There’s no cheap, fast path to proper education: REINSW

You’ll find courses for less than $200. It just screams “quality”! Many will advertise they can be completed “at your own pace”. That’s code for “very quick and with minimal effort”.

Then consider that around 80 per cent of people entering the industry leave in the first 12 months.

It’s a huge level of churn that points directly to the inappropriate education and training delivered by some accredited real estate training organisations.

Inadequate real estate training is failing consumers, agents and businesses, and the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) believes there’s an urgent need for a vast improvement in standards. It’s one of various issues we are lobbying NSW Fair Trading to fix.

We need a fix because the system by which agents are educated and trained is broken. The 80 per cent figure is proof of this.

When companies compete on a cheaper and faster basis, quality is the most unlikely outcome.

When new agents trained on this basis enter the industry, they have no idea of its complexity. They are unskilled in the sensitivities of working on large financial transactions, the compliance and regulations they must adhere to, nor what represents best practice.

The majority fail, and quickly, too. The consumers they represent are poorly served. The businesses employing them are left in the lurch.

It’s unfair to all stakeholders. It means many aspiring agents never progress to actually working with customers in a meaningful way, so they never get the chance to build a career.

A real estate agent is required to have a working knowledge of 22 pieces of legislation. There are no shortcuts to a legal career.

It should be the same for real estate. Indeed, it is supposed to be. Registered training organisations in our industry are required by the Australian Skills Quality Authority to demonstrate that students have completed and understood all units of competency to obtain the Certificate IV in Real Estate.

These units should take approximately 700 nominal hours to complete. A satisfactory understanding of trust accounting alone takes about 50 hours.

Training organisations that charge a few hundred dollars to usher unequipped people through the course are not properly taking their students through the unit contents. They are not making students research the material and complete assessments to demonstrate their knowledge. These are core adult education learning principles, and they are not being adhered to.

In doing so, these companies are letting their students down. We have had young agents call our helpline and when we reference their obligations under the Property and Stock Agents Act, they respond, “What’s that?”. It’s unacceptable.

There’s legislation and there’s also communication.

The best agents are the best communicators. Effective communication skills are among the most important attributes an agent must possess. But communication is a science of its own, and not something that can be understood – let alone learnt – in a fast-tracked, faceless online forum.

REINSW training covers effective communication techniques tied to the essential legislative knowledge they must possess. It includes a skills assessment with a mandatory video component which students must complete involving real-life role play scenarios requiring them to demonstrate in practice the communication skills they have learnt.

Recognition of Prior Learning is another loophole dodgy training operators exploit to fast-track their students through a real estate course. Certainly, as an example, customer service skills gained through retail experience might be transferable. But an aspiring agent must be able to prove they can apply these skills in a real estate context, not simply have these skills “checked off” as being acceptable.

REINSW is a leader in artificial intelligence, and we encourage our students to utilise AI as a learning tool, along with research, role play and other principles of adult education. But we also use AI checkers to ensure students are not relying on AI to do the work for them. If our AI tech shows a student’s work overuses AI, we reject it.

It’s best for the student in the long run, and this is the point.

There’s also a human aspect to consider. Everyone’s different and, indeed, individuality is crucial for agents. It’s a people-business, and buyers and vendors naturally feel more comfortable working with certain personalities. But every individual learns at a different pace.

We need to ensure that people new to the industry have the core skills and knowledge they need to perform to an entry-level expectation. Like a young person not permitted behind the wheel until they’ve passed their driving test, a competency exam should be introduced, with a certificate achieved by only those who pass.

Training with the REINSW means agents will be required to sit written assessments. We have a 30 per cent re-submission rate. It’s not about making it hard for students for the sake of it. It’s about making sure they’re ready to work in a high-pressure environment in which there’s lots at stake. It’s about giving them the confidence to do so.

Demanding more of the training organisations serving the real estate industry is about securing better outcomes for people interested in a real estate career and better outcomes for consumers, too.

It’s also about helping small businesses, which should be able to rely on a certain level of competency when hiring from a competitive talent pool.

My message to people considering a career in real estate is – if you want to be successful – to invest in yourself. Don’t look for short cuts, seek knowledge instead. The more knowledge and experience you have, the more value you will bring to the transaction. Let that distinguish you from your competitors.

If you are going to climb to the top, you need to take the stairs, not the lift.

Tim McKibbin is the chief executive officer of Real Estate Institute of NSW.