Episode 115: Sydney Real Estate Faces A Trust Reckoning After A 10-Year Ban

A ten-year ban doesn’t just end one agent’s career. It detonates a trust problem that’s been sitting in plain sight across Australian real estate for years. Ciaran O'Brien sits down with industry veteran Peter O'Malley to unpack why the Josh Tesolin case has triggered a genuine public brawl between high-profile agents, trainers, and business leaders, and why the loudest arguments aren’t really about personality, they’re about power, money, and credibility.

We get specific on the mechanics that matter to consumers: how underquoting becomes normalised, why it can look “strategic” in a hot market, and why it turns ugly when incentive fees enter the picture. Peter explains the moment many people stop seeing it as sales theatre and start seeing it as misconduct: vendors being told there’s no buyer interest, then being pushed into paying a bigger commission, only to learn demand was strong all along.

From there, we switch to practical guidance for anyone selling a home in NSW or anywhere watching these reforms closely. With auction clearance rates softening, the old tricks can backfire fast, and regulators like NSW Fair Trading are increasingly focused on price guides, compliance, and the digital footprint of campaigns. If you’re hiring an agent, we share the questions worth asking so you can protect your price, your timeline, and your peace of mind.

If this helped, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s selling, and leave a review so more Australians can find straightforward property advice.

As always if there is a specific topic you would like for us to cover, please reach out and let us know!    

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the current mummer conditions, number podcast, brought to you by the hammer commanders realistic. Welcome an industry leader, Peter Ramelli, to discuss the current property market condition.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Hello and welcome to another edition of Current Market Insights. I'm your host, Kieran O'Brien, and with me is Mr. Peter Romelli. Peter. Kieran, great to see you. Great to see you, Peter. A uh juicy topic today, my friend. We have covered underquatting in the past as a broad concept, but uh more recently we've spoken about a high-profile agent in Sydney who's been charged and ultimately banned, at least for 10 years from the industry, Josh Tesselin. Uh not here to talk about his behaviour necessarily today, but across social media, across popular media, podcasts, you name it, there is something of a feeding frenzy going on

The Ban That Sparked A Frenzy

SPEAKER_01 1:05

at the moment between high-profile agents, high-profile spokesmen in the industry, all seemingly looking for a war against each other. So I thought it'd be really insightful today for our consumers to firstly cover off what is being said across the industry and who's kind of who's feeding into to who here and who's after who. Uh, and then from there we can try and work out what what consumers are meant to do to try and actually, you know, operate within the space if they need to utilize an agent for some of their business.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Thanks, Kieran. Look, yeah, the industry is certainly bloodletting over this issue, there's no doubt about that. And uh, I must say, um, I'm not on Instagram. Well, I'm on Instagram, but I never look at it. Yeah, I have a profile there with um 12 people following me, I think. That's how popular I am on Instagram. Why the Apostles? Yeah, that's it. Um uh but uh uh friends started uh drawing my attention to high profile um uh players in the uh residential real estate industry in Sydney, absolutely shredding each other on social media over Joss Teslan and Joss Teslan's band. And primarily it comes down to this that the the the persons involved are either distancing themselves from the practice of underquoting and uh you know the incentive fees um and and certainly distancing themselves from uh the the individual Joss Teslan himself. Um in fairness, there are a couple of people that continue to equally back uh Joss Teslan to the hilt and think that he will potentially get off on his uh appeal to his 10-year ban, or that uh in spite of his 10-year ban, that he didn't deserve it and uh, you know, um it was acceptable practice all along. I I I don't know. But it's uh it's been a bit strange and and and certainly very interesting to watch what I what I thought were players in the industry that you know had uh good working relationships with each other, absolutely uh, as I say, uh tearing into each other on this point.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

