Property sellers split over national body

A RIFT is brewing in the real estate industry in SA, with two organisations now representing the interests of estate agents.

Last month, some leading players in the industry formally announced the formation of a new body, the National Association of Real Estate Agencies (Narea), to represent agencies throughout the country.

The new organisation said at the time the industry had been without a meaningful platform to look after the interests of estate agents on a national level and to represent them in a democratic and effective manner.

Narea, which represents 15000 to 20000 agents around the country, wants to enable the industry to speak with one voice on matters of national importance and be truly representative of agencies.

This has ruffled feathers at the 68-year-old Institute of Estate Agents of SA, which has 7000 members and also claims to be a national body representing the interests of estate agents across the country.

It said at the time of the formation of Narea that the new body could confuse government as to who “truly represents” the industry.

The institute, which has always been strong in Western Cape, announced last week that it had reopened its Free State and Northern Cape regional institute, which had been closed for several years.

The institute’s chairman, Pretoria businessman Willie Marais, says the reopening of the regional institute had been planned since March and had nothing to do with the formation of Narea.

But he says the response from estate agencies in that area clearly indicates the institute has a lot of support.

Marais says the formation of Narea has split the industry in two. “There is no question about it. They (Narea) have many of the bigger players but not all of them.”

He says some Narea members have indicated they will retain their membership of the institute.

Narea has the support of some heavyweight property players, including Pam Golding Properties, Jawitz Properties and Sotheby’s International Realty.

“As far as their (Narea’s) national representation is concerned, we’ve (the institute) found that you need to represent your industry at all three levels of government, including national, provincial and local. It is clear from the structure they have put in place that they can only attend to national issues. The institute with our regional representation can do it on all three levels.”

Marais says if both organisations make representations on a national level on government issues affecting the property industry, government will ignore the industry input because it will be receiving two different messages.

“A further issue is that we have been talking to Narea’s leadership and they are adamant that the institute’s name and structures must disappear. We had a similar situation in the mid-1990s where many of the current role players in Narea were also involved. They created a body called the Real Estate Co-ordinating Council and we accommodated the body by giving it eight board seats on the institute. After a couple of years they just disappeared.”

Narea CEO Portia Tau-Sekati says the new organisation’s “doors continue to be open to discussions”.

“We haven’t come to any conclusions and we don’t necessarily agree on everything. For the benefit of the industry, it would be better if there was one body, which could take care of all issues in the industry and represent the real estate industry fully and comprehensively.”

She says Narea has no intentions at this stage of servicing local issues but rather feels there are much bigger issues such as government legislation that it wants to deal with.

Tau-Sekati says that over the past few years there has been a lot of new property legislation introduced by government, such as capital gains tax. But in spite of the long existence of the institute, there have been complaints from industry members that the industry has not been able to give any input to government on these issues.