Before the Weekend ☀️

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through a heavy week - a market softening on every front, renters at their ceiling and the courts finally catching up with some of the industry’s worst operators.First, the numbers. The Melbourne Cup Day rate hike takes the cash rate to 4.85 per cent, capital city days on market have stretched to 39 - the longest since August 2020 - and median vendor discounting has hit 4.7 per cent. Westpac is forecasting a further 11 per cent fall in national house prices, while REA reports distressed listings up 42 per cent year on year.Then the rental market. Vacancy has hit a five-year high of 2.4 per cent, annual rental growth has slowed to 5.2 per cent and advertised rental listings are up 8 per cent year on year. Kasey takes it back to Tim Lawless of Cotality, who told the show in May that renters were already at their affordability ceiling. Perth is cooling fastest, while Queensland stays tight with average tenancies stretching to 21 months.Then the privacy deadline property managers can’t ignore. From 10 December, new Privacy Act rules on automated decision-making cover any pre-programmed, rule-based program that scores rental applicants - and the explanatory memorandum names an Excel spreadsheet. Peter’s verdict: “That’s a sledge at the property management industry if I’ve ever seen one.”Then the portal wars reach court. A judge has ordered REA Group to substantiate its “nine in ten buyers” claim in Domain’s lawsuit, and Peter makes the argument nobody else is making - REA blocks AI from scraping its site, so buyers searching with AI are finding homes somewhere else.Then the Bank of Mum and Dad. With capital city values down 8.1 per cent since March, parent guarantors face a $50,000 exposure, upgraders on bridging finance are watching their homes sit for 39-plus days, and the last two hikes have taken 55 Victorian suburbs out of reach for the average borrower.Then the story of the week. QCAT has banned Venetia Story from real estate for life after finding she ran a trust account before her company held a corporate licence, drew a flat $6,000 a month from it and added GST on top of GST-inclusive commissions. A full Federal Court bench has since declared her a vexatious litigant after 24 proceedings in seven years, and she has been removed as executor of her father’s estate.Also this week: Place launches a 200-home auction blitz after 3 in 4 Brisbane auctions failed, Phil Parker calls for random drug testing of agents, NSW Fair Trading puts PMs on its 2026-27 compliance target list, three agents are charged over the alleged kidnapping and robbery of a tradesman, Fair Work upholds the sacking of a CBA lending executive over a secret referral web, and the REIQ Awards honour Tenancy Skills Institute, McGrath North Lakes and Kollosche.

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through episode 25 - a quarter century of Fridays - fresh from the First National PMC on the Gold Coast, with Kasey calling in from New Zealand’s PMC. After listener feedback, the show is now split in two: property management first, then sales.The warm-up: another rate rise expected next week, Cotality’s October numbers (new listings down 9.2 per cent, stock up 23 per cent, days on market out from 23 to 39), NAB’s rent roll valuation warning as 15 to 20 per cent of property professionals reportedly leave, a Victorian suspension for six years of unlodged trust audits, NSW’s 21-day pet approval by silence, and Darwin rents up $4,680 a year.On the property management desk, Ray White’s 136,000 “ghost homes” landed the same week Perth and Hobart sit at 0.9 per cent vacancy. Peter defends the right to a second home but argues unrenovated and below-standard stock could be brought back with finance for minimum-standards upgrades; Kasey on compliance costs and tax changes. Then REIWA’s Suzanne Brown on WA’s new application rules, which bar PMs from asking about tribunal history, bond claims and credit - turning tenant selection into a race of income. And Airbnb’s checkout chore ban: why Peter quit the platform, and Kasey’s case for BDMs to start prospecting fed-up short-stay owners now.On the sales desk, an investor note on Real Brokerage’s US$880 million takeover of RE/MAX - an 85/15 cloud model inside the same group as a traditional franchise, shares down from $24 to $15 - and why Peter thinks agency software is about to change irrevocably regardless. Then Leanne Pilkington and Sam Dalby on NSW’s proposed underquoting rules, where a vendor who rejected an early offer and then fell seriously ill can’t advertise below that figure. Peter’s fix: give the rejected buyer first right of refusal. Plus AI contract review tools with no legal PI cover, three in four Brisbane auctions failing, a former banker’s email brag sinking his bid to exit a $7.5 million apartment over a $171-a-week strata rise, and six half-built Brighton homes in receivership.From the courts: Gold Coast veteran Greg Bell’s licence cancelled after he failed to disclose his bankruptcy - neither host is celebrating the end of a 49-year career. QCAT’s appeal decision in Burlington Realty v Farmer and Farmer holds PMs to a professional standard at tribunal and rejects the “tenant should have had contents insurance” defence. And a former Lake Macquarie principal facing a six-week trial over alleged sexual assaults of staff - allegations only - and the case for independent people-and-culture reporting lines in agencies.To finish: Cunninghams promoting two 20-year team members to partner, and Kartavya Thakkar turning around a stale Tarneit listing to sell prior to auction.Before the Weekend is a weekly podcast for Australian property professionals, hosted by Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade. New episodes every Friday.

