👻 136,278 ghost homes found (just in time for Halloween)

GOOD MORNING FROM ELITE AGENT 👋

TODAY'S FEATURE

Why some teams thrive while others just survive

You'll spend about 90,000 hours at work, on average – yet most people know little more than a name and a few surface details about the person at the next desk. High-performance coach Jet Xavier argues the cost shows up as silos, half-listening, and good ideas that go home unspoken. He names three things that set thriving teams apart. One of his fixes for your next team meeting gets everyone out of their chairs.

What you'll learn in the full article:

• The iceberg principle: Why getting to know the part of your colleagues' lives below the surface builds a "we not me" office, not a "poor me" group therapy session.
• The profiling shortcut: The tool Jet calls the fastest way to improve team communication, and how it turns misunderstandings into healthy conflict conversations.
• The three-person stand-up: A meeting exercise where everyone shares with at least three colleagues before reporting back, so you hear more than the usual voices and nobody hides behind their coffee.

Read the full article →

TOGETHER WITH BUYSECURE

The legal AI boom is hiding a serious insurance problem

It's an easy thing to tell a nervous buyer: use this tool, it'll help you make sense of the contract. BuySecure co-founder Richard Bootle says buyers take that recommendation seriously, and if the AI behind it isn't run by a law firm, it's legal advice with no insurance safety net (and the fallout can land back on the agent who suggested it). Richard's not anti-AI. He just wants agents pointing buyers to tools that are fully insured, compliant, and delivered by actual law firms. Read his full take before you next recommend one.

Learn more →

DEPT OF ECONOMICS

Should mortgage holders carry the whole inflation burden?

If the RBA lifts again in November, the average mortgage will be paying almost $7,000 a year extra from this year's hikes alone. Compare the Market's David Koch thinks borrowers shouldn't wear it all, and wants governments to start picking up the slack. His grey-area read on the latest figures means a hold isn't off the table (we'd take it).

DEPT OF DATA

New home sales slide at Mirvac and Stockland

Just as new supply was gaining momentum, buyers are pulling back – Mirvac sold almost a third fewer homes in the September quarter than a year earlier, and Stockland's lot sales slid too. Affordability improved this quarter (HIA doesn't expect that to last). REIQ's Antonia Mercorella calls it an early warning that today's softer demand could become tomorrow's shortage.

DEPT OF ECONOMICS

Ray White finds 136,278 inactive homes nationally

Just in time for Halloween, Ray White economist Atom Go Tian has counted 136,278 "inactive" dwellings across Australia. The spookiest rates are regional, led by Esperance Surrounds in WA at 11.4%. Rank by sheer numbers, though, and the list turns very Victorian, from holiday spots like Phillip Island to dense inner-city pockets like Docklands.

HOW IT SOLD

How passing on a pre-auction offer paid off

Stephen Jackson of Jackson Rowe gave buyers for a half-block West Ryde house the same comparable sales he'd shown the vendors, so both sides saw the same data. When an acceptable pre-auction offer arrived, he suggested waiting. Two local families took the auction to about 20 bids and a $1.23 million result – roughly 7–8% above that offer.

Find out the story behind how it sold →

AI cannot cite content that was never written. getailsa.com →

CELEBRITY HOMES

Céline Dion's former Florida estate sells off-market

Price cuts happen to everyone – even the Jupiter waterfront estate completed for Céline Dion and René Angélil in 1998. It first hit the market at US$20 million and has now found a private buyer for US$12.5 million (the asking price, it seems, couldn't go on). The ornate private cinema alone is worth the click.

Read the full article →

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Cunninghams welcomes two new partners in an exciting chapter for the business

Cunninghams' two newest partners share more than a love of surfing and the Northern Beaches. Matthew Lemon brings more than 20 years selling across the Beaches, about a decade of it with the agency, while Lochlan Macpherson – 11 years in, a practising auctioneer, and the 2026 ARERA Agent Achiever of the Year – steps up alongside his long-time mate to help shape the business's future.

Building a high-end real estate brand on intuition and integrity Depth over distance has been the plan at Caroline Brown Property for the past five years. Founder Caroline Brown has kept her focus on Brisbane's high-end Inner West, across Bardon, Red Hill, Ashgrove, and Paddington. Her method sounds simple (and takes discipline): listen first, prepare thoroughly, and give clear, honest advice, especially when an important decision can't wait.

REMAX business owners focus on leadership at Gold Coast summit More than 40 business owners, two days at the JW Marriott Gold Coast, and a lot of talk about what it takes to lead in the current market. REMAX Australia's annual Broker Summit heard from coach Ben Crowe, Nine's Chris Kohler, and REMAX The Limitless Group CEO Hayley Van de Ven. Managing director Joel Davoren says the conversations outside the formal agenda were just as valuable.

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AGENTS ON SOCIAL

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TRUE OR FALSE:

There is a seaside village in England called Westward Ho! that is named after a bestselling novel.

And the answer is …

It's true! In 1855 Charles Kingsley finished Westward Ho! (exclamation mark and all), a swashbuckling bestseller about the English fighting the Spanish, set around Bideford in North Devon. He wrote it while renting a house there, and spent his spare time on the nearby pebble ridge, paying quarrymen to shift boulders so he could look at the sea life underneath. The book was so popular that visitors started turning up to see the coast for themselves. In 1863 a group of local businessmen formed a company to build a hotel and villas on that same stretch of coast. Their prospectus thanked "Professor Kingsley's 'Westward Ho'" for the extra attention, and the resort took the book's name, exclamation mark included. Kingsley hated the idea of mass tourism and, so the story goes, fell out with his landlord, resulting in a lifelong silence between them. To this day Westward Ho! is the only town in the UK to officially feature an exclamation point in its name. via Westward Ho! History.