 Good evening, and welcome to the Friday edition of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Uzaman Dhomwa Malo. It's episode 318 of the Private Property Podcast. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome to it. You know how we do. Every single weekday, you and I certainly have an appointment where we're always in conversation with property experts to help us navigate our property issues. Now, I must confess, I am coming into the process evening slightly flustered. We've been having a lot of tech issues behind the scenes. I'm sure you're also seeing that we look slightly different. So do bear with me. My colleague and my really amazing guest behind the scenes have been very gracious as we navigated some of the technical gore that we're facing behind the scenes. But we're now on it because of course we always want to keep our appointment with you every single weekday. And talking of keeping our appointment, of course you can look forward to other great shows that you can find on the Private Property Podcast, on the Private Property platforms rather. And as it is a Friday, you can catch Chad on the Home Shoppers show where he always gives us great tours of amazing properties that you can find on www.privateproperty.co.za. And you can also catch the same show every single Monday at 8 p.m. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a wardening farmer, what takes us through the farming podcast, which is always in conversation with people within the agricultural sector, who help us have a better understanding on all things relating to agriculture. So to make sure that you tune into that show, I love watching them by this show and really creating good insights not only about the business of agriculture, but certainly how I can also grow my own food and make better decisions when it comes to that. And of course every Wednesday, you can catch Estie Carlson on the First Time Home Buys show where she always is in conversation with incredible people who have not only walked that First Time Home Buying journey, but certainly gone on a step further into growing their property portfolio. I know that this speech was in conversation with Ululu Mutsukira, who's no stranger to the private property family who always have it as a regular on this podcast. And she really does an incredible job of transforming people's homes. And of course that is Ululu Mutsukira of Namasaya Creations. And of course there's myself every single weekday at 7 p.m. We're always together. So if you join us for the first time, make sure that you follow us across our social media platforms. You can follow myself at Zamandonga underscore K on Twitter as well as on Instagram. Staying with social media, as many of you have seen, we are running an incredible competition on our Facebook page where we're having a countdown to one million followers. And you stand a chance of walking away with some great prizes, cash prizes, for that. And every single day you can stand a chance of walking away with five hundred grand in cash. And all you have to do is to share, certainly share the live, sort of tag your friends when you tune into the live podcast. Make sure that you also give us a review on our Facebook page. And the more you interact and engage with us, the better your chances of winning the money. And the big catch with winning the money is that you have to be watching the show live in order to claim that prize. If we don't have somebody to claim their prize while the show is live, it rolls over to the next day. And I know that we still have not had a person who's entered and claimed their prize. So the money keeps rolling over. So I do urge you at home if you're entering the competition, make sure that you also watch the live so you can claim the money. So it has rolled over to now we've got more money in the money bag that we're going to be giving away. So halfway through the show, we will share the potential winner. And I say potential because they still need to claim that money that has accumulated thus far. Well, that's all things competition, all things money, and of course, growing our community. So do make sure that you engage with us and like comment share to certainly better your odds of winning that money. Now, the conversation I'm having this evening is one I was talking to my guest in behind the scenes that I'm quite passionate about. And we're looking at the top five reasons why real estate agents should upskill. The issue of upskilling, we talk about it certainly in different sectors and in different contexts. And it's so important that we continuously invest in ourselves, continuously invest in our skill. And it's also just as important within the real estate sector and particularly for real estate agents. And so this evening, I'm joined by Michelle Taylor-Ribble who is the who's an accredited seat facilitator, assessor and moderator who's going to help us get a good sense of why real estate agents should be upskilling and really the big value that they're going to add in the industry and certainly to the clients and the return on their investment that they'll see in the event where they upskill. Michelle, good evening and thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me, Zemma. Very happy to be here. It's such a pleasure, Michelle. And I think one of the big things with your estate with estate agents is that there's so many perceptions about the kind of people who become estate agents. Even when we look at historically the profession in itself, it wasn't something that people necessarily did full time or thought I need to go to school and maybe pass or get a degree in order to be an estate agent. And I think in many ways it was great because it was a great opportunity for different people to be able to access that as a career path was having limited barriers of entry. But at the same breadth, it's also just meant that we're not having some of the best standards. And as somebody who buys properties and even engages with different estate agents, you find