It still amazes me the number of real estate professionals that I see shying away from technology. In this new online world that we live in today, most real estate consumers are internet and tech savvy. The tips below are for those real estate professionals that may shy away from technology but those that already using technology on a day to day basis may find some value in them. Some just involve tweaking what you are doing now with no cost involved.

Here are a couple of basic things you should be considering:

1. To start with, if you do not already have a smart phone you should get one. Yes there are still people out there without one. There are many benefits of using a smart phone and if you are starting out my recommendation is an iPhone as they are pretty simple to use.
2. If you have not yet engaged in Social Media you need to start. This could be as simple as creating a personal Facebook page and getting a feel and understanding of what it is all about. We did a presentation on social media to the Directors of a fairly large real estate office a couple of months ago. The presentation was kept simple and at the end the response was “We will look into it at a later date”
3. So you have a web site for your office but is it mobile friendly? What does it look like when someone visits it on a mobile device? I have already spoken about getting a smart phone but did you know that the amount of traffic to web sites from mobile devices is quickly catching that from the normal computer.
4. You are probably communicating with your clients in different ways today, via email, social media and SMS. Regardless of the communication method, communications should always be professional with correct grammar and spelling. This especially applies to SMS, do not abbreviate words, if you are going to take the time to send a message do it properly or wait until you have time to do it.
5. Most agents have an email signature on their desktop email account but what about your smart phone or tablet device? You should have an email signature on every device that you send email from. This just makes it easier for your client to get in contact should they wish to communicate via another method, these days this could be phone, mobile, SMS or social media.

The above tips are about presenting a professional level of service to your clients and if you are not on the same level then how can you expect to service them professionally. Hope they helped!

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) National Licensing Steering Committee has now released the Decision Regulation Impact Statements (RISs) for the first wave of national licensing occupations.

A Decision RIS is normally considered a final policy document; however, as I spoke about in my last blog post following the COAG decision of April this year to allow for additional state-based consultation, the options recommended in each Decision RIS are not agreed policy.

The Decision RIS for the Property occupations can be found here.

Once the consultation process has been advised for NSW I will post a further update.

Last Friday I attended a briefing by the National Occupational Licensing Authority (NOLA) on National Licencing prior to the release of the Decision RIS which is expected on the week beginning the 15^th July 2013.

While we have been pushing for the real estate profession to be moved to the second tranche of national licensing but according to NOLA we will still be included in the first wave.

In regards to some of the issues that we have raised in the past, it is suggested that the Decision RIS will include:

• No Age requirements
• Entry level of Certificate IV for real estate agents
• No separate licence for rural sales
• Most likely a separate licence for business agents
• Changes to personal probity requirements
• No compulsory CPD and NOLA will  dictate training on an as needed basis
• A cut-off level for commercial transactions at which above there will be no licence required.

The States and Territories will all be conducting consultation with industry and stakeholders (in a variety of different forms) from mid-July until the end of August. We understand that the NSW Fair Trading has indicated they will do this via an on-line survey.  We feel this approach leaves a lot to be desired but this also depends on how it is structured. This will probably be one of the last opportunities we have to get our message across and while the Decision RIS will not be amended by the consultation process the actual policy may be.

It is currently proposed that national licensing for the real estate industry will commence on 1 December 2014.

Once we have access to the Decision RIS I will provide a further update.