So there's a couple of questions I kind of want to ask you on this topic. But the first one would be of of the people that uh uh I guess you know had the knives out looking for for some kind of fight, you know, those looking to distance in this space, uh are those people distancing themselves from the agent court, do you think, or are they distancing themselves publicly from the practice of underquoting? Certainly both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Uh certainly both. And um uh, you know, John John McGrath did a 40-minute podcast talking about the issue and um certainly rebuked uh Joss Teslan and his behaviour very strongly. I you know, I'll say one thing um uh about John McGrath is that he he's not he's not the sort of person that criticizes people publicly. Yeah. I don't know the man, um, but uh I've always found him fair, balanced and reasonable in his public statements. And that's what was so intriguing for me that uh he he he took a bit of a stick um to Joss Teslan on on this issue, but equally said, I I like the individual and he's made a mistake and he needs to own it. So um I didn't tell you this off air, but you know, Joss Teslan is doing things like taking photos of a Mickey Mouse watch and his um you know uh $200,000 Rolex and saying that's my Rolex here and that's the Department of Fair Trades uh watch there. And uh who who who are they to uh to tell me how to uh run my life and career? And and John is is basically saying that's you know, we are in a cost of living crisis at the moment. We are an industry um that is not highly respected by the consumer. Um you have um fallen foul of the regulations and been struck off, and and that's your response. That is childish petulant and a ridiculous response that uh drags all real estate agents down. So I think that was uh uh you know that that was fair commentary from from John McGrath in that regard. Another high profile um not real estate agent now, but certainly the co-founder of Brezick Whitney, Ivan Brezick, um just out of nowhere, has you know started putting posts up on Instagram essentially, you know, saying that Tom Panos, the high profile real estate trainer, is highly complicit in Jos Teslan's behaviour. Now that's a massive accusation.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Massive. Um and and and again, I'd I don't I don't uh believe that Tom Panos is um complicit in in Joss Teslan's behaviour. The only one that's complicit in Joss Teslan's behaviour is Joss Teslan.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

And his team, potentially.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Potentially. His team are the one that put him in, Kieran.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

No, no, of course, but I mean I I I must admit, I don't, I'm not, you know, suggesting anyone else has done anything wrong. But I I find it hard to believe that people working close to people don't necessarily, you know, have have some insight to behaviours. Uh, but you know, there's always a power imbalance that can make it challenging to uh you know to step up against uh an authority figure. I mentioned you off-air, you know, interestingly, I often follow real estate conversations on social media, particularly places like Reddit, where it's uh it's a weird hive of intellect and oddity, I find. Um, but often, you know, in the Australian conversations, real estate stuff just gets shut down quite quickly and closed off. People are, you know, as you say, consumers don't have a lot of faith in the industry. Uh, they're not big fans of the people that conduct business in the industry as a general rule. Uh, so the discourse is usually quite short, sharp, and negative. Um, but this is one topic, particularly after the 10-year ban was announced, that conversation was long, it was heated, uh, and it was all incredibly anti-uh Tessalin's behavior, which I find really interesting because we have said in the past that, you know, underquoting seems so widespread that to me it seemed laughable that people might be not necessarily opposed, but just that there was so much sentiment against it. But I think this has highlighted there really is a big rift in uh in the industry and particularly how agents view each other and their conduct, uh, and and we've created a real battleground for the way forward.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Well, look, a couple of I think there's a couple of points out of what you've just said uh there. First of all, I think the thing that has really the the consumer

Incentive Fees And The Red Line

SPEAKER_02 7:20

knows that 90%, if not 95%, of the real estate industry in let's say Sydney Metropolitan are underquoting. Yeah. It's right because the reality is is when one firm starts doing it, it forces the others to follow suit, otherwise their listings look overpriced. Where I think Josh Teslan lost any sympathy from the industry or the consumer or the you know neutral observer is when he started introducing uh incentive fees, kickers as the real estate agents call them. Um and he was telling people that there was no interest in his extended stands accused and subsequently convicted, stands stood accused of telling people there's no interest in the house, but if you pay me uh an extra incentive, I'll divert all of my agents off the other listings and put them on yours, and I'll do my very, very best to uh to get the right result for you on the weekend. Yeah, if only you can pay me a supercharged commission. And then the consumer, the uh the vendor found out after the auction, after they were now obligated to a jumbo-sized commission, that when the agent Josh Teslan came around to see them, that there wasn't, in fact, um a lack of buyer interest in the home, there was excess interest, and he just used the fact that there was a lack of interest as a way of convincing them to pay him an extraordinarily high commission. Yeah, that that's crossing red lines, like of course, like you know that that makes me furious, even recounting that story that you would go and sit at someone's dining room table, um, good working class folk, and convince them of that story. And there's people in the industry that have been in it for a long time, and the real estate industry in Sydney has been good to a lot of people for a long time that sell it, Kieran. Like there's some real estate agents in Sydney that are uh seriously independently wealthy from selling houses. Yeah, yeah, of course. You know, we're we're not going to a hospital like you are every day and saving lives and you know, working on people's health. Uh we're just selling houses and and and and it's been good to a lot of people. So they're furious um at what Josh Teslan did to the people that um that that pay us, the consumer.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah. It's it's always the case though, it like regardless of topic, industry, whatever, it is always a few bad eggs that do something horrific that completely undermine faith and trust in the system. And as you say, there are good, and you know, for our listeners, I have the same respect for Peter's honourable like method of business. Yeah, there are people like you that suffer in the eyes of the public as a result of behaviors of people like this.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, well, I don't want this conversation to be about me by the dredge.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

