Property Shop Gympie Karen Robinson’s ‘renter’ TikTok sparks backlash

A Qld property realtor’s TikTok video promoting a ‘prestigious’ golf course housing estate has sparked backlash amid claims it paints renters as ‘second class citizens’.

A controversial property realtor promoting a new golf course housing estate in Gympie has sent social media into meltdown after presenting renters as “second class citizens”.

In the TikTok video, originally posted on the Property Shop Australia’s social media page on Wednesday, realtor Karen Robinson pointed to a lack of rentals in Royal Pines Estate as a key selling point.

“Tell me now would you prefer to be living next door to an owner occupier, or a street full of rentals?” Ms Robinson said.

The two-minute video continued by claiming many other estates across Gympie were “filled to the brim” with rentals, to their detriment.

“Some of these estates they look really beautiful … (but) you’ve got 16 of the same builder, an out of town builder that’s come along and purchased up all these blocks of land and they’re literally just building investment properties,” Ms Robinson said.

“I know if I’m spending between $500,000 to $1 million on my house and land package, the last thing that I want to do is be in a whole street full of renters.

The video was posted on the Property Shop Australia’s TikTok page on Wednesday, before disappearing form the page Friday morning. It is understood this was done by the social media platform.

“I want to be able to put my heart and soul into my property, build my beautiful lawns and my gardens exactly how I want them and I want to be around like-minded people.”

The video disappeared off TikTok on Friday morning, two days after it was posted, apparently removed by the social media platform.

Ms Robinson and Property Shop director John David have been contacted for comment.

Ms Robinson is the owner and director of Hampton Home Builders, which is located at the Property Shop’s Caledonian Hill premises.

Mr David is listed on QBCC records as a director and secretary of Hampton Home Builders, too.

The video was posted as part of a campaign to sell land at a “prestigious” 125-lot estate opening up near the Gympie golf course.

Hampton Home Builders licence has been suspended since August 14 over a failure to meet the watchdog’s financial requirements.

It is a separate entity to the Property Shop.

One week after the suspension, Ms Robinson said the freeze had been incurred as a result of asset changes within the company and she expected it would be reinstated “within a couple of days”.

The video was released as part of a social campaign promoting the Property Shop’s Royal Pine Estate development near the Gympie Golf Course.

The video did not go down well on social media, coming at a time when the Gympie region and Queensland are grappling with a housing and homelessness crisis.

Facebook comments made in response to the video said it was “disrespecting the community” and “sounds like … she puts renters in a category she thinks she’s way above”.

“She should not be judging anyone,” Lisa Mackay said in her post.

Loretta Franklin said it was “disgusting to refer to renters as second class citizens” and a “big business mistake”.

Michelle Horne pointed out another obvious problem: “Just because people build and live in it, it doesn’t mean it won’t ever be a rental”.

Michelle Shorten asked how such judgements could be made about people in the first instance.

“You would not be able to go down a street and confidently say which is a rental or which is an owner occupier”,” she said, with Lisa Batten adding “most renters look after the property’s (sic) they rent and you would never know they were renters”.

The comments come less than a month after the firing of Brisbane real estate agent Aimee Marsh after she allegedly made comments about tenants who “probably earn $50k a year” or were on Centrelink and she could not wait “to sell the houses they rent”.

* This article has been updated to clarify the status of the video on Property Shop Australia’s page.