving air to these oxygen thieves. I think you've been caught doing the wrong thing, you've done the wrong thing. And now I'm going to use all my marketing prowess.

And they obviously have that. The one thing that seems to ring true in all of these areas is these people can sell like in market, they can sell themselves. And back in my day, I'm sounding really old now, I won't drag you down with me. But we used to call this a con man.

This used to be, you remember the snake oil salesperson? Is what this is. If these guys aren't the modern day con man that, exist. We used to have like, I think it was the Steve Martin was the actor in one of them that who was such a successful con man.

We saw it again. Think Leonardo DiCaprio held that role. There are people who can just sell, who are like magic, silver tongue. They come in and they just sell.

They've got all the charisma and charm and they just sell stuff. Obviously I haven't met Goose and I think his first name would be a big red flag to me if I did meet him. But yeah, look, if you get a Goose knocking on your door, try to sell your business coaching, perhaps reconsider. And we'll leave that one in the trash bin filed under Dashdot. Yeah, well,

Kasey McDonald (54:06) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would for sure. Yeah. Yeah, leave that one there, I think.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But what's the RBA said this week, Pete? Yeah, they've come out

Peter Schravemade (54:24) It's not good news. I mean, now when I see news from the RBA or any economist, I place it in the same file as Victoria, like. There goes my day. It was a sunny day until now and all of a sudden it's in.

Yeah, look, the RBA is saying that the housing is weakened more than expected. Look, say, here is my problem all through this article is that every single time we have any kind of economic issue, the RBA seem to just jump straight away to housing as a handbrake on the economy or to make it go faster. In other countries, they are leveraging other things other than housing. But for whatever reason, we've become so accustomed to it that we now just like little robots assume that the response from the RBA will be either positive or negative to the housing economy.

At the moment, she's flagging that it's probably going to be negative. She's kind of suggesting and I To be honest, I don't mind this Reserve Bank Governor, the one that we've got at the moment. She seems to be very level-headed and well-approached. And I know there's a board.

It's not just her making the decision. But I really like the way she talks. Think she ignores politics, which is great. And she just does the job that's in front of her.

So, look, she's effectively saying that the RBA is comfortable with further housing price falls. That's what I thought she was saying. That's what I thought she heard is that she was estimating that was the negative equity that was there. It wasn't wonderful, not wonderful if you've used a 5 per cent deposit as a first home buyer.

But she did say that the RBA doesn't directly target property values, which is great, and it only influences monetary policy through its effect on household spending, investment and inflation. We see the latest inflation figures. Saw our old mate Jim Chalmers yesterday claiming that they were a win for him. I'm still in disagreement about that.

The bottom line is, and everyone that I've heard comment on this, every economist, and I'm not an economist, obviously, you're not an economist, neither of us are gonna put our hands up and say, listen to us. So, a big disclaimer there, we're not offering fiscal advice to anyone, but we still have a massive supply and demand shortage. It's just getting worse. We're gonna look at a story from Queensland, just next, where they're saying that they're actually actively solving for it.

But everywhere I go, like I'm here in Sydney today, I think it's the same in Auckland where you are. There's a supply and demand issue that is affecting humans' basic need for shelter. And it comes across in almost every story we have. Those young kids who wrote that song that was on the ABC blaming real estate agents.

That blaming real estate agents because they can't get a affordable rental at the moment, it's just killing them. And they're looking for someone to shoot in response to that. Like, who do we blame and how do we blame them rather than actually looking at the heart of the problem, which is we don't have enough houses and then we have immigration that comes into this because we've brought in 2 million people according to the latest budget. We don't have 2 million houses to put.

It's just always stacking up and every time whether she lifts the interest rates or lowers them, surely there must be some concern about the speed with which we're building houses that's factored in every single time. Everyone goes, yeah, the RBA governor said that, but this, we've got a supply and demand issue. I don't know. I don't know whether you watched, was a long delivery, but I don't know if you watched it.

Probably not. I wouldn't have watched it.

Kasey McDonald (58:17) No, no, I didn't unfortunately. I guess there's a couple of interesting statistics though. You know, I don't think that the inflation dropping in June had anything to do with our treasurer. So I'd like to make that statement.

But I agree, I think she is really level headed. But I think some of the interesting stats that have come out and I thought that Possibly this might have been a little more just because of that 5%, that first home buyer scheme. But with only 1% of mortgage borrowers actually being in negative equity, I thought that that might have been a little higher. So I just felt I thought that that kind of insight was a little interesting.

