We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
Real Estate Pay Rates Right Now - Carlie Barnett
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We map real salary ranges across real estate roles and explain why the same job title can mean very different responsibilities and outcomes. We also dig into what’s driving property management shortages, how flexibility and support affect retention, and where AI skills gaps are starting to bite.
• Carlie Barnett’s pathway from reception to recruitment specialist
• Why video interviews changed how we assess professionalism and readiness
• The salary report and what it’s designed to solve for real estate businesses
• Property managers as the hardest role to fill and what “support” really means
• Current salary packages for junior and senior property managers
• How salary reviews are missing for many job seekers
• Flexibility as a must-have and the risks of unclear expectations
• Sales administration and EBU manager pay ranges tied to responsibility
• Buyer manager pay structures and incentive options
• AML officer and compliance manager salaries as new roles emerge
• BDM, operations manager and sales manager packages and what drives the variance
• AI training gaps and why people feel left behind
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Welcome And Remuneration Focus
Lee WoodwardHello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, your coach and host, and the author of the Complete Salesperson course. Today, we are speaking everything remuneration. What are people getting paid around this country to bring some clarity to not only the effective business units, the property management world, and also our very important director of first impressions, the receptionist coming in. And to do that, I'm going to use a real estate recruitment specialist. Please welcome Carly Barnett. Carly, welcome aboard.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Lee. It's nice to be back.
Lee WoodwardSo good to see you. I've done a few audios with you, and I always get these massive responses of how useful that was. But just before I go into what's going on with wages and recruitment, what makes you a specialist in real estate?
SPEAKER_01Well, I actually have a background in real estate. So from high school, sat on a reception desk and then went into the industry full-time. I've sat in a few different roles: reception, sales, sales admin, a little bit of marketing and some BDM. I've worked for agencies such as McGrath here on the Central Coast in Matt Steinweight's business. And I've worked for brands such as Ray White and Nel J. Hooker. I've done things across project marketing as well as traditional real estate.
Lee WoodwardYou also worked with the very famous David Gray, who's been on our program many times.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that was my Ray White days. Dave and I were in the same team. And um, yeah, I was the EA and he was the agent and auctioneer.
Lee WoodwardWell, let's get into it. How did you get into recruitment? Because I know you did it in London as well, but what what got you into listing people?
SPEAKER_01I moved to London. I did try to stay in the real estate industry as a career, but it's not quite as easy. We do do things differently in Australia versus London. And dealing with recruiters trying to find a job, I thought, you know what, if they can do this, surely I can. Why don't I apply? I did. I was successful. They had quite an intensive round of interviews and role play. So very much like real estate. And I got through. Started running a temps desk, which was just temporary staff, receptionists and admin to cover holiday and sick leave. And then I soon realized, you know what, I want permanent recruitment. That's where the exciting roles were. And that permanent was more like the sales side. The temp side was more like property management.
Lee WoodwardYou've now got your own recruitment company in Australia. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So I've got recruit and consult. We'll be eight years old next year. We specialize in real estate and property recruitment and we work with clients from Newcastle, Central Coast, and down into Sydney.
Lee WoodwardWhat's
Carly’s Real Estate To Recruitment Path
Lee Woodwardchanged most in the last eight years in the recruitment space before we go into these salaries of people?
SPEAKER_01I would say us meeting people. We used to meet everyone face to face and in person. I'd say probably only 10% of those interviews that we'd conduct with candidates would be via a video call. Now I would say 95 to 99% somewhere in there, it's all done via a video video call. And it's the very odd person that will actually want to come and sit with us face to face and interview.
Lee WoodwardAnd isn't it interesting that we all have to hop on a Zoom or a Teams meeting now? So it's actually quite unusual that you are going to be face to face all the time in your normal workplace. And if people struggle on video now, that's going to tell you a lot about that person, depending on the role. I know Robin has just got a brand new executive assistant. Her name is Baisha. She's from Thailand. She's now living over here. And she is amazing as administration, but wouldn't feel comfortable on a video Zoom call. And for us, she's got no speaking roles. It's all administration and data. So you you would have to take that into account.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. There's clues that we can look for in that video interview. Like there's obviously social clues when you're in person, but video interview, we're looking at, okay, is the background professional or have they left a pile of washing? Because sometimes they do. Have they taken the time to put like professional work clothes on, or have they stayed in their gym gear, or actually sometimes even in their pajamas? You know, have they tested the internet connection first and even got a charger so the laptop or the phone or the iPad doesn't run out? So there's cues that we can look for there to see like, are they organized? Are they taking it seriously? Are they tech savvy? But then yeah, are they holding eye contact? Can they articulate? Can they answer questions? Are they looking up at you? Can they still hold the conversation? Because I find it's actually harder to hold a conversation via video than in person. In person, there's a lot more small talk. On video, we tend to jump straight into business when we're going into an interview. There is no small talk of did you find parking or how's the weather today? Or what did you do before you got here? Can I get you a cup of tea? We don't do any of that. We get straight into the interview.
