Via Buzzfeed:
CEOs of property groups have written to the NSW premier requesting that the government move towards allowing real estate agents to regulate themselves, but the government says the proposal is not in the “public interest”.
The six groups, including the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW), the Property Owners’ Association of NSW and the Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia, argued in a letter sent to Gladys Berejiklian last Monday that the government should take the property services industry out of NSW Fair Trading’s remit, and instead create an Office of the Commissioner for the Property Services Industry that could work with the industry.
“The industry sees its relationship with its regulatory authority as a partnership, where both government and the industry work constructively and cooperatively together,” the letter said.
REINSW CEO Tim McKibbin told BuzzFeed News that real estate agents were aiming to be regulated like lawyers, with a body like the Law Society made up of representatives from the profession working in tandem with an independent commissioner.
But the minister for better regulation Matt Kean does not support the proposal, telling BuzzFeed News that although there are many honest and hard working real estate agents in NSW, agents “are among the least trusted professions in NSW”.
“With issues such as underquoting still plaguing the industry, it is not in the public interest for real estate agents to regulate themselves,” he said.
The letter follows mounting tensions between REINSW and the government over the treatment of the real estate industry. Last month REINSW resigned from the government’s Real Estate Reference Group, which was established in 2015 to consult on real estate reform.
Head of campaigns and policy at consumer group CHOICE, Sarah Agar, told BuzzFeed News that the proposed name, Commissioner for the Property Services Industry, “raises alarm bells””. The name “suggests the focus is on the industry itself and not the people that rely on that industry to give them a safe roof over their heads”, she said.
It is true that locust plagues are intrinsically self-regulating. They eat everything within reach then die.
Whether that is an appropriate model for structuring a market is a different question.
