REIV Cops A Lashing From APM
OPINIONby Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B
Real Estate Consumer Advocate
Real Estate Lawyer
Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria
Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd
Australian Property Monitors (APM) has hit out at the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV), the peak body for real estate agents in Victoria, over what APM describes as “unethical and misleading” behaviour on the part of the REIV.
According to APM:
“The REIV for a long time have been desperately keen to be the one voice on the Victorian property market. Indeed, they have gone so far in their goal to be the one voice that they pressure their member real estate agents not to provide auction results to our company.”
It appears that APM intends to even things up:
“Well APM has had enough of this rubbish. As of this Saturday, APM will be publishing in full all Melbourne auction results as one report on domain.com.au and on homepriceguide.com.au AHEAD of the print publications. So for those who want to know what really happened at the auction and they want to know fast, they can find out Saturday evening for the day’s results instead of waiting the next day; simply by going to Australia’s premier real estate listing site,domain.com.au or our ownHomePriceGuide.com.au.”
Self-serving statistics and market analysis from the REIV have long been a problem for consumers. Let’s see if the REIV vs APM clash will have positive results for the real estate industry as whole.
Full details of the article in the Home Price Guide Newsletter are reproduced below:
“APM launches new offensive in Melbourne
For too long, Melbourne residents have been receiving a biased side of the story on their local property market, fed by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) and published by the local print newspapers. Headlines of “Boom times for Melbourne property” were common place, even as the reverse was true.
The REIV for a long time have been desperately keen to be the one voice on the Victorian property market. Indeed, they have gone so far in their goal to be the one voice that they pressure their member real estate agents not to provide auction results to our company. Their actual goal was to knock APM out of supplying auction results to The Age and ensure that only the REIV could supply results.
Unfortunately in late 2004 they succeeded in their quest amid rumours of making a veiled threat to senior executives at The Age that the paper’s real estate advertising revenues might come under pressure.
For those that don’t know, the REIV are a membership body that represent real estate agents.
Their motives in these actions have been two fold. One, to reduce the level of bad news in the market place by controlling the information provided to the media. And two, to make a profit out of the data by reselling it back to real estate agents.
In my opinion, this is grossly unethical behaviour. Real estate news and information should be feely available, independent and not subject to a conflict of interest. And agents should be free (and obligated) to give data back to anyone and not be a pawn of anti-competitive behaviour.
But it wouldn’t be the first time the REIV have acted in an unethical manner. Oh no. When anti-dummy laws were being proposed in Victoria, The REIV fought tooth and nail against anti-dummy bidding laws.
Its CEO, Enzo Raimondo, in an interview on ABC Radio, once said, “I’m not sure what is meant by dummy bids. I haven’t heard anyone explain to me what a dummy bid is.”
What a disgrace.
Well APM has had enough of this rubbish. As of this Saturday, APM will be publishing in full all Melbourne auction results as one report on domain.com.au and on homepriceguide.com.au AHEAD of the print publications. So for those who want to know what really happened at the auction and they want to know fast, they can find out Saturday evening for the day’s results instead of waiting the next day; simply by going to Australia’s premier real estate listing site, domain.com.au or our own homepriceguide.com.au.
In order to ensure readers will receive all of the Melbourne results, APM will now be sending out on-site reporters to all the auctions where agents have been boycotting APM. Previously, we were just collecting results on a percentage of these uncooperative agents. Now it will be all of them. So whether the REIV and some of its inner circle of crooked agents like it or not, there will be independent information given to the public.
One thing you will notice immediately is how misleading the REIV results are in the paper. Our reporters to date have found many errors published by the REIV on auction results. A number of these “errors” includes auctions passed in at the event on a lower bid or vendor, only to be reported by the REIV at a higher bid.
I can happily tell you that this will be a permanent effort, no matter how many agents boycott us. That said, there have been more and more agents disregarding orders from the REIV and providing results to APM. It is becoming clearer that there is a growing body of agents who don’t prescribe to the REIV’s point of view and consider of value to not be associated with this organisation. Who can blame them?
For those of you who receive this newsletter, you will now be receiving another newsletter Saturday evening with the national results. I hope you like them. If a second newsletter is too much for you, just hit the unsubscribe button.”
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