Antonia Mercorella: how she became the first female and youngest ever CEO of the REIQ

George: All right, we are back for another episode of Raising the Bar. I have a wonderful lady here today, a special guest, Antonia Mercorella. Perfect pronunciation.
Antonia: CEO of the REIQ. Thank you very much for your time and for coming on the show today.
George: Pleasure. Great to be here.
Antonia: Ready to do this?
George: Let’s do it.
[So you walked away from a top law firm to join a theatre company. People said she was mad. Today she runs Queensland’s Peak Real Estate Body, has helped overturn state government tax, delivered mandatory CPD after a decade of fighting for it, and transformed a 100-year-old institution into one of the most respected industry bodies in Australia. Antonia Mercorella, welcome to Raising the Bar.]
Antonia: Great to be here. Thank you.
George: So this is where we story tell Excellence in Queensland Property for any listeners who may be first time, because our industry deserves better. So cleaning up the industry and inspiring change, that’s what we’re trying to do. So you’re the CEO of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, first female CEO, and youngest CEO ever appointed. Over a 20 year legal and executive management career, you’ve led and shaped some of the most significant real estate legislative reforms across multiple jurisdictions, and your advocacy programs have drawn national and international attention. You’re a lawyer, former theatre producer, and the person who has been at the front of almost every major battle Queensland real estate has had with government in the last decade. How’s that for an intro?
[Welcome to the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland Property. I’m your host, George Sourris from Empire Legal.]
Antonia: It’s a bit embarrassing. Yeah. I might just qualify. I was the youngest CEO at the time of appointment. I’m certainly not the youngest today.
George: Take the win, Antonia. Take the win.
Antonia: I know, but I feel like I need to put that qualification on that statement.
George: That’s the lawyer in you. I love it.
Antonia: I know, I know. I do the same thing.
George: Yeah. Alright, so this is pretty simple. I’ve got three main talking points and we’re just going to roll through that and add some value to the audience that’s listening.
Antonia: Great.
George: Alright. So the journey from theatre, to law, to leading Queensland real estate. You had a clerkship at a highly regarded commercial law firm in Adelaide, and you left it to join the State Theatre Company. People told you you were mad. Tell us a little bit about that. Let’s start the journey there.
Antonia: So I obtained my law degree from the University of Adelaide. I grew up in Adelaide in SA. I did a theatre degree beforehand. So my undergraduate degree was a theatre degree. And after that, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it, so I decided to take the easy option and stay at uni. So I did a law degree. I hadn’t grown up with a passion to study law or a passion to practice law. In fact, my love of the law came a lot later in life. My appreciation of the law degree came arguably decades later. So I did a couple of clerkships during my law degree and I ended up, in my final year doing a clerkship and then being offered a role to stay on. Yeah. And so I really wasn’t enjoying the law firm.
George: Was it like a big firm, like the culture, long hours?
Antonia: It was, it was a big commercial law firm. Yeah.
George: Yeah.
Antonia: It wasn’t even about that. I’m not scared of big hours. I’m very accustomed to working hard. Still doing big hours, just in a different capacity. It wasn’t about that. I think what I found, I couldn’t put it all together. I didn’t enjoy being involved in small aspects of a matter. I like big picture, knowing what I’m working on. And so when you are a law graduate, you’re generally doing bits and pieces of research, or you get asked to work on a component, and I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t know the client, that I didn’t understand what they were wanting. I found that very frustrating. And probably law firm culture didn’t suit me back then. I’m not sure it suits me today either for that matter. But I had this yearning to get back into theatre. I missed it desperately. And there was a part-time gig going at the State Theatre Company. It was a marketing role. A marketing and youth arts coordinator role that was blended, and it was only part-time. And they offered it to me and I took it. And I remember at the time, other mates who had gone through law school with me graduates, they thought I was mad.
George: Yeah.
Antonia: And I, to be fair, I probably was. And I went off to the State Theatre Company and had the best time.
George: In a part-time role as well.
Antonia: In a part-time role. Huge change. That’s how desperate I was. I was like, an opportunity to work for the flagship State Theatre Company – of course I’m going to take that. And it’s really interesting because theatre doesn’t pay terribly well. Anybody who works in the arts isn’t there for the money. It was a wonderful role. I had a great time, and even though I didn’t get paid terribly well, I got to go to virtually every theatre production. I got to hang out with artists every day of the week. So I was in my element. I really loved it. And it was a number of years until I started to actually think about, it was this challenging moment a few years later when even though I loved the arts, I started to actually feel a little bit like I really should put that law degree to some use. And so then I started to move back into, I started in an ombudsman role, in a conciliator role, and then I slowly made my way back to the law again. It was this walking away from the law and then slowly gravitating back towards it again.
George: Do you think there’s certain skills from your time in theatre or the experience with theatre that transferred? Because I guess a lot of lawyers are traditionally not very creative and, you know, wouldn’t even have any exposure, whereas you have this unique exposure there. Yeah, reflecting back.
Antonia: Well, it’s interesting. I know a lot of legal practitioners who are frustrated thespians. I mean, not everyone, but barristers tend to be, and you know, if you think about it, a lot of us were good debaters at school, or we do like to perform, but it’s a generalisation. I often talk about the patchwork, that is my educational background and my professional background. I probably hadn’t understood at the time how I would blend a background in theatre and a background in law. But really I think that’s what I love about this role, because there’s a lot of performance in this role. But not in the same way that involves obviously getting on stage per se. But there’s a lot of media work associated with this role. Advocacy work, which often sees me appearing before parliamentary committee inquiries or Senate hearings and the like. Even just advocacy work, when you are going and you are advocating for a position, and you are meeting with bureaucrats or politicians, there’s an element of performance in that as well. So I think just the ability to communicate clearly and to find a way to convey a message in a compelling and powerful way. I think that is something that my theatrical training has assisted with.
George: Yeah. I guess just after hearing you say that, it does make total sense that we were chatting off air before about saying, you know, oh, how are you with the microphone, with my social media, my sister? And you’re like, oh, I’ve done it all before. It’s all good. But, you know, there are people that have come on this podcast that are amazing practitioners at their craft and something like this they’ve never, ever done before. So yeah, I guess to your point, that does make total sense. It does go beyond the advocacy that we learn at law school. I mean, I remember this has gone back a while now, doing debating and advocacy, and it’s a skill that you don’t really get to flex unless you’re in practice.
Antonia: Mm.
George: Yeah. Like to get out and talk in front of a room full of people, that’s not a skill that we’re taught at university. That’s real life experience, isn’t it?