that there isn't a norm. And I think this is what's so important for us to go through the reasons why estate agents should be upskilling. And I think for the viewers at home, the benefit is when you see these things in estate agents, you also know that this is an estate agent who's serious about the profession, who is investing in themselves and upskilling their skill set. And you're able to engage with them at a fundamentally different level than somebody who doesn't demonstrate some of these things that we're about to go through. So what would you then say is sort of the key reason, the number one reason or the first reason why estate agents certainly should be upskilling throughout their career? Okay, so the first question that needs to be asked is if you were ill and needed medical assistance or medical help, would you go and seek out a medical practitioner that had not got a qualification or agree? Now let's talk about real estate. Here is a person who is advising clients on the more than likely their biggest financial investment that they're ever going to make in their life. And whatever information that estate agent is imparting is going to assist in making choices and decisions. And therefore when we actually are risking other people's money, we certainly need to be dealing with a professional who understands the business. And it's such a key thing to point out Michelle, because when we look at the amount of money that we spend even in the acquisition of the property itself, it's quite a substantial amount, right? Whether we're looking at the upfront cost or the overall cost throughout the long term, for example, if we're going to be buying with bank finance. And we want to be working with people that we know are professional, we know on top of their gain. And as we're working with them and consulting with them, they're certainly up to date with the do's and don'ts and the admin that goes into buying the property because I've seen estate agents who unfortunately aren't up to scratch with some of these processes. So I guess then the first thing becomes ensuring that we professionalise, we'll say estate agents, right? Because as we're saying, and we're even saying of air that this was a profession that in many ways was considered like a secondhand car salesperson. And a lot of times you buy your secondhand car from that particular salesperson because you really can't afford that a brand you are not going to a fancy place to buy the property. And we absolutely cannot afford to take that kind of approach with regards to your property and estate agents because the reality of it, as you rightfully pointed out, is this is more likely than not the biggest investment that as home buyers we're going to make. And it becomes so crucial for us to be able to get a good sense of the estate agents that we are working with. Then Michelle, what would you then say? You wanted to come in there, Michelle? Yes. I think the big difference is when you buy a secondhand car from a side street car dealer, the reality is you know that the car is not going to last long and you're never going to sell the car for more money than you originally paid for it. When you're investing in property, you're looking for a totally different outcome. You're looking for the outcome that this investment is going to grow and that you're going to see some profit of it or from it when you decide to dispose of it one day or even if you want to keep it on to grow a portfolio because that is what a lot of people look to do. So you're wanting eventually that property to feed you a good income. And I think because the industry as you so rightly said, there was no barrier to enter the industry. Anybody could just automatically come in and be an estate agent and from day one start practicing without any knowledge or any information or any kind of structure and just go out and you know sell properties and it also got seen as the kind of the easy profession to get into. So you know when there was nowhere else to go, oh well let's just become an estate agent because the perception is that it's an easy job. The reality of it is it's probably one of the hardest jobs in the world. It's tough. Let me tell you now, did it for 18 years. It's tough. And it's a tough one and I always say to people you know what it's a tough industry and for different reasons it's a tough profession for a variety of different reasons and one of them is actually one of the top reasons why estate agents should upskill and that is there are so many different changes that keep coming in that is estate agents you also need to be on top of and know about because whether you're looking at selling and oftentimes estate agents you know they're selling they're also doing rentals in their books and obviously doing advisory you need to be up to date with what laws are saying around even tenant management for example and if you are selling a property that's in a sectional title community what are some of the laws that are in place in that regard. Perhaps I'll speak to you a little bit about you know the legislative changes that keep occurring especially because you had been in it you know for 18 years and why now more than ever it's even becoming so important for estate agents to always be on top of the change the different changes that we're seeing. Okay so you know the estate agency affairs act which has always been around has governed the has governed estate agents but what has happened is there's been far more implications to new acts that have come into being especially let's just look at for the first one the consumer protection act estate agents that act is not there to protect an estate agent it is there to protect the consumer against bad service or bad performance so therefore that act now also over and above the estate agency affairs act which is going to be replaced by the the it's going to be replaced by the property practitioners act we're not sure when but it's it's going to come up soon places a lot more responsibility on the agents