If you’re a Victorian real estate agent, you’re almost definitely aware about a certain last-minute change to the Estate Agents Act 1980 to strengthen laws against underquoting on residential properties. Now, real estate agents in Victoria will need to provide a Statement of Information for each residential sale to prove the value of the house is as advertised.While this has no doubt been done with all the best intentions, changes to online advertising requires a fair bit more than just a click of the fingers.We have these things called data transfer standards which allow companies in our industry to tell each other about new listings, property details and so on. And everyone using the same standard needs to understand and agree on the rules. If we didn’t all agree, then Rex (or any other CRM) wouldn’t be able to talk to any of the portals and your listings wouldn’t be pushed live. And I’m sure we all know what happens next. The prices drop, the real estate industry crashes and then, of course, complete global annihilation.So when changes like this happen with such little notice, we really need to pull together as an industry. And this time, real estate software providers and portals from all over Australia put in a huge effort.We’d like to start an industry-wide round of applause for the great work that most of the portals (especially realestate.com.au) did in giving software providers advanced notice of the impending changes, and working with us towards a solution.Now, inline with a new feature release we’re unveiling today, Victorian users can safely and legally upload their listings to the portals in compliance with the new laws come May 1st.Once you’ve uploaded your Statement of Information into the documents tab and named it appropriately, all that’s left to do is mark it as ‘Public’, and Rex will include it when pushing your listing to the portals. For more information, check this out: Feature release: public documents.