Lee WoodwardToday's audio is based around a report that you've just finished. Take us into that report.
SPEAKER_01For the last three years, we've done a salary report to capture wages and reasons why people leave, what roles are difficult to fill, what happens in different businesses. Because we're often asked when we go to market with a role, the question, those questions, and we answer them. We thought, why don't we survey our clients and actually pull that together? It's not uncommon for the recruitment industry to have these reports. We wanted to make one that was quite specific to real estate and the area that we worked in so that we could have data that actually works when we go to market to help our clients make decisions.
Salary Report Findings And PM Shortage
Lee WoodwardLet's start with the hottest topic. What's been the most difficult role to fill in the real estate business?
SPEAKER_01Over the last 12 months, our clients have said property managers, which is no surprise for us. 64% of clients surveyed said property managers were the hardest to find. They are leaving the industry. They are wanting change, they're wanting things to actually change within their role. And that's really got to do a lot around legislation. It's salary driven, there's burnout, there's many different factors. So yeah, I wasn't surprised when that came in as the number one.
Lee WoodwardWho are your happier property managers? Those who use offshore support or those who keep it local?
SPEAKER_01Either or support is the key word there, Lee. Having support from someone, whether they're offshore or onshore, is what the PMs want. If you've got a portfolio of 200 properties, you've got 200 tenants, 200 landlords, that's 400 relationships that you're servicing. To have someone that can help with the admin, can help with inspections, can help with getting ads online, sending work orders through, following up documents that haven't been signed. It's all those mental things that they're not having to remember. And it flows through. And a lot of offices that have that right support in place and where the support people have been trained properly, the PMs are definitely more inclined to stay in those types of roles and businesses.
Lee WoodwardAnd that falls in line with a classic business fact of front-end back end. So for me, Carly, I'm a front-end worker. I don't do any administration and I shouldn't. Not good at it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Lee WoodwardWhereas for Robin and Baisha, they're running that entire back end and I'll do front-end. We have the right blend there. Yet in property management, they've been expected to do everything. And even now with leverage agents and buyers agents, and we'll get to that in a moment. I won't jump forward, I promise. But what is the salary of property management right now?
SPEAKER_01So if we were to look at Sydney and the Sydney market for a senior property manager, they're going up to 130K as a salary package. Now there's lots of variances that get it to that 130 level. So it's important to understand those. It could be portfolio size, portfolio spread, additional task requirements. Maybe you're doing accounts or some new business or managing a junior. But yeah, we are seeing up to that 130K salary package. When I came back from London and I was recruiting, we're looking maybe 12 years ago for senior PM roles, we're looking at a 75K salary package in Sydney. So it's quite a growth that we've seen in that period.
Lee WoodwardWhat about a junior property manager coming in?
SPEAKER_01So a junior property manager could be anything. If we look at Sydney, the award wage, some of them even go up to 80K as a salary package. So it really just depends upon what they bring to the table. And again, how that role needs to be structured. There are businesses now, because they can't find property management staff that they will start people completely green to real estate and property management straight on a portfolio and they will pay above that award because they know they're going to have that full workload from day one.
Lee WoodwardI was working in Brisbane yesterday for the Complete Property Management Day, and my guest speaker was Corinne Bowen. They run 7,100 property managements. Wow. And their best success has been bench to field, where a young person who didn't want to go to university didn't know this was an opportunity, but that sort of salary and a career-based property manager, what an exciting career.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Like it's quite an interesting career and it is a challenging career. And it's one where you can evolve and grow and progress in. You don't just have to stay in one spot. You can move into leadership, you can learn accounting, you can learn new business, you can train people, you can have more properties, you could do commercial, retail, resie, industrial. There's so much bandwidth to that PM role. But I think first and foremost, it's life skill and life experience and being able to read and understand people and deal with the public. Because there's a motion in property management, just like there is in sales. When you've got to tell someone that they may be evicted because they haven't paid their rent, you've got to find a really nice way to go about it. But you've also got to get the outcome that you need, which is getting the rent paid. And sometimes those life skills are what can help do that.
