Real estate agents in Queensland operate under the Property Occupations Act (POA) of 2014
Real estate agents in Queensland operate under the Property Occupations Act (POA) of 2014, much welcomed governing legislation that separated real estate agents from motor dealers, as was previously the case under the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act (PAMDA) of 2000. Given I was in primary school at the time PAMDA came in, I couldn’t tell you off-hand what the previous legislation to that was but there is every chance it was drafted on a typewriter (or carved in stone tablets).
The relevance to all this is that until now, an agent that began their career and obtained their licence (and continued to pay their renewal fees) under ANY ONE of those pieces of legislature (including the hallowed stone tablets) has had no further requirement for further learning (continuing professional development or CPD) since the day it was received. From 1973 to 2023, no more classrooms, assignments or another word of tutelage required. This is in stark contrast to just about every other profession – be it accountant, lawyer, financial planner (or candlestick maker?). That’s pretty crazy stuff when you think about it.
This isn’t to say that a huge number of agents don’t seek to self-educate and improve on their own steam – there are of course plenty of us that do, either through membership of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ), regular updates from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) or any number of other training organisations. But there is no-one with a stick there to make sure that you do your homework and are up to date on carrying out a business that handles hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of other people’s money.
In the past week however, we have seen the first glimmers that this may change, and frankly I think it would be a change for the better, as the QLD government has taken on an overwhelming level of feedback calling for CPD to be introduced to the real estate industry.
Now this isn’t here just yet, and there is still work to be done to nut out the form it will take and of course the costs of delivery (not too many free lunches going around these days) but it is absolutely a step in the right direction to ensuring that agents have the level of knowledge expected of them by a general public that puts their home, livelihood or investment in someone’s hands.
The bar of entry to the real estate industry isn’t particularly high, but anything that puts professional back into the mix is worth having.