Real Estate Industry: Roles, Responsibilities, and Legislation

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the real estate industry, encompassing its various facets. It begins by defining real estate and its different types, including commercial, residential, industrial, and land. The report then delves into the core activities within the industry, such as property development, buying, and selling, highlighting the roles of real estate agents and their responsibilities in assisting clients. It further explores various business ownership models, agency structures, and the services offered, including marketing, sales, and leasing. The report also discusses the roles and responsibilities of agency staff, emphasizing consumer protection, ethical practices, and workplace relations. Legislative liabilities and responsibilities are examined, including adherence to common law, equity law, and statutory law, with a focus on consumer protection and privacy. The report references key legislation, such as the Estate Agent Act, and outlines strategies for maintaining compliance. Furthermore, it addresses client service standards, risk management, and relevant penalties for non-compliance. The report concludes with an analysis of required skills and knowledge for success in the real estate industry, including communication, literacy, and numeracy skills.

Running head: REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY 1
Working in the Real Estate Industry
Students Name
Institutional affiliation
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THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY 2
Working In the Real Estate Industry
Real estate refers to the land and property inclusive of the air rights above and
underground the land. There are four types of real estate including commercial real estate which
encompasses shopping and other commercial centers, residential real estate which comprises of
construction and resale homes, industrial real estate which includes all manufacturing buildings
and warehouses, and land which comprises of ranches, working farms and vacant land
(Amadeo,2017). The real estate industry work involves producing, buying, and selling of
property. New buildings and residential homes are constructed. The real estate agents assist
people to buy and sell their desired real estate while the seller’s agents give guidelines to sellers
on the market prices. Buyer’s agents provide a clear guideline to the potential homeowners on
the better deals in the market. To complete agency work, there are legal and ethical requirements
attached to property management (Weisleder, 2005). These include the ability to communicate
with people from different backgrounds and abilities as well as have necessary analytical skills to
interpret documents such as a lease, legislation, regulation, and authorization forms. Property
sales are required to have the ability to communicate with other people. Have skills necessary to
interpret legal forms, have literacy and computing skills as well as the ability to think rationally,
and make sound decisions.
There are a number of business ownership options as well as services provided by a real
estate agency. Among the various forms of business ownership (Ward, 2016), there is
corporation which is a business operation that is authorized to act as a single entity and is owned
by a board of directors; partnership which is a business operation where two or more people
decide to pool their resources together to advance their interests and share profits; and sole trader
or proprietorship which is a business entity owned by one person. In addition to property

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management and sales, the agency provides services such as marketing, sale, and leasing of a
range of property types as well as acting as buyers’ advocacy. A typical organizational structure
of an agency can include; an independent agency which acts without supervision from the
executive; a franchise group which is authorization from the government or a company to an
individual giving them the right to partake a certain task; or a marketing cooperative consisting
of many producers of a similar good working together to sell their products. The roles and
responsibilities of agency staff are ensuring that the consumers are protected and are exposed to
fair trading, they maintain conducive employment as well as workplace relations fostering
equity, provide privacy to their customers, and licensing of real estate. The legislative liabilities
and responsibilities include ensuring there are legal measures guarding against discrimination,
enhancing consumer protection, and promoting privacy.
The NSW office of fair trading upholds integrity to both buyers and consumers as well as
providing information on ethical and fair practices. The civil and administrative tribunal is a
body that replaced the administrative decisions tribunal of New South Wales and deals with
matters of tribunals (Michael, 2014). The rental bond board stores rental bonds paid by a tenant
to the landlord for housing occupancy. The real estate institute of New South Wales represents
agents, as well as promoting, and responding to members’ needs.
Some legislation in the New South Wales state that bind property sales and management
include the common law, equity law, statutory law, and contract law. To maintain up-to-date
records of legislation, agencies keep the information in bills, amendment acts and regulations,
and consolidated acts. To track amendments, techniques such as the use of margin notes as well
as government newsletters. The Estate Agent act is a legislation relating to ethics and
professional conduct of estate agents and agent’s representative. This legislation is aimed at