Antonia: I think so, and it’s really interesting because I think legal practitioners need to have good communication skills. Sure, a lot of your letters of advice will be in writing, but I think the ability to be able to meet with your clients, have a conversation face-to-face with them, explain the subject matter, which can be quite complex in layperson’s language, find a way to work out the salient parts of the advice that you should really highlight. I think all of that is really important for a lawyer to be effective at.
George: Yes. I reflect on my journey, which was very ‘untraditional’, I’d say. I was bartending, I was selling gym memberships. So I was sort of doing everything but working at a law firm. Because I did IT as my other degree, and I never thought that I’d actually be a lawyer. My parents are both solicitors and I thought, oh, I’ll just do a law degree. It’s a good degree to have.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: And yeah, I just had no desire to be in a big commercial firm. But looking back, I’m glad that I was, you know, doing those late nights at the pub and dealing with people that had maybe had a few too many drinks. All those social skills I think really helped.
Antonia: Oh, absolutely. I think that background, I know a lot of people would say, how on earth, why are you doing all of those things when you have a law degree? But I think there’s real value in going to do other things and gaining some life experience and then coming back to law with that kind of experience. I actually think it makes you a better practitioner. I feel like it did for me.
George: Me too. And it sounds like it did for you. Yeah.
Antonia: Yeah, more well-rounded. Like, you know, the people that have just been studying and then working in a firm, like you said at the back, doing research, never talking to a client, never taking a phone call. How are you meant to flex those muscles and learn? And then they just get thrown into this more senior position where all of a sudden now you’ve got to do all that. And yeah, it’s probably pretty challenging for those people because they haven’t had the skills.
George: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s a pretty cool journey. There’s one more bit I do want to touch on just to round this point out. So you then ended up in Queensland with the REIQ, or were you with a law firm? Let’s just round this out. Just a couple of minutes just to bring us up to speed with where you are today.
Antonia: So what I did is, after I left the State Theatre Company, I moved to Melbourne. Worked with an arts marketing business over there for a period of time. I didn’t love that. And then I started to get a little bit of an itch to want to go back into something that was quasi-legal. So I became a conciliator and worked with an ombudsman office. And then from there, eventually moved back to South Australia for a period of time, where the Real Estate Institute of SA gave me a gig as a junior legal counsel initially, with them. Which was really surprising that I was able to get that role. I hadn’t been practicing and it was an in-house role, and I probably had no business applying for it. But I threw my hat in the ring and then their General Counsel left shortly after and they said, well, we’ll elevate you to GC, which was bizarre. And I said to them, this is madness. I don’t belong in a GC role. And they went, we think you can get there. We’re going to throw you in the deep end. And then, you know what happens, you get thrown in the deep end and then you just have to swim like crazy.
George: And then from there…
Antonia: I left the Real Estate Institute of South Australia. Started a firm with my then husband, who is also a lawyer. And so we ran a boutique legal practice in South Australia. And I continued to be the external counsel for the Real Estate Institute of South Australia, as well as doing a variety of commercial work and a bunch of work for real estate agents, as you would expect, given the background.
George: I was going to say, was it property focused in the practice?
Antonia: Yeah, and I did a lot of training, working with real estate agents, training them on different legal issues. So I did that for a number of years and then moved up to Queensland about 15 years ago, joined the REIQ. It was interesting. I met with the CEO of the REIQ at the time, and said to him, I’m moving to Queensland. Let me know if you hear of anything or if REIQ needs any work. And he said, come and be general counsel. And I said, no, I’ve been there, done that. That feels a bit back to the future. But anyway, in the end I thought it might be nice to just go back to being general counsel in a really familiar role just for a year.
George: Find your feet, relocate.
Antonia: Yeah. A new city in Brisbane. I’ll do that for a bit and then we’ll work it out. And then 15 years later, I’m still here.
George: Running the show.
Antonia: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
George: Okay. So that brings us to the now. Yep. Let’s move on to some of the stuff that you and your team have achieved, which is phenomenal, quite literally raising the bar. I’m going to read off my little cheat sheet here. Sure. So I’ve got: advocacy, government and getting things done. The land tax battle in 2022, that was a big landmark result for you guys. REIQ sent letters to the Treasurer, held media conferences at Parliament House with the opposition, and generated dozens of media interviews across Queensland and nationally. The Premier ultimately shelved it and Parliament repealed it. So just walk us through that journey. Because I mean, even reading that, I’m like, man, there’s a lot of moving parts there. I’m sure it was a big project or battle for you guys. Yeah, just tell us about it. Because that was a great result for Queensland, and you were driving that.
Antonia: Yeah, I think so. Thank you. I’m really proud of the advocacy work REIQ does, I think we really bat above our weight when it comes to advocacy. Peak bodies and associations as a general rule aren’t particularly well-resourced, whether it be human resources or financial resources. So I think we’re a very creative organisation, and our voice gets heard. And so with the land tax regime, I remember the former government had this special habit of dropping bombshells on us either at Christmas or Easter. And so this one came, I remember it was the day before REIQ’s Christmas show. And I got a call from Treasury, and we got told we are going to announce this tomorrow. We’re going to send you the press release but it’ll be embargoed. You can’t talk about it until we’ve released it. And I said, okay, tell me what it is. And so then the Treasury representative went on to explain that the principle behind it was that you would be charged land tax in Queensland based on your total property holdings, albeit that those properties were located across borders, in other jurisdictions. So, in other words Queensland would charge you land tax even if you owned an investment property in Queensland, and the bulk of your investment properties were elsewhere. And I said, I don’t understand what’s the justification for that? It seemed absurd to me. And I said, and how will you police it? And he said, well, we’ll work through all of those details. And I said, okay, this is crazy. We should have been consulted on it. Are you serious about this? He said, yep, we’re dead serious about it. And I said, all right. Well, I’ll respect the embargo, but I want to let you know the minute the embargo is off, we’ll be coming. And he said, yep, we’re expecting you to.
Antonia: And it was a really interesting campaign, because it took us a long time to get attention. What I found out subsequently, is that people thought it was so farcical that it wouldn’t happen. And so all of these accountants I knew and commentators were like, oh, that’s never going to happen. That’s just ridiculous. And eventually I think people started to realise that actually, this is happening. And it wasn’t just about investors with residential property that it impacted. We were trying to explain the impact that it would also have on Queensland based businesses who were domiciled here, but owned property elsewhere. And we started to work through all of these different scenarios for the impact it would have. And then we just slowly started to get more and more attention on the issue. And then it started to get momentum. Because that’s really the objective of a good advocacy campaign. You’ve got to find the right way to get cut through. Why are people interested? What is it about this that I should be concerned about? How will it impact me? And then how do I get involved and express my views on it? And we got a lot of national attention on that campaign as well. You know, it was really interesting because what also started to come out was that they had told us that the other states and territories would cooperate. Because of course, how do you police whether or not someone owns property in another jurisdiction? And the treasurer at the time said it was all sorted. And then of course the cracks started to appear and it became evident that the other states and territories were not going to cooperate and not hand over that data that was required to properly police it.
