Ground-Breaking Training for Real Estate Agents
Thanks to the new home sustainability skills of Bayleys Nelson agent Bruce Farquhar, Lynn Marshall and Bryan Turner's energy efficient house can be better marketed
The market for energy efficient houses is set to grow, but are real estate agents up with the play? This groundbreaking project was a collaboration between Hikurangi and professionals from real estate, eco-assessment and distance learning. Together we created a pilot course to train agents on better performing, more sustainable houses, to address the current gap in this area for estate agents professional development.
If agents were more able to help householders make profitable changes to their home, like making it warmer, drier and cheaper to run, there would be benefits all round: sellers could benefit from better sales; agents could benefit from providing a better service to their clients; and the nation certainly benefits as housing stock improves.
As part of developing the pilot training, Hikurangi hosted an industry working-group who found that 95% of salespeople held the view that more knowledge on sustainability issues would make it easier to market a home.
“Working with Hikurangi on developing a sustainability training course for real estate agents is a significant, and important move. Real estate agents are a key group in the industry that will drive the sustainability in our housing forward.”
~ Glenn Murdoch, Association of Building Sustainability
Assessors
With so much of New Zealand’s housing stock being cold, damp, and energy-inefficient, it is hoped that this training helps to transform New Zealand’s property market to one that places value on warm comfortable homes.
On 5th October 2010 a media release officially announced the launch of New Zealand’s first ever eco-savvy estate agent training, the‘Home Sustainability Training Programme’. The programme was developed by The Hikurangi Foundation, in partnership with Sustainable Design, the REINZ Industry Training Organisation (ITO), Open Polytechnic, Bayleys Real Estate, and the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development. A pilot in July 2010 saw eight Bayleys Nelson agents learn about home performance in areas like heating, water use, materials and insulation.
Read the full press release here.
The training, eventually for both existing and new real estate agents, has been accepted and integrated by REINZ ITO into their CPD module: ‘Introduction to Property’ training, for delivery in high schools across the country starting in 2011.
The Open Polytechnic is the first educational institution in New Zealand to integrate the upcoming module into their national certificate in real estate training. The national certificate is a unit standards-based qualification.
Want to access this new training?
Please contact w: www.realito.co.nz | e: [email protected] | p: 09 353 2257
Want to know more about sustainable housing?
If you would like to speak to an independent advisor about how to ensure your new home or rental is energy efficient, you can contact the Community Energy Network on p: 0508 78 78 24 (0508 SUSTAIN) or visit communityenergy.org.nz/energyadvice.