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setting expected standards of acting to the agents and representatives when carrying out their
everyday activities. Some obligations under this law include: making reasonable inquiries to
provide necessary information, act in fair and just manners, complete client work on time and
under their jurisdiction, minimize disputes with clients, and have relevant knowledge of laws and
legislation (Consumer Affairs Victoria, 2017).
There are several strategies in place that implement, monitor and review client service
standards. According to Rosier (2013), there are six key steps to quality monitoring. They
include: listening to the clients through interactions, adopt all channels necessary for client
feedback, involving the clients in day to day activities, help agents improve skills by use of
quality monitoring, promote continuous training to agents, and conduct an evaluation to monitor
progress. By doing so, Rosier (2013) believes that the agency will remain relevant and
competitive in the industry.
According to the National Research Council (2005), risks should be identified earlier and
plans to mitigate and manage them put in place. Strategies such as viewing past projects, project
team participation as well as face to face interactions are essential in identifying risks. Analyzing
of the risks can involve methods such as risk screening, impact and probability identification,
and Pareto diagrams. Options for minimizing risks include avoiding risk related environments,
financing the treatment of the risk, reducing the risk by developing techniques to curb it, and
transferring the risk to others.
There is various estate agents’ act in the New South Wales state. According to the
Consumer Affairs Victoria (2017), they include;
The Act of your state or territory

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Obligation Maximum penalty for breaching your
obligation
Section of
the Act
You must not act as an estate agent
unless licensed to do so.
12 months imprisonment or 500
penalty units for individuals and 1000
units for a corporation
12
You must not permit or assist a
person who is not licensed to carry
on the business of an estate agent.
500 penalty units, permanent or
temporary disqualification and
cancellation of license
29
You must not publish or authorize
the publication of an advertisement
that is false or misleading.
25 penalty units 42(4)
You must not market a property for
sale at a lower price than your
estimated selling price (commonly
referred to as underquoting)
200 penalty units 47C(2)
You must not purchase or indirectly
benefit from the purchase of any real
estate or business you are engaged
to sell
240 penalty units, 2 years
imprisonment, or both
55 (1,2)
You must keep trust money in a
separate and current trust account at
an authorized financial institution.
25 penalty units 59 (3)
You must not fraudulently use trust 120 penalty units 59 (1)

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money or falsify trust accounts
The table below represents personal skills and knowledge for working in the real estate
industry.
Skill/knowledge area Rating (1-
5)
Improvement possible
Communication skills (i.e. active
listening, building rapport, negotiation
skills, communicating with people from
different cultures and backgrounds, use
of verbal and non-verbal
communication such as your own body
language, etc.)
4 Involve more people in dialogues to
understand them better as well as
their desires.
Literacy skills (i.e. do you have any
issues understanding any
documentation, policies, procedures,
regulations, and legislation relevant to
real estate work, can you fill in forms
and other paperwork correctly and
without assistance?)
3 Seek further clarification from
experts on legislation relating to the
real estate industry.
Numeracy skills (i.e. are you good at
working with numbers – do you need
any help when it comes to mathematical
3 Seek assistant from experts so as to
gain more knowledge on working

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tasks such as working out budgets,
commissions, bond, etc.?)
budgets, commissions, and bonds.
References
Amadeo, K. (2017). Real Estate: What It Is and How It Works. The Balance. Retrieved from
https://www.thebalance.com/real-estate-what-it-is-and-how-it-works-3305882
Consumer Affairs Victoria. (2017). Penalties-Estate agents. Retrieved from
https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/licencing-and-registration/estate-agents/penalties
Consumer Affairs Victoria. (2017). Professional conduct and obligations-estate agents.
Retrieved from https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/licencing-and-registration/estate-
agents/running-your-business/professional-conduct/professional-conduct-and-obligations
Michael, P. (2014) Law, and Order beast felled demoted attorney general, Greg Smith. The
Australian. News Corp Australia.
National Research Council. (2005). The Owner’s Role in Project Risk Management: Risk
Identification and Analysis. National Academics Press. Retrieved from
https://www.nap.edu/read/11183/chapter/6
Rosier, S. (2013). Six steps to successful monitoring of your customer service. Retrieved from
https://www.mycustomer.com/service/management/six-steps-to-successful-monitoring-
of-your-customer-service