🌳 Prices are falling, but shade will cost you half a mill

GOOD MORNING FROM ELITE AGENT 👋

TODAY'S FEATURE

Why clickbait and unskilled agents are spooking Australia’s buyers

A Brisbane sales specialist has had enough of agents blaming the market for their own shortcomings. Alistair Macmillan says the doom talk flooding vendor meetings and news feeds isn't a sign of collapse, it's a sign the boom-time order-takers never learned to negotiate. He's crunched the numbers on Queensland's price history to make his case, and it's more pointed than you'd expect.

What you'll learn in the full article:

• The shooting-fish-in-a-barrel problem: why ten years of easy wins left a chunk of the profession without the skills a flattening market now demands.
• The clearance rate switcheroo: the private treaty comparison Alistair says the media conveniently never runs alongside auction stats.
• The tax-free wave test: the twenty-year return calculation he uses to talk nervous vendors off the ledge.

Read the full article →

TOGETHER WITH PM/ONE AND BMT

BMT Tax Depreciation helps property managers add value for their landlord clients by educating them about depreciation deductions available on their investment properties.

With almost 30 years in tax depreciation and close to one million schedules completed, BMT says residential clients found an average of more than $12,000 in depreciation deductions in the first financial year last year. Its services for property managers include free depreciation estimates, helping make it easier to identify potential benefits for landlords.

At PM/ONE, attendees can meet the BMT team, learn how tax depreciation schedules can benefit their landlords and enter a prize draw for the chance to win a gourmet food hamper.

See BMT Tax Depreciation at PM/ONE
PM/ONE brings Australia’s property management community together in Sydney on 13–14 September 2026. Explore the event and get your tickets at PM1.com.au.

Learn more →

DEPT OF LENDING

National prices fall for fifth straight month

Adelaide just posted the biggest monthly fall of any capital, down 0.9%, even after leading growth for months. The national median now sits at $886,000, and Eleanor Creagh says rate and tax uncertainty will keep prices soft for a while yet. Worth noting: units are outperforming houses, up 3% annually against 1.5%.

DEPT OF LENDING

HIA tips 186,000-home shortfall despite building growth

Tim Reardon's forecast: home construction keeps climbing through 2027 and 2028, but new taxes on established housing and a ban on SMSFs borrowing to invest in property mean Australia still lands 186,000 homes short of its national target. He expects that shortage – not a building rebound – to push prices back into growth from early 2027.

DEPT OF INSURANCE

Trees add $237k to Melbourne house prices

REIV's new canopy study puts a number on something you've probably felt at open homes for years: suburbs with 50% more tree cover than the Melbourne average carry a $237,000 price premium. The starkest example is Frankston South, 69% leafier than neighbouring Frankston North, and $493,000 more expensive. Handy context next time a vendor asks why the street two blocks over sells for more.

HOW IT SOLD

35 enquiries, one auction, a building record

A three-bedroom unit on level 13 of Burleigh Heads' Boardwalk building went to auction after Michael Clark held firm on the strategy despite three pre-auction offers. The 21-day campaign drew 35 enquiries and three registered bidders, ending in a record result for the building.

Find out the story behind how it sold →

How's your findability on AI? The agents who turn up have more content out there. getailsa.com →

MOVERS & SHAKERS

REA Group's marketing chief swaps Australia for the top job at Trade Me

Trade Me has named Kul Singh as its next chief executive, succeeding Anders Skoe after his seven years in the role. Singh spent a decade at REA Group, most recently as Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer leading customer, product and marketing teams, and returns to New Zealand after 25 years abroad. At REA, Katrina Konstas takes on Singh's former role from 1 September.

OBrien Real Estate unveils refreshed brand identity Fifteen years after founding the network in 2010, Dean O'Brien is putting a new face on the business he built around people, relationships and performance. From 1 September, OBrien Real Estate's Victorian offices roll out a new logo, colour palette and marketing platform, alongside a fresh "Can You Picture It?" campaign. Read the full article →

Nima Aliasgary joins LJ Hooker as sales director Sydney's Northern Beaches gets a new sales director as the Narrabeen and Forestville offices rebrand to LJ Hooker. Nima Aliasgary takes on the role alongside principals Kathleen Fairweather and Michael Ferguson, with a brief to grow the business across the Northern Beaches and Forest areas.

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Professional locked-in mode: ACTIVATED 🚨✨

TRUE OR FALSE:

The winning design for Australia's capital city was drawn in Chicago by someone who had never set foot in Australia – and did not see the site until more than a year after he won.

And the answer is …

True. The competition to design Australia's capital drew 137 entries from around the world, and the winner – announced in May 1912 – was Walter Burley Griffin of Chicago, who had never set foot in the country. He and Marion Mahony Griffin worked entirely from surveyor Charles Scrivener's contour plans, designing around Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie sight unseen – and it was Marion's drawings that arguably won it. Walter didn't walk the site until mid-1913, over a year after winning. Truly WFH before it was even a thing. via National Archives of Australia.