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Before the Weekend

Behind Closed Doors and the Rent Rolls Worth Zip

EP. 23 · 16 Oct 2026 · 52m

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through what's happening in real estate behind closed doors - the stories that don't make the vendor pack.

Peter shares the calls he's taken this week from principals of high-quality, award-winning agencies doing it tough, including one who has never seen the buyer tap turn off like this - 42 open homes, zero people through. The hosts pay tribute to Sunshine Coast agent Adam Dunlop and make the case for checking in on your mates, your principal, your property managers, your clients and even your competitors. The Rise Initiative's free Real Care app, with three confidential counselling sessions, gets a strong recommendation, alongside Charles Tarbey's reminder that agents are not responsible for market conditions.

The cashflow crunch: Brisbane's preliminary clearance rate down to around 20 per cent, capital-city selling times blowing out from 23 to 39 days, Domain taking a developer to the NSW Supreme Court for a winding-up, and Kasey on agency mergers as an alternative to liquidation.

The rent roll trap: Marshall White's Anthony Wiseman on buyers and valuers stripping non-compliant properties out of rent roll valuations, Cara Bergmann's $24,000 arrears case from cut-price PM teams, why discounting management fees is the wrong play, REEF CEO Bryan Wilcox on what a federal ban on non-competes could do to agency client books, and the annual principal-to-owner call as a retention strategy.

Compliance and Victoria: the hidden risk of DIY AML compliance, scammers impersonating AUSTRAC, and Kasey's week on the ground in Victorian agencies - bond claims now requiring notice and evidence, the application fee ban, two-yearly gas and electrical checks, energy efficiency standards on the way, and investors telling PMs to put them onto a salesperson. Plus Kasey's read from Victorian PMs that more than 40 per cent of Melbourne sales listings are coming out of property management departments, the Greens' landlord licence proposal, Victoria's $1 billion land tax shortfall, Cotality's Bend It Like Buyers report (4.9 per cent is the rate buyers say would bring them back) and a rapid-fire wrap on investors shifting to new builds and commercial.

If you or someone you work with is doing it tough: Real Care app, Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, Small Business Debt Helpline 1800 413 828.

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Behind closed doors

Peter shares the calls he has taken this week from principals of high-quality, award-winning agencies who have hit the wall, and the Sunshine Coast industry mourns the loss of local agent Adam Dunlop. The hosts urge listeners to check in on mates, principals, property managers, clients and competitors.

Support for agents, property managers and principals

If you or someone you work with is doing it tough, reach out. The Rise Initiative's free Real Care app includes three confidential phone counselling sessions. Lifeline: 13 11 14. Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636. Small Business Debt Helpline: 1800 413 828.

The cashflow crunch

Brisbane's preliminary clearance rate falls to around 20 per cent, selling times blow out and Domain Holdings Australia takes developer PB & CO Projects to the NSW Supreme Court for a winding-up hearing. Kasey sees smaller agencies merging rather than winding down.

The rent roll trap

Rent roll buyers and valuers are valuing non-compliant managements at zero, cut-price PM teams are missing arrears, and a federal push to ban non-compete clauses puts agency client books in play.

Compliance and Victoria

The hidden cost of DIY AML compliance, scammers impersonating AUSTRAC, and Kasey's week on the ground with Victorian property managers working through the application fee ban, new bond claim rules and two-yearly safety checks.

Kasey's mailbag

The Victorian Greens' landlord licence proposal, Victoria's land tax shortfall as investors sell up, and Cotality on the mortgage rate buyers say would bring them back to the market.

Quick hits

Investors shift to new builds and commercial, the construction pipeline and build-to-rent cost wall, high-end homes leading declines, South Australia's five-year winners, Newcastle cooling, rent growth stalling and immigration versus prices.