Lee WoodwardNow, depending on the role, I did notice in your report about salary reviews. What can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_01Quite often we think that salaries, you know, we see them go high, like I said, from 75 to 130, that every year someone's getting a salary review. But what we did find this year in the report is that 48% of job seekers, so non-decision makers when it comes to hiring, have never had a salary review for their career in real estate.
Pay Reviews And Flexibility Done Well
Lee WoodwardAnother big conversation is flexibility. And for some senior leaders, they want to see everyone on site. Yet if someone's ninja level, they might be okay off-site. I do remember Christian Bartley saying to me he had someone apply for a role and said, Can I work from home? He said, Did you read the ad? It's reception.
SPEAKER_01Does work from home.
Lee WoodwardSo what's going on in flexibility?
SPEAKER_01Look, not every role in real estate does work for work from home, and that's a reality. But over 50% of people surveyed said that they offered flexibility from commencement to end of probation. So within that six-month period, flexibility was offered. And now we see it as a huge driver. It's not a nice to have anymore. It's a must-have when you've got over 50% of the market offering that.
Lee WoodwardWhat do people need to be careful of with the flexibility side?
SPEAKER_01Not setting clear expectations. Work health and safety. That's something really important as well. And making sure that people are trained and equipped to do their job without you there supporting them by their side, because they could be at home floundering and not knowing. And then a few months pass and all of a sudden they're being performance managed when maybe they weren't set up correctly from the start to be alone doing that work from home day.
Lee WoodwardYeah, and there's still that thing about play it down the line. I know when I had Real Estate Academy, my 22 lunatic women that work there, God bless them, if you're listening. But a lot of our training was in the kitchen. And I'd set up the kitchen with a big square island bar, and you'd be in there preparing your lunch or something, and you'd hear something and say, Oh, just say it this way. And then, oh, that's so good. And there was a lot of coaching went on in that kitchen, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's that learning by observation, like overhearing phone calls, being pulled into a meeting with a client so that you can hear something or be a part of it, sitting on a team meeting or a training session. There is so much to be learned in that. But also that social skill, I think that's really important. And there is a generation that's come through through COVID times that didn't have those social skills and those social connections. And they can actually be quite awkward and uncomfortable in those meeting situations or in those face-to-face situations. So being in that office environment can help build those skills and that confidence.
Lee WoodwardYeah, and I've got the reverse of that at the moment. I look after I take on 10 teams as my training partners, no more than 10 that I'm doing on a monthly basis. I can come in via Zoom or I can come in person. There's a significant difference in the pricing because I've got to get there. But I've got some of my big teams will still, nope, we want it in the boardroom, we want everyone there, and there is that laugh and banter and whereas on Zoom it's very formal, straight into work. Yeah. Carly,
Sales Support Salaries In EBUs
Lee Woodwardwe've been doing a lot of work on effective business units. One of those roles that's very important if it's required. Now, sometimes a company might have essential services and the administration need is done by a team or a group. But as the business scales and you're doing 10, 15, 20 deals a month, the office is not going to keep up with you. And a dedicated sales administration person is put into that unit. What sort of money are we seeing there?
SPEAKER_01So again, if we look in the Sydney market, it could be anything from a $70,000 package right through to a $110,000 package. Now, with that variance, there's probably different responsibilities. $70K, it's not likely that they're running one lead agent and two or three associates. It might just be them and one lead agent, and it might just be some reasonably basic and straightforward admin tasks. It could be ordering contracts, getting things online, putting packs together, sending out emails, maybe going to a photo shoot, some tasks that are quite easy for them to manage on their own. When we go up to that 110, we're probably looking at that EBU manager. So they might be chairing the weekly team meeting. They might be making sure that they're running the reports on KPIs, seeing what the team's activity is. They might be managing like a budget for the team. Those agents at that level tend to do sponsorships. So they might be managing some of those sponsorships or community engagement or their socials. And they're also tend to have a bit more vendor communication. So they might manage a lot of that vendor communication up until that first open home goes live. Photo shoots, quotes, what to declutter, what to put away, what to expect with the open. Sometimes they're the ones making sure all of the compliance stuff has been checked and signed off before it goes live. So there's a lot more responsibility on someone at that 110 level, which you would expect.