and the performance towards their clients then we've got the new puppy act which has just come into being which has also had a huge impact on agents and how they can communicate or contact clients what we need to remember with that act is an agent's core business is to find business and they have to phone clients or go face to face or door to door and they all create a database or seek to purchase a database which obviously the new puppy act has placed a lot of restrictions on them the the property practitioners act which is going to come in and replace the old estate agency affairs act is going to place even more responsibility on the estate agents when they are doing due diligence on a property especially with a the disclosure and what is actually wrong with the property and how much knowledge shouldn't agent have of the area and and what is happening in the suburb and that knowledge there's no longer going to be a situation where an agent can go to court and plea negligence or ignorance because the court are going to look at it and go you were negligent in terms of the acts that govern you you were negligent and you can't just claim oh well I didn't know because that's that cop art is not going to be allowed anymore I mean you know we look at just changes to the rental act that's probably one of the most complicated acts ever written and the changes come in so often I actually feel especially sorry for rental agents to be perfectly honest with you we look at the changes to the sectional title acts which also happened quite regularly I mean we had changes three years ago where they introduced the ombudsman you know so there are so many different factors and not all the acts impact an agent directly but they are acts that the agents are required to know about I mean our courts set precedent in terms of the law of contracts all the time because it is something that gets challenged regularly in the courts so you know unless an agent is really upskilling themselves continuously they're not going to be aware of these things and that's when it ends in disaster it's not a happy ending not for the clients and not for the agent and I think we're going to go through the the rest of the reasons why it's so important Michelle and I like that you've pointed out the different types of laws that we've seen change and that are you know constantly evolving that an estate agent agent certainly needs to be on top of and I think to go to our viewers at home I see some of the love that we're getting especially on our Facebook page see Chanel for me I see you when you see where Cynthia do my saying hello Zama with those green hearts and I also see Matashina who was holding it down yesterday evening I do hope that you treated her well as she of course took you through the show Rishkeena Rasinerian I do apologize for butchering your name I also see the love and Verna Kriyaf as well as your Martha coming back saying that skilling certainly going is going to be relevant especially moving with the times and you know Sherry we've also got a Chanel for Rihya with a question saying or rather with the comment saying it's it's true the wrong agent can make a deal so bad and that's quite a big one I mean I've I've had experience with you know agents that unfortunately weren't too great and certain the working relationship ended up not going too well and there's certain properties that I also ended up not buying because of the way that the estate agent what was you know I like the property it made sense but just given the nature of how the estate agent was and how unprofessional they ultimately seemed and they didn't seem to be on top of you know they are know how and sharing certain information that they absolutely should be sharing with me as as a buyer I thought look these are just too many red flags I'd rather walk away and I think this is one of those things that estate agents probably are not recognizing are some of the consequences in when they don't opt to upskill themselves and be professional and really treat the work that they're doing as any other professional service that we would typically want and seeing more of your love especially on our Facebook page I'm going to bring you back in just in a moment Michelle I see Iris Low saying private property only has the best professionals that gives you the best advice and we absolutely love that Iris before I bring back Michelle I wanted to quickly check who is the potential winner of the competition that we are running on Facebook we're looking at 1000 followers remember if you've entered you need to be able to claim your prize during the show otherwise it's going to roll over let's have a look to see who is the potential winner this evening and that potential winner is Anelda Everton so Anelda Everton if you are watching and I really hope that you are watching do make sure that you message us down here below so comment below in order for you to claim your prize and if Anelda Everton doesn't claim the prize it's going to I mean I said unfortunately I'm going to because they missed after the money but it's certainly a positive one for whoever is going to get it when the money bag is bigger so Anelda Everton you have until the end of the show to make yourself known in order for you to claim your prize and Michelle I think coming back to our conversation you know you wanted to come in there when I was talking about working with estate agents and sometimes just not going with the deal because I felt look they're not very professional and it became a red flag as opposed to thinking you know maybe they just don't know what they're doing let me just you know push it and get this property but so many of those red flags end up having you as a buyer thinking maybe rather not let me rather just get another property because this one seems like it might come back to bite me afterwards. So what I wanted to add to that you probably made the best decision in your life because you know the thing is the estate agency affairs act has something called