George: Immediately when you explained it, I had so many questions about like, well, if you’re in Queensland, if you’re here, and you know, like without going into the rabbit hole, I mean, trying to even navigate that component would’ve been very confusing for your average person as well, right?
Antonia: Yeah, but also there was no proper modeling for it. That was the other thing. I’m a bit rusty on the details, but I think at the time, they submitted that it would generate something like $20m. An extra $20 million. I appreciate, sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, at the level we’re talking about, it’s really not. And so there were arguments about, it’s probably not even warranted, is that if that is all that it’s going to generate, then arguably it’s not worth the effort that will go into administering the thing. And so what we started to do is poke holes through it, because there was no proper modeling, and that became really clear.
George: And no consultation, sorry to interrupt you.
Antonia: No, no, no. No consultation.
George: I know not too much about the nuts and bolts of politics and these sorts of things. But I’d imagine it would be common, or like ‘better’ as a result to say a body like yours, to say, hey, we want to do this. Of course. Let’s have a chat and maybe do some feasibilities instead of, hey, tomorrow, watch the news. And you can’t say anything until then.
Antonia: It’s kind of infuriating because what ends up happening, George, is it creates an enormous amount of work. These sorts of campaigns suck up a huge amount of corporate energy and time. It was embarrassing for the government. In the end, the premier intervened. The treasurer of the day was absolutely adamant, he was really committed to it. And we were trying behind the scenes to have conversations about what its potential impact looked like. And then of course, eventually the premier of the day ended up intervening and it got scrapped. So it was an embarrassing back flip for them. It was frustrating that we had to spend all of that time and energy on it. Ultimately, we were really pleased with the outcome. But prevention is always better than cure. All they needed to do was sit down with us and a range of other stakeholders, and we would’ve been able to immediately say, it won’t work for these reasons. And often when government, when politicians and bureaucrats come up with these schemes or ideas, it’s much more beneficial if they sit down in the early days and let us know, this is the objective. This is what we are going to do, this is what we are proposing to do. Here’s the outcome we are looking for. And these are the reasons why. If you have that conversation at the very outset, often you can find a way where there’s a win-win. And we accept that we’re a sensible organisation. We know that. Governments are always looking for new revenue opportunities. We appreciate that governments have to create legislative change to address issues, to address community issues. The world keeps evolving and changing. Of course. The law can’t stand still. We appreciate this, but it is very frustrating when there’s not proper consultation and then you are just in this battle with each other.
George: You end up at war, right? And look, transferring that to something that I see often, is in particular with say, family law or when the property deals go south because the parties aren’t agreeing, which is pretty rare. Most of the time you’ve got a buyer that wants to buy and a seller that wants to sell. But we do have matters that come across our desk where the parties are willing to go to court and argue, and it’s our job as the lawyers to step in and go, that’s expensive, that’s stressful, that’s long. Are you sure we can’t just have a chat and work this out? Because you end up going to war, and those resources, it’s messy, right? Whereas if you just all have a chat.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Same as family. Because if you’re at the point guys, where you don’t want to kill each other. Let’s just work it out amicably and you’ll save money, you’ll save time, you’ll get a result.
Antonia: I’m a big believer in this. I think we would all benefit from learning more about conflict resolution. I became interested in alternative dispute resolution. I did part of my law degree over in the US, and was introduced to alternative dispute resolution. I did a negotiation course, became a court mediator as a student over there.
George: Wow.
Antonia: And I’m so grateful for that training and for that experience, and I would recommend a course like that to every human being. It is incredibly beneficial in the domestic sphere, and incredibly beneficial in the commercial sphere. And in your career. I don’t think there’s any such thing as not benefiting from learning how to communicate better, and not learning the skills to overcome conflict. That’s just part and parcel of our everyday lives.
George: Yeah. With your partner, even like you said with your partner or your business partner or your friend, or whoever, your kids. These are skills that are just – they’re universal, aren’t they?
Antonia: I think we should be teaching our kids this stuff in school. I’m a big believer in that. I think we’d have a far more harmonious world if all of us actually spent some time learning those skills. Because I think conflict is one of those things, that human beings don’t like conflict. None of us wake up wanting to walk into conflict, but I think we all know that if you can get to it earlier, it’s always more beneficial than trying to resolve it at the other end when it’s grown to become insurmountable.
George: Yeah. I say with, you know, even having hard conversations with the team or whatever it might be, or a partner. You let it fester and it just gets worse and worse and worse. You just got to try and catch it before it blows up, right?
Antonia: Yeah. And look, I’m not saying I’m an expert at it. I’m better at it at work than I am at home, is what I’d say. Because you know, at home you default to your true state. At work, you are bringing your true self. But let’s be honest, you are bringing a slightly different version of yourself to work. Because we have to. Yeah.
George: Yeah. Correct. Yeah.
Antonia: I’ve got two more quick things on this point, and then we’ll move on to the last section.
George: Okay.
Antonia: So, CPD.
George: Yeah. So it would’ve been a pretty cool feeling after years. We had Peter Brewer on a few weeks ago, as you know. Yes. And he was chatting a little bit about mandatory CPD and when he was with you and you guys pioneered and got that over the line.
Antonia: Yes.
George: How did that feel when you finally got the green light going, this is going ahead?
Antonia: It felt great. There’s an example of how slowly the wheels can turn, and you’ve really got to play the long game. That was over 10 years in the making.
George: Wow.
Antonia: Yeah. That’s been a passion project of mine. I became CEO in late 2014. And it only became law last year. Yes. That was something that I felt was really important. It’s an interesting one, because real estate is one of the most strictly regulated occupations in Australia, and yet the threshold to entry is reasonably low. And then there was no ongoing requirement in Queensland to undertake any kind of professional development. Now, I think that’s absurd for a community who form fiduciary relationships with their clients. It’s the equivalent of a lawyer, and their client. Or a medical practitioner and their patient. They’re all fiduciary relationships. So I think it stands to reason that as a real estate practitioner, it’s not good enough that you may have done a course 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and you are never stepping foot into a classroom to learn, it doesn’t have to be a classroom. But you know, the point is training. And when I look at it, I’m a lawyer by trade, and I know the amount of legislative change that I’ve had to deal with on behalf of the REIQ in the property management space and the sales space and the commercial space. Most recently, AML laws at a federal level. Anybody who says to me it’s not necessary needs to have their head read.