And that there's only a very small portion that are really experiencing severe repayment difficulties. And that's because many of I guess the mortgage holders or homeowners in Australia are now. Sitting on a lot more positive equity than possibly what we have been before. But what I guess don't like is that we always reference to only what is ever going on in the Sydney and Melbourne market.

And you know, why do we do that as a nation? Like why is it just that whatever goes on in Sydney, it's just like that's what happens everywhere? Because Brisbane is still rising. Like our house prices are still rising.

And now maybe not at the pace that they were, but they still are, right? We've got rents increasing, regional areas, Adelaide is booming, Perth is still increasing. And so You know, but yet every single time there's any kind of reference to housing, it is always Sydney and Melbourne. Don't know why. Don't know why.

Peter Schravemade (59:45) Regional areas, Adelaide. Yeah, and all of the negative news has been about that. I've watched people posting saying, isn't it great that housing prices coming down in Queensland? I'm like, they're not coming down. They haven't been coming down here.

Kasey McDonald (1:00:10) They're not They're not, no.

Peter Schravemade (1:00:14) And we're getting more people moving in here as a result of what's going on in Victoria. So it's all happening.

Kasey McDonald (1:00:19) Hundred percent. But yeah, the next article's a really good one.

Peter Schravemade (1:00:23) Yeah, well, and this is, think, reflective of a change of government. Again, I'm not for. Red, blue, orange, green, I'm not for any of them. I am for building houses.

Like, I think we need to build more houses. I think it doesn't matter what camp you sit in. We have to agree that we need to build more houses. So, look, I think this is a bit of a slight exaggeration by our leader, Crisafulli, at the moment, who's saying that a record 50,000 Queensland houses are now under construction.

We don't have the workforce to have 50,000 houses under construction at the moment. And I refer to under construction as the slab has been laid or, we're in stage one. When you look at this, he's actually pointing out more approvals. These are approvals, and we have these in the

Kasey McDonald (1:01:08) Huh.

Peter Schravemade (1:01:16) Pipeline to be built. So they have done this thing called the Residential Activation Fund. And they've unlocked land for more than 140,000 homes. And that has really fast tracked a lot of the construction across Queensland.

So, we're seeing 615 homes to be unlocked. Not in construction, that's the problem. 323 homes to be unlocked. Also not in construction at Pallara.

I know down where I live, they're in the middle of more unlocking, more construction. Now, last I checked, that 50,000 figure was actually closer to three and a half thousand under construction, under construction. That's still three and a half thousand better than most of the other states. Their target for this year was five thousand and they've unlocked a lot more.

So, maybe what I'm saying out of this to read between the hype and the exaggeration is that 2027 could be our year as far as five to 10,000 houses built. It would be really great to see them come out and say, we would like to hit 10,000. And then you would see a lot of balancing out in the housing accommodation area. We'd see a lot of that supply and demand start to ease up.

It's still not enough, but this is good news. This is good news that they're unlocking it. I just wish they didn't have to hide it with the false exaggeration. Know, obviously they're a political party, they're out.

Trying to say we're doing the right thing, we're doing well, yes, this is a progress report and I'll give you a gold star for that, but I would be much happier if you actually were delivering houses. Like what I would love is him to go, we achieved 5,000 delivered this year, that won't happen. But I don't mind having the lofty targets as long as we can see progress there, right? You would never, if.

If you had a staff member come to you Kasey and say, look, my KPIs are this, I want to hit this year and you're going, there's no way you're to hit that. But holy crap, at the end of the year, you ended up getting pretty close to that. Well done. That's a gold stuff you well done.

That's more the way I'm looking at this. What do you think? I mean, you're in Queensland with me so.

Kasey McDonald (1:03:36) Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I was just actually searching because I saw an article pop up in my area, so Moreton Bay region. And I have actually seen it several in the last few weeks, to be fair.

And so this one is in the Redcliffe area. So they've got, and it just says that it's called North Harbour. It's Burpengary East. And they have officially started, they've put the, shovels in the dirt.

There's the first 249 new homes. Are Underway and there is set, so there's 3,700 parcels of land in that area. They are all going to include terraces and detached homes, three and four bedrooms, as well as apartments. And then within that local community as well, it's going to generate over 2,000 jobs.

