Cecille Weldon
Director, Weldonco Advisory, Future Agent Academy
Board Member/Sustainability Advisor: Proptech Association of Australia
Member of the Residential Energy Efficiency Disclosure Initiative (REEDI) Governance Forum
Experienced public speaker, facilitator and award-winning course developer
Impact-focussed Proptech Entrepreneur
Cecille is an innovative thinker with a proven track record in the ability to see opportunities in unexpected places and enhance business and social sector growth/engagement in the property and technology sector.
She is adept at developing and consolidating a competitive advantage strategy and developing well-crafted ways to communicate this to the market.
Property
Cecille is considered Australia's foremost expert on residential energy efficiency + the property marketing sector.
I have a key focus which underpins much of what I do as a professional and as an entrepreneur - uncovering new opportunities to deliver “Better Homes for all Australians” and realising the potential for property professionals to play a key role as consumers seek homes that will deliver more for them – comfort all year round and cheaper to run.
Cecille provides timely insights for the property, technology and data sectors on the new value opportunities catalysed by residential energy efficiency at point of sale or rent and what this means for their customers and the homes they market, manage, upgrade and finance.
With a background in real estate, franchising, research, proptech, communications, and education, she helps property professionals to understand what the new consumer wants from them and how a changing climate, rising running cost and impending regulation are about to change the way they do business. Property and new property upgrades are a key target for new regulation as our homes need to be healthy, cheaper and more comfortable all year round to respond to the challenges of the future.
With new commercially exciting property data beginning to flow through the system about energy efficiency property features (including energy ratings) it not surprising Cecille is passionate about building capability in the real estate sector. Up-skilling on these new property features will deliver a better more meaningful customer experience, bring relevance to the industry, and enhance the impact of their appraisal and listing information.
Cecille has a deep understanding of the property marketing industry and executive-level experience into the real estate franchise business model, the emerging proptech tech sector and the systems which underpin property marketing in Australia. This sector knowledge is, she believes, the key to understanding the levers within the property marketing industry which will support the pathway to net zero agenda as we seek to develop the appropriate market environment for disclosure; and coordinate energy efficiency information disclosure data.
Training and Engagement
Cecille is the creator of Australia’s first dedicated course marketplace for property profressonals, FutureAgent.com.au, which focusses on building capabilities in energy efficiency features and ratings and their delivery in the real estate moment (the point of sale or rent).
She is a specialist in the creation, development and facilitation of “real estate ready” sustainability training programs for real estate sector. She was on the technical committee as a sustainability/liveability expert for the real estate skills review conducted by Artibus in 2018 which resulted in a new CPD elective for the real estate certificate to include skills to identify sustainable property features for real estate.
Cecille holds a Bachelor of Arts (Dip Ed) and a Graduate Diploma in Linguistics, specialising in Semantics (the study of meaning) and Sociolinguistics (the study of the relationship between language and social and cultural values). She is an experienced and award-winning course creator and facilitator and experienced public speaker.
She has developed and facilitated training courses for residential real estate agents and volume housing sales agents on behalf of the REINSW and NSWDPIE on up-selling energy efficiency and introduction to sustainable property features and home energy ratings.
Sustainability and Property Training courses – creation and development
Developed and piloted for Ray White NSW - customised 3 hour course for sales agents and property managers “Selling Better” Upselling Energy Efficiency Features
Developed for Real Estate Training Solution (RETS) online course content for "Sustainable Property Features – The Value-Add Opportunity” to align with competency CPPREP4507 - Provide property sustainability information in real estate
Developed in partnership with NSW OEH and the REINSW: Future Agent: Get up to Speed with BASIX and Home Energy Ratings
Developed for REINSW CPD: CPDSI21v2 Communicating sustainability features to your buyers webinar
Developed for NSW DPIE utilised Meld Studios research: Course for volume housing industry Selling Better – Upselling Energy Efficiency
For Pointsbuild: Updated 4 short online sustainability courses for the construction industry
For CSIRO: Created Liveability Real Estate Specialist ONLINE Training course
For LJ Hooker: Banksia award-winning Liveability Real Estate Specialist Course (face-to-face)
Message Framing
She has expertise in the market positioning or repositioning of “sustainable” products, services and business development strategies and has a particular passion and expertise in empowering homeowners, renters and investors to create and find their best home and uncovering the potential for property industry professionals to be a catalyst for this positive change.
In 2011 she pioneered strategies to successfully position the benefits and value of sustainable property features in property marketing - leading with the “lifestyle benefits: comfort, reduced running costs”, through “layering” of information utilising property features to deliver this simple and effective value proposition at point of sale or rent. This liveability “message-framing” was tested in full-page advertisements in the Domain section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers and has since been validated by research.
More recently she developed ground-breaking marketing guidelines for the selling of Net Zero Energy homes in the volume housing industry which were applied by Frasers Homes as part of their ZEH Home Arena Grant – all 51 town homes were sold using these guidelines which were utilised by their advertising agency.
Proptech Entrepreneur
Cecille is responsible for the creation and development of the Banksia award-winning Liveability Features Framework and Liveability Appraisal Proptech tool for real estate agents which was acquired by CSIRO in 2016.
This “features-based” marketing framework integrated into existing property marketing systems and processes – providing a trusted pathway to identify and verify key property features (including a home energy rating) during a free property appraisal and was complementary to mandatory or voluntary disclosure.
At heart Liveability was a consumer engagement solution which identified a cluster of 17 Liveability Property Features that deliver the potential for running costs and comfort at the point of sale or rent, which provided a clear and robust list of property features for buyers, renovators and investors and a clear “upgrade” pathway.
Research
Cecille has been a key industry participant in numerous research projects over the last 10 years including CRC for Low Carbon Living as follows:
RP3016 EnergyFit Homes Enhancing the Market for Energy Efficient Homes: Implementing a national voluntary disclosure system for the energy performance of existing homes.
RP3016: Participant Annual Forum 2014 - CRCLCL Exemplar 3: Influencing Low Carbon Choices at Point of Sale,
RP3039: Liveability Real Estate Framework Training and Professional Development
RP3009e1: Mainstreaming High Performance Housing - The Net Zero House (Balanced Energy House) Marketing Guidelines Report for Frasers and MJ Homes