You are the good agents, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So um I think uh the the the reality was there was that Tom Panos did training with Joss Teslan. Yep, and this is all in Tom's own admission. He MC'd his wedding, yep. Um, and he conducted a course um in conjunction, or as a part of it, I wasn't there, uh naturally, uh, with Joss Teslan. So uh Ivan Brestig's coming out and saying, mate, when this was all going on, you you were writing as co-pilot.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Now, um, from what I can gather from the outside, Tom Tom Panos has got a phenomenal workload. I I I'm not saying he is or he isn't um complicit um with um Joss Teslan's behaviour. I I wouldn't know. I don't I don't think he is because he doesn't strike me as the sort of person that would condone a smooth-talking salesperson sitting down and manipulating and lying to extract a 3X commission from a working class person. I just don't believe personally that that that that is who Tom Panos would be or or or anyone in this debate for that matter. I think the person that's responsible and complicit in Joss Teslan's behaviour is is Joss Teslan.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, and and look, you know, there's some argument that the punishment he've res he's received is not sufficient for you know the crimes that or the the behaviours that he's uh you know conducted himself through. Uh, you know, some saying, you know, as you say, he's out there mocking with the Mickey Mouse watch and the Rolex, and and some are saying, you know, he's there's there's been reports of ten million dollars in in commissions and uh you know I think it was thirty-three thousand dollars in fines here, which which still tells me that there is a long way to go in terms of uh the industry punishing those that are doing the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Well he's he's showing no signs of remorse. No, zero, no, uh to the degree for for the people that are listening to this and have loosely followed this story, his source, maybe not his main source, but a source of income that Joss Teslan is doing at the moment, is running real estate seminars for real estate agents teaching them how to be a success. So he didn't he didn't even wait. No, he didn't even wait a period of time for this to die down and then come back and say I'm I'm remorseful, and but you know, I did, you know, before I went bad, I I was doing it really well, and this is what I did do, and come back that way. He's gone from selling real estate to ban to doing seminars straight away, and that is a slap in the face uh for um for the consumers that were uh you know that that were that were fleeced and ripped off or victims of his way. And the other thing I think that, and I'm

Blame Culture And Industry Power

SPEAKER_02 12:40

only thinking about this now as we talk, I think the reason that the real estate industry, Kieran, is so agitated by what Joss Teslan has done, other than he's given everyone a bad name, um, it's it's it's the regulation and the and and the oversight that he's invited on the real estate industry. Because everything that the uh the Department of Fair Trade and the state government are doing in the name of um tighter oversight on the uh on on the real estate industry, Josh Teslan's name is bought up. So he's now got this association where if it wasn't for Joss Teslan, you wouldn't be back in the office at nine o'clock at night tidying up files on compliance and keeping yourself across that side of thing, but it's because this guy has gone completely rogue and exposed the gaps in the system that the rest of the industry are now paying a price. And I think that's a part of why the industry is bloodletting to the degree that it is. In the podcast that I referred to, John John McGrath suggests this could be the lowest point for for the real estate industry in Australia. Um maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Um I'll tell you this though, there's no surprise we're here.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

No, we I mean we have been talking about this for the last couple of years. You have been talking about it as long as I've known you. Yeah. Uh it's been it's an open secret. Everyone knows this is happening.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

And I think I think that's where um Ivan Brezick, and he's he's, you know, um, I'm not uh uh I don't know the guy either, and uh I'm not saying that he's wrong or right to do what he's saying. Let's let's let's call a spade a spade. The first uh conviction for underquoting what was against Brezick Whitney.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Uh the first charge, and and and and that was dismissed on a uh technicality, not on the fact that there was no evidence of underquoting. Um it was dismissed on a uh a technicality because the real estate agent working for Brezick Whitney was doing it as a contractor. And the um when the New South Wales uh government lost that uh case, they changed the legislation saying that even if a contractor is working under XYZ real estate, the licensee of XYZ real estate is responsible for that contractor, where that wasn't the case back in 2015 when that when that took off. So um Josh Teslan is not the only real estate agent that that underquotes. Uh what's remarkable, if you can believe this, is as we know Josh Teslan was um wiped from the industry, and a mere six months later, another agent down the road that took Josh Mark Josh Teslan's market share, guess what he got banned for?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