So they have started there, and so that's 249 right now of their estimated 50. But It actually, and I've been seeing this a little more specifically in that kind of north Brisbane pocket where there is a lot more land. That affordability piece is still there compared to obviously being closer to the city. So I am seeing it.

I've got some construction and new housing being built right next to my house, but yeah, is it 50,000? I'm not sure either. I agree with you, but I 100% am seeing it in Queensland. 100%.

Peter Schravemade (1:05:00) Yeah, yeah. And that development that you were talking about in the Burpengary area, that was actually approved under the previous government. Know, credit where credit's due, that has been going through for some time. But in my area, definitely not.

There was a massive infrastructure works area that needed plumbing and main road services to that. The Queensland government stepped in and said, we're going to deliver that. So let's unlock that parcel and move forward. And that's brand new.

That didn't exist. I know that the current Jarrod Bleijie, is he the Treasurer? I think he is. No, he's not the Treasurer.

He's the Deputy Premier. He's under fire at the moment for handing over more land to Stockland in that Caloundra area. But I think he's doing that again to try and ease the housing affordability issues and unlock some. Certainly, I don't like it being handed over to Stockies.

I think they withhold from the market to try and lift their profits, if that makes sense, rather than churning out affordable housing. But hey, we still need houses. So at this stage, anything's a win. But you're dead right, we're seeing it here. Let's move on.

Kasey McDonald (1:06:10) Hundred percent. We are definitely seeing it, which is incredibly positive.

Peter Schravemade (1:06:14) Let's move on. So this is an interesting one. We spoke about last week, the terrible state of evictions. We were seeing people evicted from public housing and really like a hot knife through butter they were going through them.

And this article's come out on the back of that. There were 46,210 social housing households in the 2025-2026 financial year, and they had a review of those. It appears a very, very long overdue review. And I can't say that I'm dissatisfied with some of the outcomes of this because 76 of the people who were in affordable housing accommodation supplied to them by the government actually owned property or exceeded the relevant income limit.

Now, I've got to assume some of them would be blocks of land that they can't build on, but my response to that would be sell that, sell that block of land and move it. Like if you're holding property, you can't be in social housing for sure. Like how could that possibly be a thing at this stage? And then others exceeded the relevant income limit.

Now, I don't know what that income limit is, but I've got to say that it would have to be more than 80,000, would it not? I don't know. I'm only speculating here. 38 people left while under review, so saw the writing on the wall coming and departed anyway.

Three vacated following tribunal proceedings. 211 failed to provide requested information within 28 days. So we have seen Queensland social housing clear house and I've got to say I Like I'm hoping I'm not speaking against somebody who rightfully deserves to be there But we need that social housing more than ever to go to the people who actually need it at the moment and there are so many deserved mouths to feed in that area who need shelter over their heads if you're holding property I just can't see how you'd be in social housing. I can't see a feasible argument a reasonable argument for that. What are your thoughts?

Kasey McDonald (1:08:20) Yeah, totally agree. You know, look, we've definitely seen, those average wait times increase as well, right? I think that was a part of that report that came out. It's gone from 21.2 months to 31.7 months.

But I think it actually brings us back to something that we've consistently said on the podcast around the supply issue, but more importantly, that the government are not building housing either, right? And so, it's kind of seems to be that the public sector, sorry, the private sector are building. So, you and I, we're going, well, like let's build a new house or we're gonna build this for us to live in or pay me now as an investment if that's what you chose to do. But what's the government building to put more of these people in?

So it's, they still, they still need more than what is available. I mean, it freed up about 400-odd bedrooms as a part of that. But I still just don't think that we're doing enough. However, the positive here is that I think it was a good review.

There's some been some positive out of it to you. I hope that I'm not, saying anything that anyone who's missed out on someone who absolutely deserves to be there. But there are many that deserve to be there. And so I think it's really important that regular audits are done in this instance so that the right people are deserving those properties, are getting them.

Peter Schravemade (1:09:39) Absolutely, yeah, 100% in agreement with that. The next article, we've got, I think we've got two left, two or three, there's three left, three left, so we'll churn through these pretty quickly. This next one, look, I haven't been a fan of, I've got to say, I haven't been a fan of university research for some time. I think it's always tainted or has something else.

This is an interesting one though, it says, it's actually asking a question. Australia activate 13 million spare bedrooms? Australia is estimated to have 13 million spare bedrooms. Now I've got spare bedrooms at my place.