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through a Victorian industry bracing for 28 November - Peter reports from the REIV Awards for Excellence at Crown, where the talk at every table was a Labor-Greens deal, Gabrielle de Vietri’s landlord licences and three-strikes ban, a two-year rent freeze, and the first full week of seven-day reserve price disclosure. Melbourne auction volumes fell to a three-year low (Cotality under 500, realestate.com.au 452, down around 60% year on year) as vendors set defensively high reserves and buyers pushed back at the kerb.Peter picks up his Elite Agent piece “Using a brain to hold a pen” alongside a UK Alto survey of 250 agents: 67% use AI for listing descriptions, 4% for sales progression, 5% for compliance. Why MCP makes open connectivity the floor for proptech vendors in 2027, and why agents are still using a brain to hold a pen.The agency shakeout: 15-20% of property professionals reportedly leaving as days on market blow out, Canberra Commercial and Canberra Strata in liquidation, and agents who have never had to negotiate a sale.Kasey’s mailbag: NSW Fair Trading’s first Landlord Terminations report - 85% of tenancies ended by the tenant, 15% by landlord notice, and of those 28% owner or family moving in, 20% proposed sale, 14% sold, 11% arrears, 10% renovations. Plus two in five property managers open to alternatives to the trust account, the REINSW and Fair Trading payment-redirection scam working group, InvestorKit’s merger of Four Acre Financial and Source Financial, and the Perth listing that disclosed its AI-staged photos and sold for $1.25m.Also: the Freshwater pink paint parking vigilante, Polly the miniature schnauzer, SMSFs pivoting to commercial, and best wishes to Ajay Malik of Artier Property Group.

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through what's happening in real estate behind closed doors - the stories that don't make the vendor pack.Peter shares the calls he's taken this week from principals of high-quality, award-winning agencies doing it tough, including one who has never seen the buyer tap turn off like this - 42 open homes, zero people through. The hosts pay tribute to Sunshine Coast agent Adam Dunlop and make the case for checking in on your mates, your principal, your property managers, your clients and even your competitors. The Rise Initiative's free Real Care app, with three confidential counselling sessions, gets a strong recommendation, alongside Charles Tarbey's reminder that agents are not responsible for market conditions.The cashflow crunch: Brisbane early clearance rates at 20%, more than a quarter of stock now stale as days on market blows out from 23 to 39, Domain taking a developer to the NSW Supreme Court for a winding-up, and Kasey on agency mergers as an alternative to liquidation.The rent roll trap: Marshall White's Anthony Wiseman on buyers and valuers stripping non-compliant properties out of rent roll valuations, Cara Bergmann's $24,000 arrears case from cut-price PM teams, why discounting management fees is the wrong play, REEF CEO Bryan Wilcox on what a federal ban on non-competes could do to agency client books, and the annual principal-to-owner call as a retention strategy.Compliance and Victoria: the hidden risk of DIY AML compliance, scammers impersonating AUSTRAC, and Kasey's week on the ground in Victorian agencies - bond claims now requiring notice and evidence, the application fee ban, two-yearly gas and electrical checks, energy efficiency standards on the way, and investors telling PMs to put them onto a salesperson. Plus ex-rentals making up 40% of Melbourne sales listings, the Greens' landlord licence proposal, Victoria's $1 billion land tax shortfall, Cotality's Bend It Like Buyers report (4.9% is the rate buyers say would bring them back; only 27% can comfortably afford upfront costs) and a rapid-fire wrap on investors shifting to new builds and commercial.If you or someone you work with is doing it tough: Real Care app (realcare-app.com.au), Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, Small Business Debt Helpline 1800 413 828.All links from this episode are at beforetheweekend.com.

This week on Before the Weekend, Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade work through a week where the rental market finally said what Tim Lawless told them in March: tenants have no elasticity left.First, the Domain September quarter rent report. Capital-city house rents were flat at $700 a week despite a 1 per cent vacancy rate, Sydney and Canberra recorded their first quarterly falls in two years, and the Gold Coast is the most expensive city in the country for houses at $920 a week. Peter does the minimum-wage arithmetic - $26.44 an hour, about $1,000 a week, $920 to rent - and Kasey’s message to property managers is to get to street-level data, present the facts to landlords, and think about who stays housed rather than who pays the most.Then PropertyMe. The platform 6,500 agencies run on has released an external MCP server, AiMe Connect, so users on the Advanced tier and above can ask Claude or ChatGPT questions of their live portfolio data. Peter explains what a Model Context Protocol server actually is, why he calls it the new gold standard for proptech, why “we’ve got one but haven’t released it” doesn’t count, and what to ask any vendor who claims to have AI. Kasey walks through what it changes for a property manager’s Monday.Then Victoria’s next tranche of rental law, starting Monday 13 October: evidence and advance notice for every bond claim, records proving minimum standards on request from Consumer Affairs, gas and electrical checks extended to tenancies that began before March 2021, and a ban on application and rent-tech fees. Kasey has the list; Peter’s ask of every state is the same - talk to the industry first. From there to New South Wales, where minimum energy-efficiency rental standards are under consideration and a Renew report puts the landlord’s cost at $15,000 to $34,000 a property.LJ Hooker has become the exclusive distributor of OHOME, a factory-built two-bedroom backyard dwelling at around $250,000 installed, assessed online against the owner’s lot. Neither host can recall a franchise doing anything like it. Both think it’s smart.On the Gold Coast, a six-bedroom Mermaid Waters house that is 80 per cent built has gone to market as a mortgagee-in-possession sale, with APRA data showing interest-only loans at 23.5 per cent of new lending, the highest since 2019. And a Main Beach agency principal has pleaded guilty to two domestic-violence offences and been fined $3,500 with no conviction recorded - which, as Peter points out, is the detail that keeps his Queensland licence.Then Kasey’s favourite television program. The Victorian government has confirmed it sold the heritage-listed Sunbury asylum site to The Block for $1 million, with no public campaign, on a Valuer-General-certified valuation. Peter doesn’t accept it and says so.Also this week: congratulations to Rob Mandanici, the new president of REIWA, and thanks to outgoing president Suzanne Brown for her service; and an Irvine, California agent arrested at LAX, alleged to have been acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.Before the Weekend is a weekly podcast for Australian property professionals, hosted by Kasey McDonald and Peter Schravemade. New episodes every Friday.