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ARE YOU BEING RECORDED AT AN OPEN HOME? · The Real Estate Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, Cam, we know lots of people are decking out
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: their homes with all the, you know, high-end tech. There's
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: like all the fancy cameras and different types of doorbells
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Doors that open by themselves now and all sorts of
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: cool stuff.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: All that sort of stuff. And it's sort of... A
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: question we hadn't thought to ask till just recently, could
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that be being used with a bit of a hidden
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: agenda there? You know, could people be listening via that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: tech if you're walking through at an open home or
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: an inspection or something like that?
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're having a conversation with someone and that's
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: being listened to.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And you're saying all the things that you think you're
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: privately saying to your partner or your friend and... Perhaps
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: it's not so private after all. Let's find out, is
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that actually happening and how that's happening? Stuart Bunn from
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: First National Real Estate.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Stuart, good morning. How are you?
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Hi, Renee. I'm well, thanks. How are you?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm good.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: This is super duper interesting. Can you tell us what is,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you know, like a typical scenario where you might walk
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: into an open home and movements and conversations may be recorded?
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: Well, I think as we all know, there's a lot
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: more recording devices in Australian homes these days. We have
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: security cameras, smart doorbells, microphones, and all sorts of connected devices.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: They're becoming increasingly common. And sometimes they're being left active
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: during an inspection or an open home. And of course,
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: there's a risk that conversations that buyers might be having
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: in the house might be being listened to by the
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: homeowner separately. Yeah.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: And so I'm going to ask this question with an
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: element of a personal experience as well. Do you really
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: think that agents are accessing recordings and listening to conversations
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: following an open home?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Do you think that's going on?
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: No, that's not the impression we have. But there have
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: been a number of instances in the last 12 months
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: where agents selling homes have become aware that the homeowner
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: has been listening because of conversations that have taken place afterwards.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: And On occasion, we've taken inquiries in our national administration
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: from agents saying, we've had a homeowner talk to us
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: quite specifically about somebody they saw at their open home,
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: and it's triggered us to make inquiries about how legal
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: that is. And there was some recent research that came
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: out of the United States that found 56% of homeowners
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: are leaving recording devices active during open homes. Wow. Yeah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: we think less than that sort of number is happening
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: in Australia, and it's most likely more accidental than on purpose.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: These devices are probably harder to turn off than they
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: are to leave on, and people aren't necessarily accessing that information, but...
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: There are laws around it, and it's something that agents
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: and homeowners need to be mindful of.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we'll get to the laws in a second.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: So it's the vendors that we have to be worried about,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: not the agents.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: The cheeky ones, yeah. And look, I say that to.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: You because, you know, earlier this year we did purchase,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: so we've moved out.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Of Canbar down into Banks.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: And the place that we purchased has got closed-circuit security everywhere.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: There's a number of cameras, and it's just like, when
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: is it?
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: When this popped up and Renee sent it to me,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: it's like, whoa, I wonder if that happened to us
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: when we went down into the open home.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Cam, did you think back about some of the sly
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: things you might have said while you were walking through?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have said that. Well,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I was very complimentary because we ended up buying the place,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: didn't we? Well, true, true, true, true.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: I think the reverse can be true, though, Cam, because
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: I think agents are certainly aware of the fact that
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: buyers can be quite competitive in their conversations at open homes.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: And sometimes that's really strategic. So they'll say things to
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: alert other potential competitors to problems that that may or
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: may not be real. And I think, you know, homeowners
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: can receive pretty unwelcome information listening in on those conversations,
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: whether they're truthful or not. They may be the kind
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: of conversations the person's planned to condition the vendor or
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: ahead of an offer. So I think any sort of
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: information like that gleaned without the knowledge of the person
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: talking is likely to cause or certainly destroy trust.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: No one wants to be recorded when they don't know
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: they're being recorded.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: No, totally.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And so just circling back to what you were saying before,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: there are different laws here and there. What about here
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: in Canberra? What does that look like?
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Canberra's really specific. It's forbidden to record a private conversation
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: whether the person recording the conversation is a party to
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: that conversation or not. So in other words, if you
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: own the recording device in your home and you go
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: out and leave it operating, you're no longer a party
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: to the conversations being recorded, which makes it specifically forbidden.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: unless you have the consent of all parties, and that
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: certainly wouldn't be the case during an open home. It's
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: a bit different in New South Wales. You can record.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: It's not legal to record a conversation when the person
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: operating the device is not part of it, but if
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: they are a party to the conversation because they're standing
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: at the open home, that would then be legal, but
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: they'd still need consent. It's a really moot point. That's
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: just better not to do it.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, Stuart, well, just to confirm, as we've gone to
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: air here, this conversation will have been recorded on the
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: radio station logger.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I know. And probably will be played back at any stage.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Just so you know.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Thank you for the warning.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, Stuart, that was super interesting. Thank you so much
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: for your time this morning. That was great.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Great to be with you.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: That's Stuart Bunn, who's from First National Real Estate there. Gosh,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: what an interesting chat there.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: And could have gone a lot longer than the allotted
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Minutes that we sadly have