Project Elevate

The office of the NSW Property Commissioner has five strategic projects to deliver the “vision of an empowered, accountable and trusted industry.”

The focus of Project Elevate is to build performance-driven Continuing Professional Development to better connect agents’ abilities to achieve the required compliance and performance outcomes.

For those who follow Strata+ socials, you will have seen in February a photo of our CEO, together with the NSW Property Commissioner and Strata Community Association NSW General Manager. We shared the SCA NSW post thanking John Minns for striving “towards the key goal of creating a culture of lifelong learning in the property sector”.

Liza was attending a session in her capacity as SCA NSW Director and Chair of the Education Committee. The full-day program brought together key stakeholders to an industry roundtable to collaborate and debate. An innovation specialist and the Professional Standards Authority were present to aid in the day.

Read the NSW Property Commissioners’ strategy to drive customer-centric reforms, and find out about Project Elevate and the other four projects.

Integrity of the licensing scheme is crucial to meet the needs of a complex modern marketplace. An occupational licence should serve as a guarantee of the qualifications and experience of the professional who holds it and provide adequate avenues of redress for consumers. The NSW Government recognised those goals were not being met and collaborated closely with industry on major changes to the regulatory framework that commenced March 2020.

Higher standards of education and training, coupled with prerequisite experience were introduced to the licensing scheme after five-year reform journey. Despite the reforms, concerns remain about poor quality and corrosive competition in the training sector and this creates significant pushback from industry bodies and major property service brands.

NSW and regulators in other Australian jurisdictions share these concerns, with varied attempts to address them. However, risks are now escalating in terms of agents’ competency after completing national recognised qualifications, which in some cases fail to fundamentally connect to compliance and performance outcomes.

Examples include operation of trust accounts, record keeping, sales representations and consumer protection. Attraction and retention of high-quality recruits to the property services sector is a major industry concern which should demand this attention of Government as it magnifies consumer risks and poor experiences. Transforming this sector required new thinking and a common commitment to higher standards, a focus on performance and a strong accountability regime.

Strata+ has an established 20-year track record of volunteering to achieve continued growth in professionalism in our sector. Liza is continuing the tradition set by the owners and directors of the company. Read about David and Olivera’s contribution that resulted in SCA Life Membership being awarded to them in October 2022.

February 2023