the code of conduct now that code of conduct is an industry standard which agents are meant to practice by unfortunately and I can't say it because I know it first hand is that many agents one even aren't even aware of this code of conduct or two even bother to read through it to practice it but one of the specific clauses under the code of conduct is the duty to disclose clause and that clause very clearly states disclose all reasonable facts concerning the property which would affect or influence a seller a seller's decision sorry a buyer's decision and that's the thing is that agents because they are not they're not on that professional standard and they're not understanding all these rules and laws that govern them correctly think that they can just take the shortcut but unfortunately what is happening Zama is that the board is seeing more and more and more consumer complaints being lodged against estate agents the numbers in fact two years ago went up by four times previous years of you know complaints that were lodged against the state agents and as an estate agent you don't want to be sitting and explaining yourself to a board of inquiry it's it's not a good situation to find yourself in and I think the thing that they're not aware of Michelle is beyond the industry at a whole but you as an individual estate agent are also losing out in business right you're losing out of business we know that this is a profession that is that is commission based so it isn't about you know you have a guaranteed check at the end of the month if you don't sell a property and so you really are shooting yourself in the foot when you you don't invest in bettering your offering and positioning yourself as an authority as an estate agent I want to find out from the viewers at home as we unpack more of the reasons why estate agents should be upskilling and the benefit that we're going to get as consumers you know as home buyers as property investors when we work with estate agents who are upskilled I want to find out from you uh some of the red flags that you have so or some of the things that you consider as red flags when dealing with estate agents you know Michelle was pointing out that there's a code of conduct and one of the key things and it's such an important one is around disclosing certain things and and I've had instances where you know a seller will sometimes tell the agent that listen this is actually what's wrong with my property but I don't want you to you know say anything because I just want this thing gone and the estate agent you know doesn't disclose it and they say that they're not aware of it and only after the fact when you've bought the property do you come to the to the realization that actually both the seller and the estate agent were essentially in on you know selling you this property that was faulty and they knew that it was faulty and obviously you're trying to remedy something like that and even Michelle knows it it's just such a long process and that many of us probably don't even have the financial means to try and and tackle it so I want to find out from you at home what have been some of the things that you see as red flags when you deal with an estate agent that way you think you know what if they're actually just done this better uh it definitely would have probably prompted me to either go with them or the working relationship would have been slightly better do you share with us down here below and Michelle then when we look at the next reason why they should I think the biggest one and we've already been alluding to it but to to hit it on the nail it comes to customer service correct absolutely you know Zama over the the years previous a lot of the very big conveyancing firms did customer surveys where they would go back on on the years clients that they dealt with and just do like a quick phone survey and find out where was the client happy with the whole experience and 80 percent of the time the complaint was always against once the agent had done the deal they never heard from the agents again and for me that is quite distressing because you know it's seven times cheaper to keep an existing client than it is to find a new one and any good real estate agent out there will tell you and one that's been in the industry for a while will tell you that eventually 75 percent plus of their business comes out of their database now if you're not being kind to your clients and and being kind to them in your database they're not going to refeed you the business because you know every buyer will eventually become a seller every you know landlord may invest in more apartments and they're not going to give them back to the same agents because then there's no customer service and I think one of the things Michelle that they also underestimate is beyond me coming back for repeat business with you I refer you know friends and family because more often than not when it's especially when it comes to your wanting an estate agent when you want to sell your house you always reach out to you know the family member or the friend that had recently sold their house you ask them you know how was that estate agent would you recommend them and it really speaks to how and it's one of the things that we echo quite a lot on the podcast is that property is a relationship business and when you understand that and you understand that so many of of it being a relationship also comes from you know referrals so referrals from past clients referrals from you know maybe it was a tenant that you dealt with and it becomes such a big thing that maybe that tenant went from being a tenant and three years later they now you know looking to buy a property and you become the first person that they contact saying listen you know I've been renting and the last time I dealt with you you were the rental agent and you were just treated me so well I'm in the market for X type of property these are the specs you know are you in that area and those sort of things so the dots really do connect