You can only imagine. Yeah, underquoting. Of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Same thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

You know, I I have to wonder, like, I I have a few things about this whole whole topic that really bug me. The first is that uh in almost any other industry, if you were banned for misconduct, and let's, you know, you mentioned the hospital earlier, you too, let's use medicine or health as an example. If you have your license revoked for misconduct, dangerous behaviours, whatever it might be, you don't just get to go down the road and become an educator in the space because there's there's an expectation that the industry is protected from your style of behaviours. And I find it absolutely perplexing that fair trading are allowing the training business to happen because we, you know, I I don't think they've got any jurisdiction, that's the problem. No, but I like I can't help but think there has to be tighter legislation around the industry collectively.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

You know, the medicine medicine's regulated and tightly controlled, where you know, if you want to go and hire a hall, put your name on and say, I'll teach you some secrets and people want to turn up and pay $1,500 a head for the day, it's a free market.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

No, look, I I agree. I I understand the reason that there's not tighter regulation here, but I think there needs to be if they're gonna if they're gonna put out these kinds of bans for these behaviors, because there are, you know, this is probably a little bit cynical, but there are young, fresh agents out there who have watched people like Josh on social media, seen his lifestyle, they see his Rolex, they see this wealth, and they think, I don't care what it takes. You've only got to look, you know, slight divergence, but look at Louis Thoreau's latest Manosphere videos. There is a whole subculture of people that are profit first. And with profit first comes terrible, you know, manipulative and dangerous behaviors. And in this case, people lost some money, but it could be a lot worse, right? Some people could be, you know, that's that's one whole gripe I have with this whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Um I I think I think your gripe is completely justified. We said this um earlier in the year. Consumers who are listening to this, they need to remember this about real estate agents. When the wolf of Wall Street Yeah, I was gonna raise Jordan earlier. I'm glad you brought him up. When the Wolf of Wall Street was speaking at a real estate conference on the Gold Coast, tickets sold out in record time from young real estate agents, probably old ones too, rushing up to the Gold Coast to hear the Wolf of Wall Street uh tell his secrets or whatever he told. Yeah. That's the real estate industry. So so if you're out there and saying, well, what's a uh rogue, what's a rogue bloke out at Quakers Hill got to do with me, well, okay, he was probably at the pointy end of uh of everything we're discussing here and at the sharp at the sharpest end of uh you know the extreme end of what was going on. But do not mistake um uh this as uh you know he's a he's a rogue agent, and there might be two or three more that need to be weeded out. This is deep, and that's why I say when John McGrath says this is the lowest point um in the cycle for the for the Australian real estate industry, I'm not so sure about that.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

No, well, this is the tip of the iceberg, potentially. And you know, the pointiest part gets caught because it's above the waterline. The uh I guess that the you know, to really move the podcast into the second phase, with all of this going on, knowing that there is very likely a whole sub-culture or you know, underbelly of young, uh, you know, kind of whatever

How Consumers Choose An Agent

SPEAKER_01 18:35

it might be, energetic, less than, less than uh kind of uh honourable or ideal agents potentially coming up through with profit first and foremost, knowing that agents like Tesla are out there spruking whatever might be part of their training course, knowing that the agents, some senior agents in the industry are actively kind of uh attacking and fighting across the the open trenches at the moment, what you know, if you're a consumer, which is who you know, consumers are our audience on this podcast, and we're trying to educate people here about what's happening. If you are a consumer, what on earth are you meant to do and how are you meant to navigate all this if you actually need to utilize the industry? Because from the outside, it looks like a completely disheveled, you know, frat party where no one is really in control, and uh it's just chaos.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, look, um when when when it comes to when it comes to selling a property, I I I've I've seen many examples where an agent will confide in myself or or other members of our team. Um, I don't like when they're a buyer, I don't like such and such because they underquote, I don't like such and such because they lie. Yeah, I don't lie such and such because we thought we had it, then they sold it to someone else for a higher price. When when when that um uh buyer goes on to buy, who do they give their listing to?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Oh, well, they always sell with the the one who such and such. Exactly the same person. They go straight back to the person. We've had this happen all the time.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah, yeah. So um there's an element there where um the consumer needs to uh acknowledge that the fees being paid to real estate agents uh are substantial. Yeah. And um if someone will um uh lie you know for you, they'll lie to you, and vice versa. Yeah. Um so you you you you need to um you you need to find someone that conduct uh the sale of your property and and won't do it in such a cavalier fashion. And it's a good time to be touching on this point, uh Kieran, because when it comes to underquoting, a lot of vendors are complicit on it, yeah, because it creates a bidding frenzy and then the highest bidder will end up going at or above what the vendor wants, and the vendor's happy, and it's uh it's the agent's job to mop up and make good with all the underbidders and the vendor sells off into the wind. The environment we're in at the moment where auction clearance rates are hovering between 33 and 37%. Let me tell you what happens if you underquote one buyer turns up, puts in one low lousy bid, and then your campaign is up in smoke.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