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EP. 22

Before the Weekend

Rents Hit the Ceiling and PropertyMe Opens Its Data

9 Oct 2026 · 54m

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through a week where the rental market finally said what Tim Lawless told them in March: tenants have no elasticity left. First, the Domain September quarter rent report. Capital-city house rents were flat at $700 a week despite a 1 per cent vacancy rate, Sydney and Canberra recorded their first quarterly falls in two years, and the Gold Coast is the most expensive city in the country for houses at $920 a week. Peter does the minimum-wage arithmetic - $26.44 an hour, about $1,000 a week, $920 to rent - and Kasey's message to property managers is to get to street-level data, present the facts to landlords, and think about who stays housed rather than who pays the most. Then PropertyMe. The platform 6,500 agencies run on has released an external MCP server, AiMe Connect, so users on the Advanced tier and above can ask Claude or ChatGPT questions of their live portfolio data. Peter explains what a Model Context Protocol server actually is, why he calls it the new gold standard for proptech, why "we've got one but haven't released it" doesn't count, and what to ask any vendor who claims to have AI. Kasey walks through what it changes for a property manager's Monday. Then Victoria's next tranche of rental law, starting Monday 13 October: evidence and advance notice for every bond claim, records proving minimum standards on request from Consumer Affairs, gas and electrical checks extended to tenancies that began before March 2021, and a ban on application and rent-tech fees. Kasey has the list; Peter's ask of every state is the same - talk to the industry first. From there to New South Wales, where minimum energy-efficiency rental standards are under consideration and a Renew report puts the landlord's cost at $15,000 to $34,000 a property. LJ Hooker has become the exclusive distributor of OHOME, a factory-built two-bedroom backyard dwelling at around $250,000 installed, assessed online against the owner's lot. Neither host can recall a franchise doing anything like it. Both think it's smart. On the Gold Coast, a six-bedroom Mermaid Waters house that is 80 per cent built has gone to market as a mortgagee-in-possession sale, with APRA data showing interest-only loans at 23.5 per cent of new lending, the highest since 2019. And a Main Beach agency principal has pleaded guilty to two domestic-violence offences and been fined $3,500 with no conviction recorded - which, as Peter points out, is the detail that keeps his Queensland licence. Then Kasey's favourite television program. The Victorian government has confirmed it sold the heritage-listed Sunbury asylum site to The Block for $1 million, with no public campaign, on a Valuer-General-certified valuation. Peter doesn't accept it and says so. Also this week: congratulations to Rob Mandanici, the new president of REIWA, and thanks to outgoing president Suzanne Brown for her service; and an Irvine, California agent arrested at LAX, alleged to have been acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. Before the Weekend is a weekly podcast for Australian property professionals, hosted by Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade. New episodes every Friday.

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EP. 21

Before the Weekend

eXp Calls Back, Surcharges, NSW Legislation

2 Oct 2026 · 1h 4m

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade start with a correction. Last week we ran the eXp Australia story as unconfirmed. This week Mindy Powell-Hodges, Country Leader of eXp Australia, called: the sales representative and Class 2 pathway has been discontinued because of regulatory change, and very few agents are affected - which matches Peter's own calls to eXp agents. The bigger story is in eXp's own press release, where the fine print describes a transition to a fully licensed Class 1 model. The open-door recruiting that built the US model no longer exists here. NSW has passed the Residential Tenancies Amendment (Protection of Personal Information) Bill. From early 2027 every agent uses a standardised application form, cannot ask for photos, social media, children's details or tattoos, collects ID only from the preferred applicant, and must disclose digitally altered or AI-generated listing images that hide faults. Penalties run to $49,500. Peter's view from a decade in property imagery: most of what hits the portals today falls on the wrong side of that wording. The Government's own example of an "AI-doctored" listing turned out to be a $5,000 mural. Then the receipt. REINSW CEO Tim McKibbin's internal master table counts 33 Acts and regulations - around 2,100 individual amendments, 209 carrying penalties - landing on NSW agents between October 2024 and early 2027, each written up as a psychosocial risk for the people doing the work. Aaron Barber's "500 changes" was conservative. Kasey reports from the road on what that load looks like on a PM desk. Money moving: the card surcharge ban is live from 1 October, DEFT has stopped taking cards for 1.2 million rent payments a month, Services Australia still clips 99 cents on every Centrepay rent payment NSW made compulsory, and a "Supplier Trade Fee" has appeared on realestate.com.au invoices - a real Amex arrangement, but one to watch. Also this week: a Mareeba couple with good income and references rejected 15 times at 0.8 per cent vacancy in Cairns; a Sunshine Coast principal convicted after threatening to end an employee's career and a Gold Coast agent off the road; the Newcastle family who can't get their lodgers out, and why renting rooms in your own home sits outside the tenancy Act; agents sliding into DMs on Threads; and the NRL grand final.

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