Antonia: So not only do you have massive amounts of legislative change, there’s also so much happening at a non-legal level. Community expectations around what they want when they’re looking at buying property or renting property. And again, in the commercial space, it’s different again. You’re generally dealing with commercial clients and larger, more sophisticated clients. So I think you’ve got to be able to keep up with emerging technology, emerging trends, consumer expectations, legislative changes. It can be really overwhelming. So I’m really pleased we got it over the line. It’s not the preferred model, but it’s a start. Sometimes you’ve got to start small, George. It’s not to the level that I would like it to be. But I think it’s a really important step forward. We’ll keep pushing for the standards, the requirements to be raised. It’s a starting point.
George: Thank you to you and your team for fighting the good fight. These stories that you’re telling is how we raise the bar.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Like, you said 10 years! It takes a bit of resilience and a bit of backbone to get knocked back and keep pushing and keep pushing. Yeah. And then you fast forward 10 years down the track and go, alright, we’re in the door. We’ve finally made this a start. Yeah. And we’re going to make sure that everyone at least has this minimum standard. And then you’re right, we’ll continually refine and improve.
Antonia: Yeah. And look, I just want to say, for me, representing the real estate community here in Queensland, it’s really important that we raise the bar – pardon the pun. For me it’s about, we are aware of consumer perceptions about real estate agents. I know that there will always be a select few who get lots of media attention and who do the wrong thing.
George: In any industry though.
Antonia: Correct.
George: You know, lawyers get on the news. Yeah. From all walks of life, but yeah.
Antonia: I wouldn’t still be in this gig if I didn’t know that the majority were good, decent people. I don’t want to make it sound like everyone is not doing the right thing. We’ve got, for example, members of the REIQ, even before statutory CPD was implemented, the REIQ has always had a mandatory CPD program for its members. So for our members, they had to do even more CPD under our regime, under REIQ’s own regime. So there are plenty of real estate agents out there who have been undertaking regular CPD without a statutory gun to the head, so to speak.
George: Obligation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Antonia: And look, that’s great. And we’ve had a similar experience. Like obviously we’re not a peak body, we’re a small law practice. But we’ve made friends with hundreds of agents that we work with all the time. And it’s lovely where we’ve got relationships where they say, look, can you come and talk to us about AML changes or seller’s disclosure, or whatever it is. And that’s probably my favorite part of the job. I was reflecting recently, going, out of everything I do, I love working with our partners to help them however I can. So it’s great that you guys have now got that over the line as a law to formalise it. I think it’s great work. We love working with the REIQ. Like I’ve only ever known the REIQ with you steering the ship, and it’s been, as someone that’s not a real estate agent, but dealing with you and your guys and, you know, everyday agents around, I think you guys are very good at being tech forward and proactive and doing great stuff for the industry, which is why you’re in the chair, right?
George: Yeah. Thank you. Well, certainly that’s the aim. Yeah.
Antonia: Yeah. It doesn’t feel like a stuffy fuddy duddy old guard. And you know, Peter Brewer spoke about that more on his episode, and it’s great what you guys have achieved and where you’re at now.
George: Yeah, yeah. On that. Still lots to do.
Antonia: Still lots.
George: We’ve all got lots to do. Last one to round out this point then is Seller’s Disclosure.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: So, I still think the everyday Joe out there that may not really know too much about it. This could be a really good forum just to maybe – if you want to elevator pitch me, like what it is and what it does. Because if you are looking to sell your property from now onwards, I mean, this came in 1st of August last year. This is something that has to be navigated. And I just feel like there’s probably lots of people out there that if you say Form 2 and their eyes would glaze over. You say seller’s disclosure, their eyes would glaze over. Like from your side, just a practical explanation of like what it is and what that might look like. When they’re sitting with an agent signing up a Form 6 to sell their house.
Antonia: Yeah, so I guess the easiest way to explain it is that it’s a single disclosure form that applies when you sell real estate in Queensland. The idea behind it is that every buyer, irrespective of which contract is used, is getting a consistent form of disclosure about the property that they are proposing to buy. And so again, this is another one that took 10 years in the making.
George: Wow.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Wow.
Antonia: And so the REIQ was supportive of the idea of one consistent form of disclosure. Because again, we acknowledged that we had in our contract, in the REIQ standard contract, which of course is endorsed by Queensland Law Society, there were a range of vendor warranties in there. And then there are also a range of statutory disclosures that are random, things like smoke alarms and pool fences and neighbourhood disputes and trees and fences.
George: Yeah. Correct.
Antonia: And so we liked the idea of bundling that all up into one consistent form. So we were absolutely supportive of the principle behind it. We also liked it because we felt that it gave clarity to real estate agents who would often ask, what do I disclose? What don’t I disclose? There’s that materiality test, that’s always a subjective gray zone. But of course, the devil is always in the detail with these things. So in terms of where it’s landed and what’s contained in that form, look, I think it needs work. It is causing some issues. And to be fair, were we sitting in the room? Yes. Sometimes you can look at something and it looks okay, and then you put it out in the real world and you test it and it doesn’t quite work. It can be improved. It can definitely be improved.
Antonia: And I will call out the fact that we had seen it in its final form, we expressed concerns about it to the Attorney General. She made it clear that it would be implemented as planned, but also made a commitment that after the first 12 months, she would look at it and if there were problems, her and her office were open to change. And she’s delivered on that promise. We’re having those conversations now as we speak, where we’ve communicated to them where we see the problems, where it’s creating issues. Obviously real estate agents – there’s a number of influential real estate agents out there at the moment, who are using their platform to also express some concerns about it. And even legal practitioners that I’ve had conversations with have got some concerns. I think the key thing is because there are provisions in it which are quite vague, many lawyers who are preparing the form are probably erring on the side of caution and attaching massive amounts of paperwork.
George: And so what we know is that the minute you give a prospective buyer an enormous amount of paper with words and diagrams they don’t understand, their brains tend to switch off. It’s scary and it’s overwhelming.
