View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Queensland University of Technology ePrints Archive QUT Digital Repository: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/ Eves, Chris (2005) Real estate agency practice and profitability : an analysis of house sales and agency profitability in Sydney. In: 12th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference , June 15-18th 2005, Dublin, Ireland. (Unpublished) © Copyright 2005 please contact the author 12th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference Dublin, Ireland, June 15-18th 2005 Real Estate Agency Practice and Profitability: An Analysis of House Sales and Agency Profitability in Sydney Dr Chris Eves, University Western Sydney, School of Construction, Property & Planning. Locked Bag 1797 Penrith South DC NSW 1797, Australia Phone: 61 2 98524219 Fax: 61 2 98524185 Email: [email protected] Key Words: Agency practice, real estate agents, house prices, Sydney residential property, residential house sales. Abstract Large cities provide a broad range of residential property types, as well as a range of socio-economic locations. This results in a significant variation in residential property prices across both the city itself and the individual suburbs. The only constant across such a diverse range of residential property is the need for the majority of residential property owners to employ the services of a real estate agent to sell their property or to purchase a residential property. This paper will analyse the Sydney residential property market over the period 1994 to 2002 to determine the change in real estate offices numbers over the period, the profitability of real estate agency offices based on the residential house price performance of houses and units in these specific locations and the extent of changing residential house prices on agency profitability. Suburbs have been selected to provide a full range of housing types, socio-economic areas, older established and developing residential suburbs and location from the CBD. Introduction A more recent trend in Australian residential property markets has been the sale of residential property by means other than traditional real estate agents auction or private treaty sales. Increased use of the internet for home owners to sell their property privately has been championed by the media and service providers as a better alternative to the perceived high price service offered by real estate agents (House Investors, 2005; Carmichael, 2005). Despite the increasing number of on-line real estate sales providers throughout Australia, there still appears to be an increasing number of both real estate offices and real estate agents operating in the Sydney residential housing market. 1 This paper will analyse the residential property markets in 43 suburbs in the major residential areas of Sydney to determine the growth in the residential property market in relation to house and unit prices, total residential property numbers, sales per annum, average annual sales per agent and agent income from sales. This will be based on all sales transactions for these suburbs during the period 1995 to 2002, to determine if there has been a significant shift in the volume of sales transacted by real estate agents in Sydney. Residential Property Sales The performance of residential property in the major cities of Australia is well documented, with numerous residential performance indices being produced by government departments, professional body institutions and commercial interests (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2004; Real Estate Institute of Australia, 2005; Residex, 2005). Several of the larger real estate agency companies also provide overviews of the change in prices for residential property in the major residential property markets in Australia (Colliers International, 2004; Knight Frank, 2003). However, these residential property reports have a specific market or region focus and do not always represent a full analysis of that particular residential property sector. Institutions such as the Housing Industry Association (2005), Reserve Bank of Australia (2005) and ABS provide details of the number of new housing construction starts and new loans. However, only one data source has actually provided details of prices for all Local Government Areas, and Sydney postcode areas, as well as the total property stock and actual agent sales for a significant number of the main postcodes and all the Local Government Areas (Allan Consulting, 2003). These details are available for the period 1995 to 2002. The availability of agent sales per annum provides the opportunity to determine if residential real estate agency practice has declined over the past 10 years with both the increase in “do-it –yourself” residential property sales programs and the negative press that is often quoted in relation to the ethics and job performance of real estate agents (Choice Australia, 2003; Building Licensing Authority, 2004). An Australian Consumers Association (2004) survey found that 31% of vendors and 23% of purchasers were totally dissatisfied with the performance of the real estate agent handling their perspective sales. The survey also showed the main areas of complaints against agents being the issues of dummy bidding, huge commissions and unethical practices. This survey and other anecdotal evidence has been a major reason for the large number of companies offering owner sales kits or website services for the private sales of homes, in an attempt to avoid the cost of using a real estate agent to sell their property. Despite the increase in “do-it-yourself” home sales options, there is still over 20 organisations and TAFE colleges offering courses to meet the licensing requirements for real estate agents (Office of Fair Trading, 2005). This paper will review agents’ sales transactions over the period 1995-2002 to determine if there has been a significant reduction in the volume of residential 2 property sales undertaken by real estate agents in Sydney and whether there has been a resulting decrease in agent’s commission income. Research Methodology A commercial database (Allan Consulting Pty Ltd) has been used to obtain the following data for the period 1995-2002: • Annual residential property numbers per suburb (postcode) • Annual agent sales transactions per suburb (postcode) • Average annual sale price for residential dwellings • Average annual sales price for residential units The main geographic regions of Sydney were identified and from this data base five (5) suburbs were selected as representative suburbs for the nine (9) geographic regions listed below: • Northern suburbs (High socio-economic area) • Eastern suburbs (High socio-economic area) • Southern suburbs (Medium socio-economic area) • Inner city (Medium/High socio-economic area) • Inner west (Medium socio-economic area) • Western suburbs (Low socio-economic area) • Lower north shore (High socio-economic area) • South West suburbs (Low socio-economic area) • North west suburbs (Medium/High socio-economic area) For each of the Sydney suburbs selected, an internet search was carried out to identify all current licensed real estate agencies operating in those suburbs for the period of the study. Individual agents were then contacted to determine the average commission charged for the sale of residential property in that particular area. Despite open competition, the commission charged by agents within a suburb did not vary significantly. The average annual sale price of residential property in each of the nine (9) regions was based on the percentage of houses to units in each of the regions (ABS, 2001). The percentage break-up of property type was used as the percentage break-up of the average annual sale price for residential sales in that particular region. Analysis of this residential region data has provided the following research results for the period 1995-2002; these will be discussed in the following section of the paper: • Average annual sale price-houses • Average annual sale price-units • Number of annual residential property sales • Average annual property sales • Change in actual housing stock over the study period • Average annual sales per real estate agency • Average annual sales commission per real estate agency per year 3 Research Limitations The compilation of the data by Allan Consulting ceased in 2003, with the data being valid to December 2002. Although this data base is 2 years old, the trends shown in the data provide an important insight into agency practice over this period. Real estate agency profitability in this research is based on the commission from residential property sales only. Additional income from property management, small commercial and industrial sales and management is not included in the comparison. However, despite this limitation, the research does provide a worthwhile comparison of real estate agency profitability on both a region and annual basis. The commission rates used to determine the annual sales commission is an average across all agents in that particular region. It is acknowledged that individual real estate agents could have charged higher or lower sales commission in any given period. However, as the same applies across all suburbs of Sydney the research results still provide a useful comparison of real estate agency performance across the various socio economic areas of Sydney. Calculations for average annual sales per real estate agency are based on the assumption that agents in a selected postcode only sell