Land titles search prices tripled since NSW government sold it to 10 operators for $2.6 billion
NSW homebuyers and sellers are being gouged for millions by 10 companies that have jacked up the price of mandatory property searches since the NSW government sold off its lucrative land titles registry.
NSW
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NSW homebuyers and sellers are shelling out millions to the 10 companies that have jacked up the price of mandatory property searches since the state government sold off its lucrative land titles registry.
Today, the Aussie who founded just one of those companies and has cashed in on the privatisation by almost quadrupling fees from $8.50 to $30, is being feted in Monte Carlo on the French Riviera as our top entrepreneur.
But real estate industry experts say InfoTrack founder and novice Sydney to Hobart yachtsman Christian Beck has simply been handed “a licence to print money” by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
“Property searches should be a service to NSW property owners but instead it has become a highly profitable business for a few lucky companies,” Real Estate Institute of Australia President Malcolm Gunning said.
“We are talking about many millions of transactions and searches that are made in NSW every year.
“The government has handed them a licence to print money.”
The 150-year-old, gold-standard land titles registry earnt the NSW government a guaranteed $130 million a year until it was leased to a private company for $2.6 billion in 2017.
Before it sold off the land titles office the NSW government stopped members of the public from doing online title and property searches and instead forced them to use one of the 10 licensed brokers, including Mr Beck’s InfoTrack, search experts Equifax, SAI Global Property and CITEC Confirm.
The new privatised Land Property Information registry charges just $8.50 per land title search to those companies, which in turn mark up that price for users of their services by as much as 250 per cent.
InfoTrack advertises its title search online at $30, almost double that of rivals Cites and DirectInfo, which are the only others to publicise their fees.
In the lead-up to the privatisation of the registry, which helped fund the state’s ongoing infrastructure overhaul, the NSW government took flak from a number of peak bodies, including the Law Council of Australia, the Real Estate Institute of NSW and the Institution of Surveyors.
At the time of the sale, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said: “This is an industry on the cusp of huge technological advances, and today we have partnered with some of Australia’s most reputable investors who will make sure the people of NSW get the benefit of those advances.”
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However, shadow treasurer Clayton Barr said: “These are simply middle men who are profiting nicely from the changes in practice and pricing. The price was jacked up by the private operators as soon as the government stopped offering the service.
“This is money that is coming out of the pockets of mums and dads who are trying to buy into the property market.
“They will be horrified to know that while they struggle, the government has rubber stamped private operators reaching into their pockets to fund superyachts and houses.”
Mr Beck and wife Belinda Young had no trouble with the property market — last year snapping up a six-bedroom mansion on the Lane Cove River at Longueville for $8.6 million.
Last month they bought the house next door for $4.13 million to increase their waterfront holding to 2200 square metres.
The tech entrepreneur was named Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year for building InfoTrack and legal search engine company LEAP Legal Software into businesses that have experienced revenue soaring from $156 million in 2015 to $231 million this year.
“He shows no signs of stopping,” said judging panel chair Kathy Gramp. “He is a self-made, self-taught serial entrepreneur.”
Today Mr Beck is representing Australia in Monte Carlo’s luxury Fairmont Hotel with winners from 50 other countries for a swanky black tie gala dinner and talks from keynote speakers including supermodel and businesswoman Elle Macpherson.
Mr Beck, who is the son of a lawyer from Parramatta, has amassed a fortune of $619 million.
Speaking from Monte Carlo yesterday he said his search engines were extremely complex and combined data from more than 400 government departments: “If it was easy everybody would be doing it.”
Mr Beck said the $30 fee was for a one-off single search paid by credit card.
Customers who signed up with an InfoTrack account got a much better rate.
“Most of our customers are doing far more searches than that and in that case I don’t think it is more expensive than it has been previously.”
He confirmed the price charged by the land titles office was capped by the government but that it was up to the licensed companies to charge what was competitive in the market.
The point was to make a profit, he said.
Mr Beck spent $1.6 million of that profit buying Sydney to Hobart supermaxi Perpetual Loyal, which he renamed InfoTrack, and managed to race fourth across the finish line in the iconic race in December.