Antonia: A hundred pages sometimes. And you know, the funny thing is all that stuff’s not necessarily required. And I think that maybe that’s the gray space, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you’re right. You do want to err on the side of caution, especially if a lawyer is preparing it. Yeah. Because you don’t want to get your client in any hot water. Yeah. But look, zooming out more, it’s a great start for Queensland. Yeah. Like if you look at what’s happening down south, that’s been normal down there for a long time.
George: Yeah.
Antonia: It gives the buyers more protection. Yeah. It gives everybody more transparency in the transaction.
George: I’d argue there’s buyer protections, but I think there’s also potentially vendor protection in there too George. It’s interesting watching the reaction to it, having grown up in a jurisdiction with a much more comprehensive disclosure regime. So I’m talking about South Australia. And also I’ve previously lived in Melbourne. Both of those jurisdictions have a similar disclosure regime, one that gets given at the time of contract or just before the contract. When I first came to Queensland, I found it very foreign that the vendor gives you nothing, other than obviously a few things that I’ve already touched on. So there are some statutory requirements, random statutory requirements. But I thought it was odd that there wasn’t one single consistent disclosure regime, which is something I’m very accustomed to. So it’s been interesting to watch the reaction from lawyers, from real estate agents and even from vendors, who are saying, well, what’s all this about? And this is unnecessary, and it’s added expense. So I think we’ve got to get the balance right. I don’t think the attorney has any appetite to repeal the regime. I’ve heard people saying, oh, they’ll get rid of it. I don’t think that’s on the cards, from the conversations we’ve had with the Attorney General’s office. And I think it just needs to be refined and improved.
Antonia: Because what we don’t want, and we’ve been really clear about this from the outset – we don’t want it to become something that gets used to terminate contracts, just because of change of mind. We don’t want a technical omission to become the reason that a contract can be terminated. And to be clear about that, we are really happy with, there’s a test in there regarding termination rights on the basis of error. I think that the threshold for that I think is really good and sound. But obviously if you don’t attach certain things or certain things aren’t available, then the thing can be terminated without having to go down that pathway at all, because it’s just an invalid Form 2. So those are some of the areas that we are concerned about, and I think in particular where we’re also seeing some issues emerge is where it’s a community title scheme. For instance, I think there’s some issues around body corporate related matters and certificates and disclosures that need to be prepared by third parties. So there’s definitely a bit of work to do.
George: Yeah. But look, like we said before, it’s version one, right? Yeah. No one expects to nail it first go, and these sorts of things continually get improved and they’re better and better. But I think it’s a great thing. I mean, I think the southerners might’ve been laughing at us back in the day going, man, these guys up in Queensland, what do you mean? Like you don’t have a pack of stuff to disclose and you work it out after, and then… it’s a little bit backwards. So I feel like the work you guys have done sort of brings us in line with other states and gives a good base level of, you know, this is what we have to hand over. Yeah. Instead of ‘buyer beware’ and ‘it will be revealed’ and then it happening further down the conveyance. It happens at the start, and then you look at it and you go, I’m okay with all this. Let’s go ahead.
Antonia: Yeah. Yeah. It’s really interesting. I’ve had many, many debates about this issue. Most people will use the REIQ standard contract, for instance, and if you actually read the fine print, go to the T’s and C’s at the back, you’ll find that a lot of these things were encompassed in vendor warranties, for instance. So we’ve got people arguing with us over it, and I’m saying, but you’ve been using a contract that actually effectively says the same thing, except it reverses it. Instead of it being the vendor warranting this, it’s requiring the vendor to disclose upfront. So it’s a slightly different approach, but arguably the subject matter is the same in many cases.
George: Yeah. I remember when we saw it and, you know, when it came out, this is going ahead. And our team looked at it, we go, oh, it’s not that scary. It’s just putting it into a compliant form and learning a new process.
Antonia: Yeah. I think again, it’s one of those things where when you first look at it, it doesn’t look too bad. It’s just that then there are certain parts of it that trigger some problematic issues that have come, now that it’s actually out in the real world, where we are just seeing some of those issues emerge that I don’t think had been anticipated. Yeah.
George: Yeah. But that feedback gets to you guys.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: And then you work with the powers that be. Of course. And you enhance the beast.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you are an average person out there and you’re looking to sell – just to, this is I guess an awareness piece – that you will need a special pack of forms. This Form 2.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: And that can be prepared by the agent, a third party, a solicitor. So usually your real estate agent will guide you on how to manage that.
Antonia: Yeah, that’s right. So what we are seeing is that different real estate businesses approach it differently. Yeah. And that might be based on the vendor that you’re dealing with. So, as you can imagine, as the peak body for real estate agents, we believe that if a real estate agent wishes to prepare it, they should be able to. There are some exceptions to that rule, if certain issues get triggered. Obviously we don’t want real estate practitioners to be engaging in the provision of legal services. But look, what we are discovering as time marches on is that more and more real estate agents are not wanting to prepare it and are either suggesting to the vendor, you can go away and choose a lawyer to prepare it or choose to have it prepared elsewhere, and then bring it back to us. Or conversely, many real estate agents will say, we use ABCD PTY LTD to do this work for us. Are you happy for us to have that done? And we are big believers in getting the Form 2 ready as quickly as possible, at the very outset.
George: Yes. That’s a huge. A lot of the problems come from, right? I don’t want to spend too much more time on this, we’ll round out in the next minute. But I’ve noticed, because this is new and people are still getting the reps on the board with the process, the sooner you can have that conversation – and I think a lot of the top performing agents are doing it when they’re signing up the Form 6. Yeah. And they’re helping the vendor at the start. That’s a great time to get the ball rolling. You don’t want to wait until you’ve got a buyer, because then you’ve got this period where you’re waiting for it.
Antonia: Oh, that’s right. And so we are big believers. I appreciate that it might mean that your vendor is then spending money on something without a guaranteed outcome. But the reality is that in this marketplace, days on market are fairly brief. Yeah. It’ll vary depending on where you are in the state, but exactly right George. What you don’t want is to have a situation where the Form 2 hasn’t been prepared. You’ve got someone in the wings wanting to sign a contract. You can’t sign the contract until the Form 2 has been given. And then it creates delays. Yeah. We’re starting to hear some concerning stories about it creating some gazumping issues as well. And I think it’s a really bad look. My view on it is that what is best practice is to explain to your vendor the benefits of having that Form 2 prepared really early on as quickly as you can after the Form 6, after the appointment process. And that way, if you do encounter some delays, hopefully it’s not going to throw a spanner in the works, or less of a spanner in the works for the marketing campaign.
