If you are a regular listener, you may be familiar with my views about an Australian company called Open Agent. Well, Mark Armstrong from Rate My Agent – a similar site - has heard what I have had to say and will join me shortly to talk about why he says his company is different and they can't all be lumped in the same basket… more on that soon.

Strata laws are changing and they will have an impact on the millions of people living in strata properties in NSW. The new strata laws take effect from the end of this month – November 2016 so if you own a Strata property in New South Wales you will need to understand the changes and we give you an overview today. Also these laws are likely to spill over into other Aussie states.

Stephen Walters - former chief economist for JPMorgan and now working for the Australian Institute of Company Directors says prices of apartments will fall 10 per cent to 15 per cent over the next one to two years, squeezing buy-to-let investors who have borrowed to negative gear and are heavily relying on capital gains. It is going to get ‘ugly’ he says and we ask for more information on where, what, when and how.

This week we feature a chat with social researcher Mark McCrindle and ask what it is about his job – analyzing and commenting on our behaviours and market trends – that has influenced how he has viewed property investing.

As with any investment, real estate has its good, bad and average performing assets and if you’re not careful, you could easily end up with a property investment lemon. The best way to uncover an underperforming asset, before it eats too far into your bottom line, is to annually review your portfolio and ask yourself some hard questions. Michael Yardney details those in this show.

You will find us at iTunes under podcasts as Real Estate Talk. Listen there for free, leave a review which helps us grow and tells us what you like and how we can improve the show. Don’t forget to subscribe at the site as well –even if you do get the show through iTunes - so that we can tell you about the bonus offers we make to subscribers. Your questions are welcome through the site as well.

 
Transcripts:
"Not all third part sites are the same as Open Agent" - Mark Armstrong
Kevin:  You know the old saying, “Oils ain’t oils”? They’re not all the same. We’ve been guilty in this show of branding all of the third-party sites the same. I’ve been a particular critic of sites like Open Agent and even Local Agent Finder, for the main reason that they report to being something that they’re not or that they say that they will do something for the consumer that they don’t.

In the process of putting this spray out and carrying a lot of material, we also mentioned Rate My Agent. In my opening, I said oils ain’t oils. It’s been pointed out to me that Rate My Agent is not the same as the others. The CEO for that site, Mark Armstrong, joins me.

Good day, Mark.

Mark:  Good day, Kevin.

Kevin:  Oils ain’t oils, and you pointed out to me that your site is different. How is it different?

Mark:  The major difference is that Rate My Agent is not a referral website. Our business model is to never ask agents to share their commission with us and essentially, sell leads to agents. There are two fundamental reasons why we will never ask agents to share their commission with us.

The first one is that we don’t want to be in competition with real estate agents. We’re here to complement the industry and help promote good agent and good agency practice. We’re not here to compete with agents. If we asked agents to share their commission with us, we would simply be in a competition with them to get to the vendor first, and that’s not our job.

The second reason – probably more important for us – is independence is our greatest asset. If we were to ask an agent to share their commission with us, we would cease to become independent in the eyes of a consumer.