And I've had real estate agents who I've seen down the coffee shop in the last few weeks say, mate, I'm just putting the price on the property what the vendor wants, yeah, and someone buys it or they don't, but there is no way that I'm doing an underquote with the regulator floating around the market like they are, and there's no buyers, and then running an auction, and it starts, you know, at 2.3 when the vendor wants 2.65, and you've got to pass the property in for 2.32. I'm not I don't want to be anywhere near that.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

And and and that's that's the right way for the real estate industry to play it, is that um is that these are not the market conditions and they are not the tactics that are going to hold going forward.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Look, as uh someone who's no longer actively in the industry, I can only hope that you know the Josh Tesselin case, I only read in the paper yesterday. can't remember the name, but another agent uh received a ban uh just for misconduct in in you know his his behaviors. I can't yeah I can't remember specifics but it's you know we we've entered a phase where at least whether it's you know sufficient or not the regulators are doing something. Uh but it will be really interesting I think over the next you know weeks to months to see what uh the industry says to each other and what the industry says about the industry and if there is any positive change in terms of training behaviors, you know, where even the structure of agencies, whether whether the the the powers hold as we move through this period. Because there's a lot of whilst there's no licensees other than Tessalin that went down in this case there are a lot of brand names that float around as being implicated to some degree because of their involvement and you know I think for for the first time probably ever the public are actually really watching these behaviors. We've you know the public hate on real estate agents have we've as we've talked about but now they have a target and they have some kind of you know structure to really be angry about.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Oh that's right. Well I think all the Herald articles um the age in Melbourne for those that are listening in Melbourne

Price Guides And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_02 23:05

um um the the the age in the Herald um um series on this uh blind bidding they called it yeah it's educated the consumer yeah so the questions that I get from my own vendors now it's like oh this this this person's schooled up yeah uh this this person wants to know where my philosophy is relative to what the current guidelines are and um you know filling gaps in their thinking because they're across it but not as entirely as an as an industry um you know participant would be so the consumer is far more informed on this and that's part of uh which is great it it is great and that's that's part of the um the method of of the um department of fair trade working in lockstep with the uh you know the herald journalist there um on on on on on this issue so um it look we're very close in New South Wales to real estate agents having to put a price guide on every property and a published advertised price guide um it can still go up from there um as I understand it there's no rules against that but um agents will we'll be creating a digital footprint for themselves in their campaigns and uh as we've seen in in in in Bell Main in recent times properties with a guide of uh you know 2.5 2.6 the vendor wants 3.1 and it passes in for auction at 10% above the agent's price guide um that those those examples are going to to to be investigated from now on.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Aside from the fact that it's a chaotic time for consumers I must yeah I I really feel like we're making positive steps in the industry and there is really only onward and upward from here. But that's not to say we won't be discussing Josh Tesla and the uh you know the events that follow his case more closely as we move forward. But I uh hopefully Alison's have found something interesting in this this topic today. It's certainly an important one for the industry um but it's in it's I guess in many ways very interesting to see the the industry eating itself a little bit for the first time at least in my memory uh but as always Peter I really thank you for coming in and talking with us about it.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Yeah thanks Kieran look I I can truly say in my 20 I think uh 29 years this year in real estate I I've never seen the industry tearing itself apart like it is at the moment over over this issue and this individual has been uh interesting to

Final Thoughts And Thanks

SPEAKER_02 25:20

say the least certainly is and it's uh yeah as I say we'll be following it closely as we move forward.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Look uh I thank you for coming in Peter and I thank everyone for listening to Current Market Insights we look forward to speaking with you next time thanks for joining us on the Current Market Insights Podcast brought to you by Hummer's Pummeters Real Estate the podcast providing real estate insights you won't find anywhere else.