George: Yeah. Yeah. So look, lean on your local agent, I guess, is probably the message, right? Like the people that you’re trusting to help sell the property, they’ll be able to guide you through what that looks like. Because the reality is by the time you’ve booked in the photo shoot or the video shoot and got all your ducks in a row, if you’re early with your Form 2, that won’t be what’s slowing you down.
Antonia: Yeah. And I mean, I think it’s really important to understand that there will be at times when the Form 2 for a particular property throws up some issues. But it’s fair to say that in the vast majority of cases, these Form 2s are not taking very long to come back. In the case of a community title scheme, that does tend to take a little bit longer.
George: About a week. And again, in the big scheme, that’s not a long time. If you catch it early, that’s – no, that’s right. Like by the time you’ve booked your videographer, you should have everything ready to roll.
Antonia: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George: So that’s just the message, I guess. Yeah. Is lean on your agent, get it done early and then it shouldn’t be a problem.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Yeah. Beautiful. And I think once it’s done as well, the Form 2 belongs to the vendor. In the event that you change agents down the track, for instance, it’s your Form 2.
Antonia: Yeah. You can take it with you.
George: Yeah.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Yep. Beautiful. Alright. Last segment and then we’re done.
Antonia: Great.
George: I’ve got: standards, leadership and what comes next. So this I didn’t know – you made Realworks available to every Queensland agent, member or not. A counterintuitive move that gave the REIQ influence across the entire industry. What was the thinking behind the decision? And for the listeners out there that may not know, what is RealWorks?
Antonia: Yeah, so RealWorks is our cloud-based forms system. It contains, don’t quote me on this, but something like 350 forms. And the ones that most of your viewers will be familiar with are things like contract of sale, for both residential and commercial property, tenancy agreements, appointment forms that agents need to be appointed at law. And then a plethora of other forms that might be template documents and letters that you can give to your clients, and support your various activities. So that’s what RealWorks is.
George: So it holds them all.
Antonia: Yeah. And the idea is it’s cloud-based. You can be sitting in a beautiful Greek island, and you could be selling a house. Yeah. You could be putting together a contract or you could be putting together an appointment form. The point is, you can do your forms from wherever you are. The decision to make that available to non-members is an important one. So I think, when you run a peak body like we do, the challenges are, we’ve always been focused on membership. Membership is important to us. But what’s become apparent over the years is that associations that focus wholly and solely on their members are almost inevitably marching to their death, I dare say. And it’s because times are changing. If I think about me, I graduated from law school. I immediately became a member of the Law Society of South Australia, and then subsequently here in Queensland. Most of us will do that. Same. You graduate or you complete a qual and then you gravitate to the peak body that represents your occupation or your profession. But that’s changing.
Antonia: And so I think, when we look at people, sometimes they want to be members. And it’s not to say we don’t want them as members, to be clear. But what we’ve realized is that people want to engage with us in different ways. And so a number of years ago, I remember, you’d do your strategic planning days, and we were killing ourselves trying to find ways to get more members, attract more members and retain members. And there’s this philosophy that if you keep throwing more products and services, that gets you more members. It actually doesn’t, in our experience. Okay. So I remember the first year I became CEO, we spent a significant amount of money. I won’t disclose how much, but a significant amount of money on all of these member initiatives, more boots on the ground, all of these extra products and services. All of these types of membership benefits, it barely moved the dial.
George: Wow.
Antonia: Where we see our membership numbers going up is when there’s an important legislative issue on the cards. That always moves the dial considerably, probably understandably.
George: Well, like the roadshow you guys did with Seller’s Disclosure, and I’m sure you’ve got something with AML going on.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Every time we roll out something like that, people will go, you know what, I really should be a member of the REIQ. But really it’s also about recognising that whilst we’d love people to join us as members, people want to engage differently with their peak body now. And that doesn’t always look like membership. So what we determined was that we are going to make most things available to non-members. So you can come to one of our events, you can come to professional development. You can use our form suite. We’ll charge you a different fee, because we think that’s pretty reasonable, if you’re not a member. But since we’ve changed that approach and we changed our vision to be for the real estate profession, we’ve just seen this shift where, and funnily enough, people tend to come more to you if you’re actually not trying to ram membership down their throat or blackmail them into staying.
Antonia: I know of a number of other membership bodies, and their approach is, we won’t let you have any of these things unless you’re a member.
George: Gatekeep everything.
Antonia: And someone rings up and goes, you lot are useless. I’m resigning my membership. Well, then we’ll take away A, B, C, D. And then people choose to stay. I don’t want to blackmail my members. I don’t want to hold them to ransom. I want people to voluntarily want to be part of the REIQ membership, because it matters to them.
George: Be proud of it. That’s right. I saw a couple of years ago, I follow you guys on social media and stuff. I remember you were going around, you and your team, with like boxes for members and it was recorded and you’re like, knock on the door and go in. And I’m like, it’s cool. It’s such a cool thing. Yeah. You and your team are going and welcoming these people to the industry. Yeah. And it’s not a hard sell. It’s like, you’d want to be proud to be a part of it.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: And to your other point, I’m not a real estate agent, but I come to REIQ events. Yeah. And I pay and I come along. Yeah. When you guys did your seller’s disclosure roadshow, I’m like, I need to know about this for my team. Obviously Law Society supports us as well, and that was very technical. Yes. But we do a lot of work with real estate agents. Yeah. Our lifeblood is your members.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: So it’s important for me to understand what is being told to them, and then how can I continue to work with your real estate agents to make sure we all get to service the client and look after them.
Antonia: So I think that’s such an important point. That’s the other benefit. When you allow non-members, you’re allowing other parties, other stakeholders who are involved in real estate like lawyers, like other third party suppliers. And we want to be engaging with them. We want that ecosystem to come together and to converse and to communicate. It’s not us versus you.
George: No, exactly. And that’s a huge thing I’ve noticed, at least in my time in the profession, is we’ve been working together. We’ve spoken in the past about like, eh, is this good? You know, how do we make the lawyers and the agents work together? And it’s really, really cool. Whereas I feel like there’s maybe other bodies that don’t have the same approach.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: Whereas like, you know what, at the end of the day, Form 2 was challenging, but we worked on it together and I think we’ve got a great result. At the start it was like, is it us versus you? And no, it’s actually not us versus you, it’s us AND you.