I'm not sure you do, but I definitely do. I have spare bedrooms and I'm well aware of that.

Kasey McDonald (1:10:19) I don't. Yeah.

Peter Schravemade (1:10:27) I think there are more spare bedrooms appearing at my house. My son just got his licence this week, so he's not far from flying the coop, maybe. Maybe he'll stay with us. But the QUT property economist Dr Lyndall Bryant argues that government could encourage owners to make some of these rooms available through incentives rather than the spare bedroom tax.

Look, I actually don't mind this. I don't mind the concept of doing this. I think if we have spare bedrooms and people are happy to use them for accommodation, like I have always done this, I think you knew my previous house, which had three livable locations and there was always somebody tenanting there. I even liked it from a safety aspect, not just for us, but from them.

You I have this big belief that we should, you might call it utopian, but we should live in a community. We should actually know our neighbours. We should, that this is the thing. And then part of that is there will be some people who probably don't want to share their house.

Like they just don't want to share their house. They're not those kind of people. This is their home. And so that 13 million, I would argue, probably needs to respect the fact that there are people who just want to live their separate life.

There are people that should live separately. They don't play well with others. And then we ignore the fact that how many checks do we do on tenants these days?

Kasey McDonald (1:11:53) Yeah. Yeah. A lot.

Peter Schravemade (1:11:55) And yet as it came up in that song, and one of the reasons we do that is because sometimes people shouldn't be tenanting a property. So, I think this 13 million figure is very romantic. It's an interesting number. But you know, what happens if we start putting in people who are less than favourable characters in our own home with our children?

I think a lot of people would, how do we actually go about doing this? And. Here's the secondary part of this is I saw, actually saw there was a prop tech startup out of Melbourne who, and it was, it had a wonderful idea to it. It was about placing women largely over the age of 50, which is represents a massive area of our homeless or our couch surfing demographic.

Women over the age of 50 who generally there's been a divorce or something's happened and then that. They're no longer able to provide a shelter for themselves. This PropTech startup actually started placing them in homes. And I had a bunch of, there were a lot of green flags with that.

This is great. This is for the social good. It puts a roof over people's house who wouldn't get it. But one of the questions and one of the areas where this particular thing locked up is how do we do it in a way that's safe for all inhabitants of the house where there's some kind of respect.

And our rental laws, so for example in Queensland, let's say I started to do that, I put somebody in a house, I would be tempted not to know, actually knowing me I would put them on a lease where I could terminate it, right? But that's me with property knowledge, your average mother and father are not going to know to put somebody in on a lease, so they're gonna put them in there and all of a sudden they're on a periodic tenancy in Queensland, which as you and I know is incredibly hard to terminate. And so then we'll have these legal battles now clogging up QCAT because old mate's been in a room and they've been paying X amount. Don't think Queensland mums and dads will know that they can only raise the rent once a year.

So, can you imagine those conversations coming forward and then getting in front of rental tenancies, and rental tenancies going, guess what? You don't have a lease in place. My God. Like, and by the way, are the smoke alarms in their house? Like this is such, such a romantic notion.

Kasey McDonald (1:14:11) Compliant. Yep.

Peter Schravemade (1:14:16) For Australia and I love the idea, but like, we are not in the position where we can facilitate this because we have that much regulation. You know, I would even argue that anyone that goes out on their own and tries to do a tenancy without a professionally placed property manager is crazy. And so throwing that into the mix, how do we actually do this? How do we move this forward? What are your thoughts?

Kasey McDonald (1:14:42) Yeah, look you know, I agree. I think it is tough, because, for my own situation, whilst the children aren't with us all of the time, it is still their home and they do come and go in between different times through co parenting. And if we were to then say, Sorry, we're now going to rent out your room because, we're we're looking to support, that person who doesn't have shelter, but also for us to make a little bit of extra money. The child then may but not feel like it's their home either.

That, there's, we've opened it up to that stranger that they don't feel comfortable with. So I, I kind of I see it as, is it a good thing? Maybe, like it and in some aspects it is, but then in for every, I guess, spare bedroom that is there, it might not be actually suitable. You could be a single woman in your 50s for example living on your own but you're choosing that and for your own safety you might not what wish to rent your room out others might actually feel okay and want to do that themselves so yeah look i'm probably sitting on the fence with it i don't know how i actually feel about this one

Peter Schravemade (1:15:51) Well, I like the concept. I think how do we deliver it in practice is a way more difficult question. And one that I've tried to confront, don't forget I got sent, in one of the properties I bought as my principal place of residence years ago, this doesn't exist anymore, but I got sent a massive bill asking me to pay back the money, the stamp duty concession that I had had, which was to the tune of 38,000, because I rented room out for $30 per week. You know, there are other regulations that get in the way of this being a thing.

