Underquoting is among the ethical issues the new REIV president has said he hopes to address in the coming year.

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The new head of Victoria’s top real estate body has used the industry group’s night of nights to pledge to improve perceptions of agent ethics.

At Thursday night’s Real Estate Institute of Victoria Awards for Excellence president Jacob Caine’s opening speech addressed the Governance Institute of Australia’s 2023 Ethics Index, which named real estate agents as the nation’s least ethical profession.

He went on to say he hoped to raise trust for the industry to reflect the high ethical standards that members at the awards night upheld.

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Speaking after the event, Mr Caine said he believed agents had a “perception issue” created by an “absolutely minuscule” percentage of rogue elements in the industry, including those still underquoting.

Despite this, he said the Institute was reviewing its constitution and looking at ways to shift from a view that it was a membership organisation for paying members, to instead treating tenants, buyers and sellers as stakeholders in the REIV.

“And particularly in the Melbourne market there is the issue of underquoting which has long plagued the industry and created a sense of mistrust,” he said.

“We just have to remove any of the rogue agents that aren’t doing the right thing.”

Mr Caine said most in the industry now saw underquoting as “ineffective”, with the result often that a seller’s expectations would not be aligned with the budgets of buyers attracted by the price guide.

Jacob Caine from Caine Real Estate, REIV President.

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“It’s actually a terrible strategy,” he said.

“And the bad elements do get found out really quickly, people use Google reviews.”

However, Mr Caine said elements of the job would make it difficult to completely change opinions of agents, with an emotional motivation behind most home moves from births to deaths and divorce, meaning most people connected with agents at a time when they were prone to frustration.

Real Estate Institute of Australia president Hayden Groves echoed Mr Caine’s sentiments at the awards night, and encouraged those attending to join an online forum with the Governance Institute next week where they would seek to identify ways to improve their standing in the community.

“I’m hoping the session will reveal something that we don’t know and give us greater insights into ways we can work better or to have better education or more understanding for agents,” Mr Groves said.

He added that the majority of people responding to surveys about agent ethics would have interacted as tenants, buyers or homebuyer hopefuls — many having missed out on a home they wanted through no fault of agents involved.

The sellers and landlords they had a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of would be a relative minority, he added.

REIA president Hayden Groves.

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“If the market had plentiful supply and heaps of choice for buyers and tenants, I reckon the results would be very different,” he said.

Mr Groves said this would make it hard for the industry to “lift itself too much from the bottom of that list”.

“But if there’s a fundamental ethical problem, that’s on us to make sure agents understand their responsibilities with consumer interests,” he said.

“And we welcome any government regulation that aims to improve ethical conduct and have zero tolerance of poor ethical behaviour.”

Longview Real Estate was named large residential agency of the year.

Mr Caine’s agency, Caine Real Estate, won the award for Victoria’s best medium sized real estate agency and Keyhole Property Investments collected the gong for best small agency.

RT Edgar Toorak’s Antoinette Nido was named the top agent for 2023, with Ray White Cheltenham’s Greg Brydon the year’s top auctioneer.

Nelson Alexander Essendon’s Eleanor Currie won the gong for best novice auctioneer, while Davidson Property Advocates’ Tonya Davidson was accoladed as the state’s best buyer’s advocate.

The REIV Presidents’ award went to Horsham-based Wes Davidson Real Estate founder Wes Davidson.

“It’s inspiring to see such a high standard of professionalism in our sector, and the winners of our sought-after awards have demonstrated sustained excellence and achievement,” said REIV chief executive Quentin Kilian.

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