She has broken some of Australia’s biggest property stories over the last two decades. As she steps away from the property pages, Turi Condon reflects on the industry’s highs and lows.
The Australian’s long-time property editor Turi Condon settled into the industry’s box seat in 2003, recording the biggest deals, the fastest ascents and sharpest declines. Over this time, she’s gained deep insights into the way the property industry ticks.
Condon cut her journalistic teeth covering general business, finance, property and courts for the Australian Financial Review in Queensland and watched the property boom and crash of the 1990s unfold.
“When you are a young journo you are inclined to think everything is interesting,” she laughs. But as the rise of Asian property investment coincided with her accelerating career, she saw the first wave of Asian capital crash on Australia’s shores. “It was fascinating” to see “the similarities and differences” in Asian capital markets and how that played out in Australia.
After stepping out of journalism for three years to manage corporate affairs and media for a division of asset management firm Schroders, Condon was lured back as Sydney bureau chief of BRW Magazine in 2000. “I wrote about everything, but I kept coming back to property,” she explains. And then, in 2003, The Australian hired Condon to launch its new commercial property section Primespace.
Covering the global financial crisis kept her busy for years, Condon says. As available credit evaporated and banks introduced restrictive loan covenants, property valuations plummeted. Price falls were swift. High quality assets were sold off as REITs collapsed under heavy debt burdens.
Condon says she was on holiday in December 2007, just before Australia started to feel the full effects of the downturn, when AREIT Centro told the market it was having trouble refinancing $1.3 billion in loans. Centro became the first Australian casualty after it “classified short-term debt as long term debt” and “everything unwound very quickly”.
Condon says one of the most “interesting stories of survival” was industrial and logistics group, Goodman. “It was very stressed at the time and look at it now.”
Another career highlight was breaking the two-tier marketing scam on the Gold Coast in 2001. Sustained media pressure led to an ACCC investigation and the practice eventually became illegal. It was this story that sparked Condon’s enduring interest in consumer rights.
In 2016, she launched News Corp’s Mansion Australia magazine, opening the doors to some of Australia’s most luxurious homes.
Real estate has evolved enormously over Condon’s time editing the property pages. “We always had the entrepreneurs – Frank Lowy, Harry Triguboff, Greg Goodman – but now it is much more institutionalised.”
It was “fascinating” to watch the ascent and individual approaches of these property luminaries: the Lowys by “taking on the world”, Triguboff by “taking on Australia” and Goodman by “picking a market that turned out to be a rip snorter,” she says.
The size of the deals has skyrocketed over her time watching the wheeling and dealing. “When I first started, $50 million was big. Now we are talking about deals in the billions.”
The pace of change has accelerated too. “I noticed that at this year’s Congress. Everyone used to talk about rents, yields and values, but now it is much more about trends because society and business are changing so quickly.”
Automation will undoubtedly reshape the world of work, Condon says, pointing to robot bricklayers and, for journalists, “programs that can write stories”. It’s natural for people to feel anxious about an uncertain future “because no one knows how it will play out”.
“But anxiety is healthy – if you don’t worry in business you aren’t across it.”
Condon hopes the property industry “learns the lessons” from the Financial Services Royal Commission, which she says will take the banks “years” to recover from.
No industry is immune to some poor practice, Condon adds, pointing to building defects as issues currently plaguing the apartment sector.
“The problem is when it’s systemic and industry-wide like we’ve seen in the banks. And that’s not something I’ve seen in the property sector. I hope the industry continues on its professional path of looking after staff and customers.”
In her next move, Condon begins consulting to the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation later this month on strategic media and corporate affairs issues and will advise companies in the property, government and corporate affairs sectors.
“I’ve covered everything from policy and politics through to the big take overs and the ‘property porn’. That’s kept it really interesting.”