When Nine’s new property series Listing Melbourne hits screens next week, real estate agent Fraser Luck will get to see the 5 part series by Abode Entertainment.
Luck, a former contestant in 2023 series Australian Survivor: Heroes v Villains, has been in the real estate game for 6.5 years.
But as producer Gary Takle told a media launch yesterday at Vue de Monde, he was part of some friction with agent and castmate, Diana Kozlowska.
“Fraser had a really great pitch to get listings. But it didn’t go too well when he presented it to the team and you’ll see that in the first episode,” he said.
“It was a bit of fun.”
Luck was more diplomatic yesterday saying, “It’s been an awesome experience. I wouldn’t change it and I’m excited to see it.
“My number one priority is making sure a property is sexy and stands out as much as possible amongst the crowd and amongst buyers.”
He added, “I love competition. That’s what makes you better, right? Yes, we will compete for listings, and we compete in very similar area: Inner metro Melbourne, Bayside, but at the end of the day, it’s all background noise. I don’t compete against you. I compete against myself, first and foremost.”
Takle explained the series isn’t all ‘property porn’ for fear of alienating the Melbourne market, which has a high w*nker detector, and the reluctance of many to participate.
“We would have to work so hard to get into homes. In Sydney, you might have to ask 3 people in a new house. We had to ask 100 people to get into their house. It was a lot more difficult,” he said.
But filming of the series also encountered ‘dodgy’ doings in the industry.
“(Buyers agents) get a percentage from the buyer, and then the real estate agent will get the percentage when they sell it. But agents are now putting their offices together … they’ll represent both the buyer and they’ll represent the owner from the same office. So they can’t actually have the best interest of the seller at heart, because they want to get the deal done. That’s what we’ve discovered.”
Buyer’s agent, Nicole Jacobs, seen regularly on The Block said, “I really hope that the Melbourne audience, and the national audience actually, learns a bit more about what we do that’s real, …you know, how we take our commissions. I think that that, for me, is going to be pivotal.
“My biggest competitor is the person that thinks they can buy their home by themselves. So it’s not anybody else here. We have enough, out in the market for everybody to have a really good living. So I’m really looking forward to the national public understanding buyer advocacy. It’s sort of new, but you have to be really good at it. Just like, selling agents, there are great advocates, and there are shit ones.”
Listing Melbourne 8:40pm Wednesday October 23 on Nine.
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