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GOOD MORNING FROM ELITE AGENT 👋 Good morning, and welcome to The Brief for Friday 25 September 2026. You've been meaning to figure out AI agents for months. You nod along when someone says agentic AI. You opened Claude Code once and closed it straight away. What you need is to build confidence alongside other people learning AI too. Transform starts Thursday, with $5,000 in cash prizes thanks to PropertyMe. Register here → |
TRUE OR FALSE? Germany's Erbbaurecht – a hereditary building right that lets you own a building on someone else's land – often runs for 99 years, and can be passed down to your heirs. (Scroll to the bottom for the answer!) |
In today's edition of The Brief - Zero to 352 managements in under three years, without buying a single one – why Lenny Bellinger runs his rent roll like a sales campaign.
- OpenAI is testing ads you can chat with – Sam wonders what that could look like for a listing.
- Keira Knightley, Queen Noor, and Freddie Mercury's sister all lived on this London terrace, where a £11.5m duplex just listed – the private four-acre garden probably helped.
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TODAY'S FEATURE  The rent roll built like a sales campaignZero to 352 properties in under three years – without buying a single existing management. Lenny Bellinger and Michelle Stephens deliberately started their property management department from scratch when they took over their OBrien office in 2024, choosing to learn on 40 properties rather than risk mistakes on 500. What they built looks nothing like a typical rent roll. |
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What you'll learn in the full article: - The breakeven bet: why Lenny is happy to run rentals at a loss during the growth phase, and the $25,000 commission that shows what poor service actually costs.
- The sales-to-rentals transplant: how moving one person out of a sales team, rather than hiring a separate department, changed the way open homes and pricing conversations were run.
- The fire fast, hire slow rule: the staffing call the office made at 300 properties, and why Lenny would rather be short-staffed than keep the wrong fit.
Read the full article → |
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TOGETHER WITH OPENAGENT  What 9,000 conversations a month have taught us about seller intentSome of OpenAgent's most promising sellers sound like the least promising ones on the phone. Grant Patrick, the company's Head of Sales, says the team has learned to look past enthusiasm and listen for something quieter: whether a homeowner can actually describe what happens next. "You would normally think that highly engaged, motivated, participating, they're your winners," Grant says. "But the ones that are quiet, withdrawn, not answering your questions, they are also sellers." That's the thinking behind OpenAgent's approach to qualifying leads before they ever reach you – 12 minutes, on average, spent understanding motivation and timing so the agent starts the first call with context, not a cold introduction. Take a look at how those 9,000 monthly conversations are changing what a warm referral looks like. Learn more → |
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DEPT OF PM  Start with the investor’s planAn owner preparing for retirement may want something different from one building a larger portfolio. At PM/ONE, DiJones’s Pamela Medeiros explained how annual reviews connect rental returns and maintenance to each client’s goals – and how her team is building the skills for those conversations. |
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DEPT OF MARKETING  The ad you can talk toOpenAI is testing Sponsored Agents in the US: click an ad in ChatGPT and you can chat with an AI that represents the business. Samantha McLean wonders what that might look like if the ad were for a house – body corporate fees, floor plans, inspections after five. There's no property version or Australian rollout yet, so nothing to do today. It's an interesting one to think through, though, including where a person still makes the difference. |
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DEPT OF LENDING  Builders warn tax changes could shrink rental supplyMirvac's development boss says new supply could fall sharply within six months, and Master Builders Australia thinks tax changes are making things worse. Its submission to the social housing inquiry argues May's budget changes to negative gearing and super borrowing will push up rents and send more renters toward social housing. New-home sales just posted a fourth straight monthly fall, down 10% in August. |
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HOW IT SOLD  A relaunched campaign sold a stalled listing in weeksAfter three months without a result, Locky Sadioura changed the open home times and matched the Edmondson Park property against his buyer database. A buyer from Oran Park, drawn by the 600-square-metre block, paid the deposit the same day the offer was accepted. Find out the story behind how it sold → Is your name invisible to AI? Start getting published. getailsa.com → |
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CELEBRITY HOMES  Keira Knightley's old London terrace has a £11.5m duplex for saleThe famous names on this Hyde Park Gardens terrace read like a who's who – Keira Knightley, Queen Noor of Jordan, and Freddie Mercury's sister have all called it home. This three-bedroom duplex comes with a private staircase to a four-acre garden reserved just for owners, plus 14ft ceilings and Calacatta marble bathrooms. Yes, there's a built-in barbecue kitchen on the terrace too. Read the full article → |
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MOVERS & SHAKERS  Shane Kempton joins Elders as WA residential managerShane Kempton joins Elders Real Estate as State Residential Real Estate Manager, bringing more than three decades of industry and leadership experience, as well as a background in the Australian Army and leadership coaching. He'll work alongside the existing WA leadership team on performance and capability development, part of what Elders describes as a period of expansion for the network.  Ray White Canberra Group acquires Cream ResidentialChris Wilson has spent more than 35 years across Canberra real estate, sitting on the REIACT board since 2015 and taking on the presidency in May 2026. Now he's bringing his team and Cream Residential's roughly 380 managed properties, built over 29 years as a family business, into Ray White Canberra Group's Manuka office from 1 November 2026, pushing the group's residential portfolio past $3 billion. |
 Barry Plant agent to sell third Home for a Cure propertyRomi Sleiman is back on the rostrum for My Room Children's Cancer Charity, taking his third consecutive Home for a Cure campaign to auction after first putting his hand up in 2024. The Barry Plant Craigieburn agent has a Donnybrook four-bedder listed with a $700,000 reserve, built by Henley on land donated by Satterley Property Group, going under the hammer on Saturday, October 3. |
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TRUE OR FALSE: Germany's Erbbaurecht – a hereditary building right that lets you own a building on someone else's land – often runs for 99 years, and can be passed down to your heirs. And the answer is … True – and there's no legal cap on the term. Under the Erbbaurechtsgesetz, you own the house, someone else owns the land, and you pay them ground rent (often 3–5% of the land's value) for however long the two of you agree. 99 years is common. It can be inherited, and when the contract ends, the building usually goes back to the landowner – who has to pay you compensation for it. via Engel & Völkers. |
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