Leading Real Estate Companies of the World Conference

I have just returned from the LRE Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. A great few days with some outstanding speakers and workshops. Amongst the many ideas, thoughts and teachings, the overriding message was that social media is huge, and growing - blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and now Twitter! The amazing thing is just how much business is now being generated through the connections being made on the various sites. It’s a whole new world! 

We also had our LRE board meeting and International Advisory Board meetings during the 4 days.

True Professionals Return Phone Calls

I find it interesting that one of the most commonly heard complaints about the real estate industry is our failure to return phone calls. Now, I am well aware that this is a fault of businesses across all industries, and certainly, the real estate industry is not the only culprit. How frustrating it is to be making a genuine enquiry to a business, quite happy to spend your hard-earned dollars on their products or services, and being advised that they will phone you right back when they have gathered some information for you, only to never hear from again. Most people won’t try calling again – they will just contact someone else with their enquiry instead, usually the direct competition.
Therefore, I really cannot figure out why businesses, and particularly real estate businesses, are comfortable to let a possible client slip away because it is too much trouble remembering to return a call. But I believe, even more than that, it comes down to a question of integrity.
This is such a difficult concept to capture in just one blog entry, because it comes down to a series of behaviours, of values, of beliefs and the culture of a person, organisation, and ultimately an industry. According to the dictionary, integrity is defined as adherence to moral and ethical principles. This says to me that if someone is failing to provide the most simple gesture of customer service, returning a phone call, then there are more questions that need to be asked about their moral and ethical principles as a whole.
True professionals will provide outstanding service in every sense of the word. If they say they will do something, they do it. If they say they will ring you back, they do. It really is about integrity.

Extend the Doubled First Homebuyers Grant to Provide Much Needed Stimulus

As we all sit and watch the Global Financial Crisis (as it has now been dubbed) unfold in a state of shamelessly morbid curiosity, many “experts” based both here and overseas have commented on how well placed Australia is in the whole debacle, when compared with the rest of the world.

A special Channel 7 report on the weekend collected the opinion of spokespeople in a number of sectors on what we can expect in the coming year.  One of the more memorable panellists was a British CNN economist beamed into the studio via Satellite and he gave the following comment, which really struck a chord with me.  He said that here in Australia, at the very worst, unemployment is feared to rise to 7% by 2010, however in the US, UK and some parts of Europe, unemployment has already exceeded this figure.

There are a number of reasons why Australia is travelling better than other countries, including a solid fiscal policy and smart lending procedures.  However, a very large factor is the government incentives designed to give a boost to a faltering economy. The one-off stimulus payments to families, pensioners and, recently, to all taxpayers who qualified have since proven to have a positive effect on the economy.

The government incentive that has particularly benefited the real estate sector is without a doubt the boost to the first homebuyers grant. In fact, recent stats have shown an enormous increase nationwide between the second half of 2007 and the second half of 2008 in property sales in the $300,000 to $500,000 bracket, accounting for more than half of all activity nationally. This comes as no real surprise considering that currently a quarter of all market activity is among first homebuyers.

What fantastic news this is to owners of homes in the first homebuyers bracket!  Now, because of renewed demand, they can finally take the opportunity to upgrade. A great deal of activity in one bracket has a flow-on effect to property in the other brackets, which is exactly the effect the Rudd Government was hoping to achieve by increasing the first homebuyers grant. 

I would really urge the Government to extend the increased first homebuyers grant beyond the June 09 deadline. An extension to possibly even June 2010 will ensure the Australian property market remains active, which will help create a strong economy and provide job opportunities, certainly in the real estate sector, but also in the construction sector and the many others reliant on it.