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Brendan Wong
A recent survey has found most agents have mixed views about the quality of new-to-industry recruits.
According to a recent straw poll by Real Estate Business, 58.4 per cent of 209 respondents rated the quality of new agents entering the industry as average.
This was followed by 25.8 per cent of respondents who said new agents were poor, 12.4 per cent who said agents were good, and a tiny 3.3 per cent who said they were excellent.
CEO of LJ Hooker Georg Chmiel said he was surprised by the results as he was very happy with the quality of new agents entering his network.
“What I’m seeing is more sales agents entering the space are quite internet and social media savvy, which is fantastic, and who also understand the power of database marketing, who often have some strong sales experience in real estate or other industries, so I find the quality rather increasing and improving," he said.
CEO of Belle Property Peter Hanscomb shared the same sentiment as a majority of respondents to the straw poll.
“This is because of the training that’s provided to them before they come into the business. There’s certainly good people coming into the business, but their level of skills going through general training could be a lot better,” he said.
“I’ve always been a believer that there should be a higher level of training for new people coming into the business.”
He added that the standard of entry for agents also needed to be higher.
“The things people have to do to get a certificate don’t make them efficient at being an agent," he said. "They complete a technical set of questions but that doesn’t make them able to be good real estate agents.”
CEO of Harcourts NSW and chairman of Young Professionals in Real Estate Rob Forde agreed with Mr Hamscomb that entry requirements for real estate were low.
He said Harcourts had a stringent process when bringing new agents into the franchise and that the focus was hiring based on attitudes.
“You can teach the skills set but you need to right person who’s going to be the right fit for the company,” he said.
“I think it’s critical that when people are brought into the business the days of the ‘here’s the phonebook, here’s the phone, go out and make all those calls’ are gone.
“You really need to have a structure in place that enables people to succeed because the last thing you want to do is set people up for failure.”
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