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While the country is grappling with a skills shortage across a number of industries, real estate seems to be attracting more new professionals than ever, especially in Queensland.
On a recent edition of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland’s (REIQ) podcast, The Property Brief, Queensland Fair Trading (QFT) commissioner Victoria Thomson shared that the office has been receiving so many new licence or registration applications that the wait time for approvals has blown out.
“Normally, it takes around four to six weeks to get a turnaround on an application because of things like the criminal history check, which has to go through the Queensland police,” Ms Thomson said.
Current applicants should expect it to take longer.
“It’s a very popular space for people to work in, and the number of licence applications we’re getting at the OFT has really increased recently. We’re getting about 600 applications per month, which is up from 400 per month back in 2019,” Ms Thomson revealed.
Calling current demand “unprecedented”, she added that it meant the ranks of real estate industry professionals in the state were growing.
“We’ve currently got almost 36,000 licensed professionals in the real estate industry here and in Queensland and nearly 7,600 licensed businesses and corporations,” she said.
She also noted that though QFT was working to respond to the demand for licences, they took the process of conducting their checks very seriously.
“We need to make sure that it’s the people with the utmost integrity who are operating within the [real estate] market,” said Ms Thomson.
The uptick in new entrants to the Queensland marketplace can largely be attributed to events that have unfolded since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A hot market brought on by low-interest rates, among other factors, has attracted a lot of new professionals to the field, particularly from industries that faced economic downturn and subsequent job cuts.
And Queensland has been one of the primary beneficiaries of a rapid trend in domestic migration, with Australians seeking lifestyle shifts away from the large capital cities of Sydney and Melbourne, flocking to the Sunshine State’s coastal towns. Subsequently, real estate agents are in high demand.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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