Unitec responds to the needs of the real estate industry

by Darren Horsman

04.05.10

Linking real-world learning and real-world real estate was the focus of an evening event held by the Department of Management and Marketing last week. Real estate industry principals from across Auckland came to listen to Mary Crotty outline the findings of independent research commissioned by Unitec, into the training needs of the real estate industry.

Real Estate Industry Event

The research involved a range of in-depth interviews with staff, students, graduates and industry representatives. Interviewees lamented the negative impression of the real estate industry, often caused by high-profile media stories of rogue traders.

They also outlined the need for better, more professional training, not only to help professionalise the industry but to drive up standards across the sector. This hunger for educational leadership was reflected on the night, with many of the owners looking to Unitec to lead the development of a new approach to professional development within the real estate industry.

The identification of the skills that new real estate agents need, also shows the subjects and content that students at the new and improved Unitec Real Estate course will be learning. The new Unitec Real Estate course commences in July 2010

Real Estate Programme Leader, Mary Crotty, said “Listening to the industry has provided us with a much deeper insight into their needs and what our students need, for them to succeed. Being able to present research on the subject allows us to be a leader in the field, so we get the industry representatives looking to us to provide a solution to their training needs.”

Head of Department, Associate Professor, Dr Robert Davis said; “The industry can have a lot of trust in our National Certificate in a time when the new legislative environment for real estate is untested. The new Unitec Real Estate programme is the only one in New Zealand to have been exclusively reviewed by the leading Barrister, David Bigio, to ensure compliance with the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 and the Real Estate Agent”s Authority.”

The results of the research and the feedback received during the event will be fed into the development of the new real estate programme at Unitec, making the links between education and industry even stronger.