Antonia: Yeah. For me it’s about, how do we as the peak body for real estate agents, how do we lead by example? I’ll always own stuff. You know, when people tell me stories about something a real estate agent has done, I’m prepared to listen. If I see an emerging issue, and I can see that there is a growing trend that’s concerning, I’ll speak up about that. If we need to come out and have a crack at our industry and tell them to do better, we’ll do that. But equally, sometimes I think, you know, if I meet lawyers, they will often say to me, oh, your lot are so bad at doing A, B, C, D. And I’ll go, well, tell me about what that looks like. Don’t just complain that they’re bad at doing something. Tell me what they’re bad at doing, so that I can then be proactive and make them better at doing that thing. In particular, the relationship between legal practitioners and real estate practitioners – I think there’s absolutely a massive opportunity there to improve the relations between those two parties.
Antonia: But if I go back to our approach, we are still very focused on membership. And the membership does continue to grow. But what’s been interesting about our approach is, I can now say hand on heart that we engage with virtually every single practicing real estate agent in Queensland, whether that be through Realworks or through our events, or through our training, or through our CPD. And that really matters to me, because then I feel like we can genuinely say we’re a peak body that does represent all corners of the state. All of the sectors that make up real estate in Queensland. And it really helps from an advocacy perspective. When you are advocating on behalf of your constituents, politicians want to know what your numbers look like. Numbers matter in politics. And so that makes our advocacy far stronger. And it’s always a challenging argument, because sometimes members will say, well, we think it’s a bit unfair. REIQ should only serve those who pay membership subs. And so that’s always been the challenge. You want to be equitable and fair to those who are committed to us and pay their membership subs.
George: Support you, yeah. Yeah.
Antonia: But the reality is, take our advocacy, that’s going to be something that everybody benefits from, whether they’re members or not. And same with forms. The more people who use our forms, the more feedback we get on where we need to make improvements and changes. And so everybody benefits from that. So there is an element of, yeah, I appreciate that you are paying membership subs and they’re not, but please continue to do so, because we do want loyal subscribers, so to speak, but we also want to serve the entire real estate community.
George: And it sounds like, to your point, that non-gatekeeping, non-pushy approach has actually worked, because people then want to support you. If you are giving and giving, they go, well, I actually do want to be a part of the REIQ. Because I want to, because that value has been added and they’d be proud to be a part of it.
Antonia: Yeah.
George: That’s what my thoughts are anyway. Yeah. I’m sure that’s the goal, right?
Antonia: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And you know, there’s nothing that makes me happier than converting a non-member, particularly if it’s someone who’s quite anti-REIQ. There’s a real joy in that.
George: That makes no sense to me. Like I just don’t get why someone would be anti-REIQ?
Antonia: Yeah, no, there’s people.
George: I just don’t get it.
Antonia: I really enjoy having conversations with those people.
George: Yeah.
Antonia: You know, particularly when I first arrived, I would meet people who were very anti-REIQ, and then it’s a challenge for me. I’m like, help me to understand what can we do? How would we turn you around? And there’s a real sense of satisfaction that comes with converting someone. From, whether they’re staunch anti-REIQ, or just not really interested, not engaged, maybe opinionless about the REIQ, and then converting them into a loyal fan and member. I get a real buzz out of that. I really love that.
George: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And look, it’s probably similar to, I have conversations. Real estate agents sometimes cop it being like, oh, agents and agents that, and I go into defend agents a lot. Well, I’m married to one of your members. My wife’s a practicing real estate agent, and heaps of my friends are as a result of working in the conveyancing space. People don’t understand how difficult the job is and it’s so important. I defend agents all the time going, mate, you’ve got rocks in your head if you think that it’s as simple as sign a form and get paid all this money. I said, it’s nothing like that. It’s big hours, vendor management. There’s so many things that go into this. So, it’s great to see you steering the ship for those professionals, from things like the CPD and all the things that you’ve done. I think it’s really, really cool.
Antonia: Yeah. Thank you.
George: There’s my little rant. And look just to round this out because we can chat – you are Italian. I’m Greek. We can chat. I’ve got one more main point, and that’s The Forgotten Women.
Antonia: Yes.
George: So the first time I saw this would’ve been at the Women in Real Estate event a few years ago that I came along to.
Antonia: Yes.
George: Yes. I went to a women in real estate event. There were a few men there. We were a minority.
Antonia: We absolutely welcomed blokes at that event.
George: So it was a really, really cool experience. And you put a little video up on the screen about The Forgotten Women, and I remember getting goosebumps and thinking, man, I did not know any of this. So do you mind just spending a couple of minutes explaining, you know, what it is, what you have created, supporting it? Just to give some awareness out there to the people.
Antonia: Of course. I’d love to. It’d be an honour. I was an ambassador for The Forgotten Women for two years. It’s an organisation that’s dedicated to addressing homelessness and women at risk of homelessness, specifically women over the age of 55. That group – females over the age of 55 – it’s the fastest growing homeless demographic in our country. And so the reason that video gave you goosebumps, I’m going to guess. And every time it plays again, and I have watched that video, I can’t even tell you how many times. And even just talking about it makes me get emotional. And I think the reason for it is because that video showcases real life women. Obviously, we don’t tell you their identity. But every single one of the stories in that video is true. And I think what’s so shocking about that statistic, women over the age of 55, for me, that’s my sister. It could be your sister, it could be your aunt, your mum, your grandmother, your friend, your colleagues. And the reason that they have adopted ‘The Forgotten Women’ as a name, is because that demographic tends to not speak up. They tend to endure in silence.
Antonia: And so what was so shocking to me when I first started getting involved in The Forgotten Women was to learn that we had women in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and even early nineties and they were homeless, or on the brink of homeless. And so these are women who are literally sleeping in their cars. They’re couch surfing in Australia. They’re hopping around. Like they’re asking people if they can house sit, and often the fact that they’re homeless, they’re concealing it, George, they’re not even talking about it. And there’s a multitude of reasons why this is happening. Sure. Domestic and family violence is absolutely one of the most prevalent factors. But it’s also things like death – the death of a spouse, or divorce and separation. It might even be as a result of elder abuse. So there’s lots of different reasons. That demographic tends to have less superannuation as well.
Antonia: And so, the amazing founder of The Forgotten Women is a woman called Theresa. And she tells the story of how the impetus for it came, which was that she’s a barber, she was cutting hair. And she started to notice that she was cutting hair for women. So they came in with long hair and wanted it all chopped off. And she started to ask some questions, and discovered that they wanted to chop all of their hair off because they were homeless. And access to a shower and the ability to just do simple things like wash your hair and dry your hair.
George: You wouldn’t even think, yeah, I wouldn’t even be on my radar.
