Bid to ban advertising price guides for homes going to auction divides agents

A bid to ban price guides on homes going to auction in Queensland has the industry at loggerheads.

McGrath Estate Agents CEO John McGrath is opposing a proposed ban on auction price guides.

A bid to ban price guides on homes going to auction in Queensland has the property industry at loggerheads.

The debate continues over the State Government’s controversial new legislation for the real estate industry as the deadline for a parliamentary report into the issue looms.

The Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee heard submissions on the laws from a range of industry experts last week, with the group planning to report their findings by February 24.

Although most of the Bill’s changes have been supported by the industry at large, the proposal to ban advertising price guides for homes going to auction in the state has divided agents.

Premier Campbell Newman told a cheering audience at the Real Estate Institute of Queensland Awards for Excellence gala last Friday night that the Property Occupations Bill was only a few weeks away and would get rid of “heaps of red tape”

“I hope you can see reform is coming,” he said.

Speaking before the committee, REIQ General Counsel Antonia Mercorella said the peak body supported the ban on price guides.

“The pure form of auction is that a vendor chooses that method so that the public can determine what the value of that property is rather than imposing a figure on it at the outset, which may be too high or too low,” she said

“So really it is about returning to the point of an auction, which is to let the market decide what the value of that property actually is.”

Ms Mercorella said most of its members approved of the opposed ban.

“We have acknowledged in our submission to this committee that there is some opposition to those provisions,” she said.

“However, it is our experience that the majority of our membership actually does support those provisions.”

But some agents across the state have disagreed, with Doug Disher Real Estate sales agent Brett Andreassen saying he was against the ban.

“It’s silly when everyone is wanting transparency that we’re trying to make sales less transparent with this law,” he said.

“With a price guide everyone can see it and it is fair.

“It works in Sydney and Melbourne, why wouldn’t it work here?”

McGrath Estate Agents CEO John McGrath told to the committee a ban would hurt buyers and sellers.

“A survey that was conducted 12 months ago indicated that 66 per cent of buyers looking on the largest search portal in Australia — which is realestate.com.au — passed by properties with no price guides,” he said.

“By banning price guides, you not only disadvantage the buyers — because they do not have the information they need to make an informed choice and pursue the properties they wish — you also disadvantage the seller because you are potentially losing half of their buyers in the marketplace.

“In fact, if we were to mandate or change any legislation, I would encourage you to consider making price guides mandatory for auctions, not prohibiting them, because only then will agents have to be transparent so that when they sit down with a vendor to list a property they will need to have an open and honest conversation about what the property may fetch.”

Mr McGrath said claims price guides had a negative impact on sales were false.

“I sold 8000 properties last year and I can tell you that is not the case,” he said.

“It actually has the opposite effect because it encourages more qualified buyers to pursue

the property rather than miss it.

”Even if that were the case, again respectfully, is that really our job as a government and legislator to tell people the best way to sell their property? Isn’t that really

a choice we should leave to them?”