Flight Centre’s former chief executive Shane Flynn has join Brisbane-based Boss Property Group as an executive chairman.
Flynn said he plans to give the real estate industry an overdue shake up on his return to corporate life.
“In general, real estate models haven’t changed in 30 years and need to catch up with the mass transaction models that are common in many other service and sales industries.
“The industry desperately needs a shake-up,” Flynn said.
Boss Property’s managing director Craig Austen said the group had adopted a different culture to traditional real estate firms, one in which it acts as a specialist management company and agents are not forced to compete with agency principals for sales.
He said a recent easing in property price growth and sales activity would erode the industry’s profits. This could expose the inefficiencies in the traditional high-cost franchise or co-operative model.
“If you look at most other countries the traditional franchise model for real estate is dying,” Austen said. “The only reason it still exists in Australia is because it serves the interests of the incumbent operators themselves – not the agents, the staff or the clients.”
Flynn, who expects to roll out the model nationally, said there were similarities in this new venture and Flight Centre’s operations in South Africa, which he built from scratch.
“I see Boss Property as being the sort of thing we can build from 10 people to 1000 people,” he said.
“Their biggest fear is someone coming along with a much better model that actually works. Ours is a robust model and a threat to the established franchise operators,” he said.
Under Flynn, Flight Centre was judged Australia’s “Best Employer” in 2002 and 2003.
By Kathryn O’Meara
