RE/MAX head calls for Queensland to rethink COVID-19 rental rules

EXPERT OBSERVER

RE/MAX Australia Managing Director Michael Davoren puts his network’s support behind the Real Estate Institute of Queensland’s call to the Queensland Premier to reconsider proposed measures relating to tenancy.

Mr Davoren vehemently agrees with the REIQ that a more balanced and fairer framework providing equal protection for renters and owners of investment properties is needed.

The REIQ has taken the fight to the state government because the right of the landlords has been completely eroded – and the pervading perception of landlords as wealthy landowners is false. Fact is that 77 per cent of singe-property landlords are ‘ordinary people’ earning less than $100,000 a year.

Mr Davoren’s concern is that the current ‘protections’ are potentially devastating to a much broad sector of the population.

I have grave concerns about the information the Queensland Government is basing its decisions on.

People in the real estate industry – residential and commercial - have access to possibly more sectors of the population than any other, and certainly at the grass roots level.

This is about shelter… and when you talk about shelter – whether for residential or commercial premises, for owner occupiers, for tenants, for businesses – all roads lead to real estate.

We in the real estate industry are the experts in our field, just as those in the medical profession are the experts. Stop listening to people who are not the experts.

Mr Davoren agrees that governments have to lean towards the tough side when it comes to COVID-19, the virus itself, because it involves saving lives but he suggests what the Queensland government is doing in relation to landlords and tenants goes beyond dealing with the virus.

It’s a short-sighted vision. If the proposed measures go through, large numbers of landlords will divest themselves of their investment property as soon as they can. The tenant becomes the real loser. With fewer properties to rent, rents will go through the roof.

He said leadership particularly now, needed to demonstrate confidence, strength and sensitivity, and such leadership was drawing the real estate industry together, on its own behalf and on that of real estate consumers, to address how COVID-19 affects the population.

REIP (Real Estate Industry Partners), a group of the largest real estate brands and independents in Australia, is across state boundaries and engages all levels of government. At the state level, all the institutes are stepping up.

Chairman Peter Brewer and CEO Antonia Mercorella have stood up as leaders in a time when good leadership is needed like never before.

He said the Palaszczuk Government was quick to respond to the thousands of letters it received in a day from landlords, following the launch of the REIQ’s ‘Everybody Matters’ campaign.

It was pleasing to read that the Queensland government promised to consult more widely on its proposed rental protections but I sincerely hope this happens in time to prevent  the initially proposed measures being passed when Parliament sits on Wednesday 22 Apri.

MICHAEL DAVOREN is the RE/MAX Australia Managing Director