and I think if you as an estate agent have taken the time to understand that you equipping yourself with the knowledge and the right skills certainly sets you apart becomes so crucial and I think Michelle it probably leads us to that last point around being a trusted advisor I think you take us through this one because it's such a big one that I see a lot of estate agents just not doing at all and some of them when they do do it unfortunately they don't do the greatest job of it and so when we talk about an estate agent as a trusted advisor what exactly are we referring to okay so here we actually referring to the to the basis of our conversation this evening and that is that if an agent upskills themselves so it's not just it's not just about getting the relevant qualifications that they keep themselves up to date with market trains what is happening in their community what's happening in their suburb what are the crime statistics what new laws have been have been have taken place I mean and I'm going to give you a very specific one when Cape Town went through its extreme drought three years ago Cape Town passed bylaws regarding boreholes and and and those kinds of things didn't happen anywhere else in the country specifically happen in Cape Town so if you were an agent operating in the western Cape all of a sudden you had to become au fait with all these new bylaws that were passed that related back to property now if you are keeping up to date with trains and and those that kind of knowledge and you are imparting it to your clients and your database you automatically start to get seen and known as the trusted advisor because if anybody has a real estate question they're going to go back to the person that's been feeding them with relevant information and knowledge and they then establish themselves way above the rest of the agents in the area who are not imparting knowledge or information or interesting facts going to more of your questions and comments at home we get a we got a great comment here from glad she really does in communication and feedback is key to clients when you are an estate agent and it's such an important one because sometimes you may not know about something perhaps you know you let your client know that listen I'm going to find out about it you go and find out and you communicate rather over communicate than not adequately communicate but before I wrap up with you Michelle I see that Anelda Everton did claim her prize so that 2000 round cash prize goes to Anelda Everton congratulations on that I'm so happy you get to end of your week with that 2000 round in cash so it's all yours that means that on Monday the money bag goes back to 500 rounds and if you enter remember you'd have to be live I have to be watching us live in order to claim the prize so it's very important that you do that now Michelle before I let you go this evening any final tips particularly for estate agents when it comes to upskilling themselves and really the overall value that they're not only going to be providing to their clients and the industry at large but the value that they return on the investment that they're going to return to receive after they have been upskilling and as they continue to upskill because it's such a continuous one so I mean here's what I'm going to say if you're working in real estate you're working in one of the most phenomenal businesses in the world it's the only business that you get to write your own salary check so how small or how big you want that salary check to be is entirely up to you and the good news is even with COVID that real estate has never ever stopped trading a day in its life in existence so the business is always there how much you want of it it's an open sesame but in order to get the business and to become well known and become seen as the professional and the trusted advisor that's where the importance of upskilling yourself starts and I'm not going to let you go just yet Michelle we've got some few comments I want to squeeze in we've got Alistair Paulman saying Michelle Taylor Rebel is the best of the best real estate trainers absolutely love that thank you Alistair and Darren Hart is asking any advice if I choose to list my property without soliciting an estate agent would appreciate a tip or two so you own a property you don't want to use an estate agent any tips for you know the home owners who want to go the DIY route here's what I'm going to say to you is that selling your own home is one of the hardest things you're ever going to do my advice would be to get in a professional but if I'm going to if I'm going to give them anything I'm going to say make sure you have knowledge of your area you've got knowledge of your prime stats you've got a full disclosure form completed and signed by yourself with regards to any latent and deep and patent defects on the property because those are the things that always cause cause the biggest problems in a sale transaction and that's a great note to leave it at Michelle it's been so great to have you on the show this evening I know we're going to be having you back again thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me summer much appreciated I've enjoyed it and that is Michelle Taylor rebel who's an accredited CETA facilitator assessor and a moderator wrapping up the friday edition of the private property consulate myself I'll be back on your screens on monday evening at seven p.m. I do hope you're going to have a great weekend I know it's very cold for certainly most of the country and for a lot of us and counting we thought spring was coming in but we're going to be the middle of a cold front so as you enjoy your weekend also stay warm I'll be back on your screens on monday do of course stay tuned for the home shopper show that's coming to your screens at eight p.m. exactly we apparently are present in place so follow me as I take you through this stunning contemporary mansion let's explore the rooms and let's see what else this place has to offer come along