Lee WoodwardYeah, that's like operations, general manager of a small business, even though they're doing an effective business unit, they do have some high-end skills.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of responsibility. Like we are so legislation driven and so compliance heavy. So they know that those checklists and that buck stops with them and they've got to get that right for the agent. The more junior one is probably gonna need a little bit more help around that. And I probably wouldn't give them that full responsibility where the buck stops with them. Let them get it to a point where you then oversee it and check it.
Lee WoodwardWhat about the buyer's agent?
SPEAKER_01So the buyer's agent, such a mix there.
Lee WoodwardLet's start with our junior agent coming in to play the role of buyer manager, lead qualifier. They had their certificate, they're not a lister, probably never will be. They are doing the buyer management. Where does that start?
SPEAKER_01So mostly we do look at the award for them because they are likely going to be fresh to the real estate industry, or they may have transitioned across from leasing, maybe reception, but that tends to be the pathway. Fresh to reception or leasing award wage. Sometimes their award might push a little bit over, maybe 70, maybe 75, maybe their award hits there depending upon how long they've been in the industry for. They are incentivized with commissions, though. So if they are nurturing buyers, they might not be closing that negotiation, but they might be helping run that buyer through or run that buyer database or source leads from buyers. If that turns into successful business, there could be a financial incentive there for them as well.
Lee WoodwardHow might that be structured?
SPEAKER_01So you can do it many ways. One way could be just a flat amount. So it could be a couple of hundred dollars per successful lead. It might be tiered. The more they get, the more they get themselves in their pocket. It could be a team target. So if the team hits a financial target for the month or the quarter or even the year, they get something, or it may even be a percentage of the commission or from the sale, depending upon how involved they've been. But more likely at that junior level, a flat amount or a team target.
Lee WoodwardWhat about a senior buyer manager who's doing all the callbacks, all the buy management, even negotiating, right up until those last moments? And the lead agent is saying, You are buyers, I am listing, which is they're equal in skill in many, many ways. What's the money there?
SPEAKER_01Again, like some of those can be the award, but we've seen some of them even go up to 120K as a package with some incentives on top. Now, those higher salary points, we're talking like your very top tier agents, that they need someone that is so switched on that they don't miss a beat with running those buyers, getting them through off markets, running negotiations, they can exchange a contract. The agent pretty much just turns up on auction day and they will close the gap if they need to. But that buyer manager can do A to Z without the agent there to get that 120-level salary.
AML And Leadership Salary Bands
Lee WoodwardNow, the brand new one that's come into our world, which is very hard to get experience for when it didn't exist, is the AML officer for the company, which carries a lot of responsibility. It's not just uh, we'll get Helen on reception to just keep our eye on that. It it this is very serious stuff. What's going on there?
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, this is one that we've seen a lot of requests for lately with those new AML changes. So people implementing a compliance manager in their business that can do all of that information and then all of that ongoing management. Now, when we've gone to market, like you said, it's really hard to find someone that's not done AML before because we haven't had that in Australia. So we've had to look for other compliance skills and other industry skills and understanding. If I now look at the Central Coast and Newcastle region, that salary sits between 90 as a package and 120. With that salary, we are looking for someone that does have their real estate license. They have managed sales compliance previously, and they do have a very strong attention to detail.
Lee WoodwardNow, many of our agents do move around the different adjacent space positions that we have. And the one we haven't discussed yet, but is so important in this industry is the business development manager. What do we got there?
SPEAKER_01So again, if we look into that Central Coast Newcastle marketplace, we could start around that awards, around that sort of 67K, which tends to be first year real estate certificate of registration holder with their car and phone allowance through to 100K as a salary package. And that's your quite experienced business development manager. Now, those roles they can suit people that are fresh to the industry, but if they are coming fresh to the industry, I'd always advise some sort of sales or account management skill from another industry. Or they could come from that leasing role and be stepping up. Sometimes you've had people leave sales roles or sales teams and move across to a BDM role because it's a much more autonomous role. They can earn commissions, they can still pitch and try and win business, but they don't have the pressure of sales and that commission only environment and knocking on doors and things like that, that some of them shy away from.