Antonia: And suddenly it put it on her radar, and she went, what is going on here? And of course, now it’s a conversation that’s being had at a number of different levels. Not just in Queensland, but across Australia. And so the charity is about trying to provide shelter to these women, whether it’s through subsidising their rent so that they can actually sustain their tenancies, and not fall into homelessness. Or in some cases they’re literally building homes for these women. It’s an amazing charity. They do a sleep out once a year. That’s probably their most important event. And one happens in Brisbane, that’s been going for a number of years, and now they’ve started – last year they started doing a sleep out on the Gold Coast, and this will be the second year. And the idea is you can go, you participate. You can go alone, or you can do a team. And you sleep in your car for one night. And it is extraordinarily tough. So when you first arrive, it feels a bit fun. There’s a bit of a social element to it. Everyone’s getting themselves set up. People decorate their cars, they bring their pajamas along. And then it’s interesting the way that the fun starts to really dwindle pretty quickly. It starts to get chilly and you’re suddenly sleeping in your car and you’re sleeping with hundreds of people around you, and yet it’s terrifying. And then you are having to use public toilets and going to brush your teeth the next morning in a public toilet. And it’s really trying to replicate for just one night, that experience. And obviously it’s about raising money that goes back to The Forgotten Women. So, thanks for giving me an opportunity to promote it because it’s such an important charity.
George: Well, it’s great that events like the Women in Real Estate, that you guys support that and that you’re involved in it. I think that’s literally part of raising the bar, not only for Queensland property, but just for the community, right? It’s a really important piece.
Antonia: I mean, this is one of the main reasons why I’m still with the REIQ after all these years. If you think about what we do and the kinds of initiatives and projects we get the privilege to be involved in, every day is different. We are working with all sorts of organisations that are involved in dealing with homelessness issues and domestic violence issues. Because often property managers are the ones going into people’s homes and seeing evidence of domestic and family violence. We are working with QDN, Queenslanders Disability Network, on accessibility issues. So often people don’t understand, and they’ll say, how can you still be with the REIQ after 15 years? Aren’t you bored? And I’m like, every single day is different. And what I love about the extended part of the role, like The Forgotten Women, and those sorts of initiatives that are so closely linked to housing. So it’s impossible to be bored.
George: Well, you talk about initiatives like that and then you lobbying in parliament and everything in between and looking after a member that could be in North Queensland or just around the corner here in Brisbane City. So yeah, I’m sure no two days are ever the same.
Antonia: No.
George: On that note, the very, very last piece, it’s called The Golden Nugget.
Antonia: Oh, okay.
George: So the Golden Nugget, as the name suggests, is one golden nugget you would like to give to the audience, whoever they may be. Doesn’t have to be real estate related or business related. It can be anything. Just something that you want to put out there as Antonia’s golden nugget to the listener.
Antonia: I’ve probably changed my mind on it because of the conversation we had earlier on. For me, like I said, I would encourage everyone listening to really think about honing your conflict resolution and negotiation skills. I think when I say that, people think, well, you’re only saying that because you’re a lawyer. I think there’s such value in learning those sorts of skills, teaching our kids those sorts of skills. I think is really valuable. I actually think we would be a much, much happier community and global community if we got better at that. And it doesn’t have to be going to do a $10,000 course on it either. One of the easiest and most excellent books I’ve ever read is by Fisher and Ury and it’s ‘Getting to Yes’, and you can read that in a couple of hours. It’s a great start. There’s lots of online courses, but for me it would be that. I think developing better skills in that space will make you a much better human being, will make you happier at home and will make your work life a lot better as well. So that’s what I would encourage people to consider undertaking.
George: Antonia’s golden nugget. And if you are a person that maybe struggles to read a book, I know we all have aspirations to read and lots of people just don’t, because life’s busy. You can get an audio book or you can jump on YouTube. Yeah. The amount of stuff I’ve learned on YouTube. I do lots of driving. Yeah. It’s all for free as well. Yeah. Or very cheap, you know, $20 for a book and you could learn some really cool skills that help you personally, professionally.
Antonia: Yep. Absolutely.
George: Or both. Yep. Beautiful. Well, on that note, I’m going to wrap it up there. Thank you very, very much. I lie. I got one more thing. Ha. Just to round this out. Your Lift event. Oh yeah. You’re doing another event this year?
Antonia: We are, we are! Do you want to just tell the people?
George: Yeah. Because again, I think it’s something that needs some more airtime. We don’t have thousands of viewers. Not yet. Yeah. But you never know. I mean, to whoever’s listening out there – yeah. I came along last year to support. I loved it. So yeah, just want to tell the people about that and then we’re really done.
Antonia: Sure. Yeah. Thanks. I’d love to talk about that. We are going much bigger this year. So last year was our inaugural Lift event. What we’re going to do this year is we’re partnering with a crew called Reach Australia and New Zealand. So it will be a tech conference. Very immersive, hands-on tech. So there’ll be a tech component running throughout the two days. And then we’ll also have a conference. It’s actually a conference that is for real estate agents, but would immensely benefit really anyone. A lot of the speakers are talking about non-real estate issues. So we’ve got Todd Sampson, who many of your viewers would know from the Gruen Transfer and various other shows. We’ve got a bunch of speakers who are coming over from the US.
George: Wow.
Antonia: A guy called Jared James, who’s pretty much the number one speaker in the US at the moment, so he’s going to be amazing. And then we’ve just got lots and lots of other great speakers, lots of breakout events, so you can kind of choose your own adventure as well. We’ll have an exhibitor hall and it’s two days in July – 14th and 15th at Brisbane, at the showgrounds.
George: So two days.
Antonia: Two days. Two days this time.
George: Very, very cool.
Antonia: Yeah. Very cool.
George: Very fun. I can just speak from experience. Some of the speakers from last year – phenomenal. And again, I’m not a real estate agent. I learned a lot. Yeah. And I got real good value out of it, so yeah. Amazing. Again, another raising the bar example. So, thank you. I mean, the planning that goes into it – I think people maybe don’t realise, to get an event like that off the ground and then to finesse, improve, make it bigger. It’s a lot of work for you and your team.
Antonia: And we try and do it at a really affordable price point. You know, it’s very subsidised. So you get access to some extraordinary speakers, two days of learning, a great exhibition hall, and it’s really reasonably priced. Because we want to make it accessible to everyone.
George: Beautiful. So REIQ Lift, you can look that up and check it out.
Antonia: Thanks George.
George: Cool. Thanks Antonia. Thanks for your time.
Antonia: Thanks.
George: Yay.
Antonia: Yay.
George: Done. Thank you.
Antonia: Thanks. How was that?
George: Good. That was awesome.