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Mike Green, recently reappointed as the managing director of Harcourts, has offered a scathing assessment of the Australian real estate industry’s leadership.
Mike Green joined Grace Ormsby on a recent episode of the Secrets of the Top 100 Agents podcast to discuss his resumption of the top job at Harcourts — which he gave up in 2019 having previously spent 20 years in the role. However, Mr Green also took the chance to take aim at industry leadership, with emphasis placed on the lack of unity that exists.
“My major frustrations here in Australia is just how fragmented we are as an industry, and especially around the leadership,” he professed.
“We’ve got the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA), the premier leadership body for Australia and yet not all states are members,” taking aim at the infighting between the organisation and the Real Estate of Queensland (REIQ), which have not been a member of the national body since 2015 — when they cited exuberant $260,000 annual membership fee as a primary reason behind their separation — and remain the only non-member state or territory.
As recently as July, the REIQ accused the national body of bullying in relation to its independence, alleging how the REIA has attempted to paint Queensland’s leading body in a negative light.
It is his belief that the “REIA sticking a director into Queensland because Queensland don’t want to be members, it’s just poking the bear.”
“And they’re going to keep poking the bear and they wonder why we’re not getting any further,” he said.
The Harcourts executive explained how each state has a singular focus towards government lobbying and legislation, which he admits has a “real purpose,” yet he questions the REIA and “why that’s the leadership body for the industry when it doesn’t even represent the industry.”
“It’s [the REIA] brief isn’t wide enough,” he added, touching on how the state-based institutes are “very parochial, as they would say they should be. But that doesn’t help in terms of a national picture.”
“We’ve got the franchisors and we are doing what we do and trying to deliver best value and then have people join us and stay with us.
“Often, we compete with the institutes around some of the services,” he conceded, acknowledging the number of these franchisors that operate on a national scale.
“And then you’ve got a whole lot of independents.”
Listen to the full conversation with Mike Green here.
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