Lee WoodwardNow, Carly, as I float around this country, I always reporting to this same person, the ops manager, who brings all the training to the business, compliance looks after everything. To me, they hold the whole thing together. If the team is big enough, I do report to all these people as they're the ones engaging me to do work. What's the current level for them?
SPEAKER_01So we'll go to the Sydney market for this one, Lee's. We're looking at that 90 package to 165 package. Now, obviously, that's such a variance. We're looking right across the property industry here. So we could be looking at an operations manager that's working with a large institutional corporate group in maybe commercial or capital markets, or we could be looking at an ops manager that's in a small suburban real estate business that might have a small sales team and property management team that they're overseeing the day-to-day running of things, if it's a selling principal that doesn't want to get involved in that.
Lee WoodwardAnd for the selling principals that want to keep on selling, what about the sales manager?
SPEAKER_01The sales manager, yes.
Lee WoodwardAnd let's focus on the Sydney marketplace.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so Sydney for sales managers is quite broad as well. So, and when we say broad, we've actually looked at what's the lowest salary package that we've seen through to the highest one that we've seen in that 12-month period. So the lowest one that we'd seen for a sales manager was 135 as a salary package, and the highest we saw was 202,000 as a salary package. So the higher the salary package will deem more experience, also probably more responsibility. And those roles can be looking after recruitment, performance management, growing headcount, going into new market shares, running sales meetings. They could be responsible for a PL. They might report to a board in some situations. So that higher salary does tend to have a lot more responsibility. The lower one might be more around helping with dialogue, maybe attend an appraisal or something with an agent to support them, help with a little bit of compliance, again, share those meetings. So the salary is reflective of the responsibility there. And it tends to be your right, the principal that would like to be listing and selling and doesn't want to be managing, or their office might be so big that they need to split that role in two.
Lee WoodwardNow, this brings up a conversation I've had many times where I've had sales professionals say, Oh, I think I want to be the sales manager, and that and they think it's like a paddock where they get to rest from being a racehorse. And I'd say, Yeah, I don't know if that's for you, and they'll go, and then they hear the salary and they go, but I can earn way more than that as a salesperson. Salespeople do earn way more because actually they don't earn, they generate, which is more. This is a completely different role, a completely different part of the brain. I myself came through as a young agent under sales management, and I was blessed that that person was there teaching me, supporting me, would come out on appointments with me, would help me on the reductions, and I wouldn't have done anything that first year without that guidance and instruction. It's not the role people think that one.
SPEAKER_01No, and I and I do get a call a lot of the time for people that don't want to be an agent anymore, they're over the chase, they don't want to do it, they still love the industry, they do have a lot of knowledge, yes, but they might not have the skills to train, mentor, lead, and grow a business. And also you're right, you can generate more income as an agent. And that's something that people have to be prepared for. It would be a big pay cut. And just because you were a very successful agent, that you might have been having a GCI of half a million to a million, it doesn't mean that you would get the highest point of that salary, of that 202k package, because it is more based around skill and experience in leadership management, coaching.
AI Skills Gap And Next Steps
Lee WoodwardCarly, such great information. My final question for you is what are you seeing and feeling out there in this world of AI?
SPEAKER_01Good question. Because we did ask that as well, because it's just such a big thing in our industry now. And 31% of people that we surveyed said that they felt left behind when it came to AI in their business or their knowledge of that. So it shows that there is still a lot of room for training and development and understanding of what AI is, what people need in their businesses, what they actually don't need, because you can implement AI that you don't need, and then how to use it and how to use it properly.
Lee WoodwardWell, Carly, great information, a very different information for our podcast, which is what we need. We need to cover all parts of things that affect everyone, as no one thing happens in isolation. For anyone who wants to continue speaking with you or even get you to assist them, how do they get hold of you?
SPEAKER_01You can reach out to me via our socials. So recruit and consult AMD on Instagram, and we can help you from there.
Lee WoodwardThank you for appearing on We Are Selling.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Lee.
Sponsor And Wrap
Lee WoodwardToday's programme is brought to you by the Agencies Portal, Australia's first AI platform, which saves 7 to 12 hours of admin per listing. It includes agency settlements, which removes 90% of the settlement admin, reduces risk but keeps you in control. Visit the agencyportal.com.au or call 1300 001 371. I'm Lee Woodward. Thank you for listening, and I'll be back next week.