🤝 You can't legislate character

GOOD MORNING FROM ELITE AGENT 👋

TODAY'S FEATURE

Can you teach someone to be trustworthy?

Have you ever interviewed someone who knew every answer you wanted to hear – and still left you wondering who they really were?

John Cunningham joins Samantha McLean and Chris Hanley on The Edit for a conversation about trust, recruitment and the people who shape an agency's culture.

The Question: Can you teach trustworthiness, or do you need to recruit it?

When a vacancy needs filling, a confident candidate with a big GCI goal can be tempting. John and Chris look beyond the sales pitch to the person joining your team.

What you'll learn in the full episode: • The follow-up John uses when a candidate says they want a million dollars in GCI. • Why Chris looks for a recruit's ‘motor’ – and the evidence he wants to hear. • What John's OIC rule changes about the way an agency responds to a difficult market.

Subscribe to The Edit for more conversations with people doing the work.

Listen/Watch the full episode →

DEPT OF POPULATION

Perth prices climb as fewer homes change hands

Record prices and falling sales sound like a contradiction – until you realise there simply aren't enough homes to go around. WA now has 258 people for every 100 dwellings, a jump more than five times bigger than any other state's. The shortfall has built every year since 2019, so this is a years-deep gap, not a one-season spike.

DEPT OF DATA

Units claim over a third of NSW sales

If more of your buyers have been asking about units lately, they're in good company. Better than one in three NSW sales in Q3 was an apartment. Vacant land is pulling buyers too, as rising rates and stretched budgets change what people can afford, and where.

DEPT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Dubai's Water Gardens project chooses leasing over sales

Dubai's sales have slowed and building costs are climbing, yet about 85% of the branded residences at Water Gardens have already sold. The twist is that most of the project won't be sold at all – H&H Development chairman Shahab Lutfi says it will be leased and operated for ongoing income. Completion is due before the end of 2028.

HOW IT SOLD

A $1.26m Fitzgibbon sale straight from the database

After almost three months listed with another agent, the Fitzgibbon home still hadn't sold. When Monty Tandon of Ray White One Group took over, he held off on a public launch and contacted a buyer he'd met through his prospecting, arranging a private inspection. After negotiations, the owners accepted $1.26 million.

Find out the story behind how it sold →

Google calls it E-E-A-T. Agents call it being written about. getailsa.com →

CELEBRITY HOMES

Ex-NBA star's Miami mansion goes under contract again

Four contracts since May: the waterfront Miami Beach estate owned by ex-NBA star Hassan Whiteside has reportedly landed another, now asking US$14.8 million (about A$22.6 million). That's roughly a quarter below its original 2025 ask, though the final sale hasn't been confirmed. And yes, there's a built-in aquarium, plus Jet Ski slips at the dock.

Read the full article →

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Matt Glynn and Lori Wyer return to Ray White Kawana Waters

Partners since 2018, with almost 40 years of combined experience between them, this Sunshine Coast duo is back with Ray White. Matt Glynn has helped more than 1,200 families buy and sell, Lori Wyer has worked in real estate since 2007, and now they're joining directors James Goldsworthy and Brent Higgins at Ray White Kawana Waters.

Terri Fellows returns to Harcourts Pakenham as co-owner In 2010, Harcourts Pakenham Managing Director Peter Blackwood offered Terri Fellows a reception role. Now, 16 years on, she's back as co-owner, having moved through property management and sales before launching her own agency, Fellows Real Estate, in 2021. She brings that business and colleague Tahnee Morgan with her, in a joint venture she calls coming home to where her career began.

Harcourts network backs employment, wildlife and child safety causes Northern Tasmania is getting outreach job support for women and gender-diverse people, thanks to a $10,000 Harcourts Foundation grant to Dress for Success Tasmania. South Australian possums are also getting 50 new nesting boxes. Offices are wearing red for Day for Daniel on 30 October, and first-timer Andrew Magro from Harcourts Exclusive joins a 500km charity ride in Thailand this November.

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AGENTS ON SOCIAL

Seen an Agent On Social we should include? Let us know here

TRUE OR FALSE:

A property owner completely owns all the airspace above their land indefinitely, meaning no one can build over or near them without owning the land below.

And the answer is …

It's actually false. While traditional common law assumed your property rights stretched all the way up to the heavens, modern commercial and residential real estate relies heavily on volumetric ownership and transferable development rights (TDRs). Also, air rights are routinely bought, sold, and traded independently of the dirt underneath. A classic example is the historic Firehouse Hotel in North Sydney selling its airspace in 2018 to make way for the suburb's tallest building, a 50-storey apartment and hotel tower. In high-density property markets, how much floor space you are allowed to build into the sky (Floor Space Ratio or FSR) is often worth far more than the physical footprint of the land itself. via Real Estate Source.