So I think it needs more investigation. I don't mind the idea. I realize that we're getting close on time. I just want to touch on 15 and probably

Kasey McDonald (1:16:28) Yeah, yeah, agree.

Peter Schravemade (1:16:34) More direct people to it. So it was an article I saw this week, very interesting article, released by Suburbtrends who analyze about over half a million for sale listings across 12 months to June 2026. And they covered 332 SA3 markets estimating gross commission income using listing values and state-based commission assumptions. And they have effectively released what I would call is a finding about where most of our commissions are going on a state-by-state basis.

For example, they're saying in New South Wales, in the 89 markets they looked at, franchise or network-led agencies were the leaders in 73 of those, whereas boutique agencies represented only 16% of those sales. So the leader in the particular area was 17.4, that share of that. In Queensland, for example, 82 markets they looked at, 69 of them were franchise or network led, the highest commission earners in that area were franchise or network led, and they had a percentage of 19.9. Where that was interesting is watching the difference between states.

So in Victoria, it was one of the areas that franchises weren't leading, that the actual boutique agencies were leading in the commission sales area. And it's more of a general interest article, which is why we've tacked it on to point number 15 in this. It probably doesn't need comment from either of us, but if you're interested in looking at the findings of that, More from a general interest, like how does this actually play out? Where do franchises sit?

How are Boutique agencies doing? To be honest, I think there's some interesting findings in that. I'll post the link. It'll be in the comments on the Before The Weekend site, beforetheweekend.

com. I can't put it in the RSS feed, which goes out to your Amazon, Spotify, Apple. YouTube won't fit in that. So if you're looking for any of the sources that we've looked at on here, I list them all as a URL on the beforetheweekend.

com site. So I'd go and have a look at that as a general interest. Look, running through every thread that we've had today, just really quickly, the Victorian government came under pressure over debt infrastructure housing supply. And mostly integrity and at the same time agents were subjected to more regulation, more enforcement and some more political attention.

We've had the comedy song that blamed agents, landlords, investors for the housing crisis, consumer affairs targeted application forms, politicians promoting new disclosure rules, every rogue agent allegation. All of this formed evidence against the broader profession and is really where the kids are sitting these days. They don't like real estate agents, no surprises there. We are in agreements that misconduct should be exposed, conflicts should be disclosed, trust money should be protected, agents should be accountable for the services they provide.

We're asking our governments to have accountability and that it needs to apply to them. We're saying that real estate agents don't determine migration levels. They don't control zoning land release, construction costs, infrastructure delivery, housing supply, investment or the time it takes to approve a development. When 50 people arrive at an inspection, the agent's the person standing at the door.

That doesn't mean that the agent created the shortage. So again, this week has all focused around a lot of angst from the public directed at the property professional. We hear you, we understand exactly what this feels like. I'm seeing it across at least three of the Eastern States and to an extent in South Australia and West Australia at the moment.

So I suppose. From us as you head into your weekend. It's Friday the 31st of July today, but we're wishing you all the best in whatever endeavours you have out there. We're asking you to be model citizens for our real estate show so we don't end up discussing you next week.

Kasey McDonald (1:20:46) Yeah. Very good point. Yeah.

Peter Schravemade (1:20:49) But yeah, but Kasey, from us to the industry, I hope you enjoyed listening to our episode 12. Certainly it's gaining in listenership if I'm looking at the numbers at the moment. So thank you to those out there who were sharing it and actually sending us feedback, letting us know that this is exactly what you want to hear. We appreciate you listening to us bang on a Friday morning.

Kasey McDonald (1:21:17) Yeah, definitely. And of course, if you would like to suggest any guests that we should have on the show, if there's any articles or stories that you see that you would like us to talk about, make sure you drop us a line at hello@beforetheweekend.com. And I think from us, Pete, that's wrap for episode twelve on the thirty first of July.

Peter Schravemade (1:21:38) It is indeed, enjoy your weekends out there and we'll catch you next week. Ciao.

Kasey McDonald (1:21:43) Happy weekend.