Record-breaking US luxury agents to lead high-level real estate summit
From record-breaking US agents to leadership strategists, AREC 2026 is positioning itself as a must-attend event for ambitious property professionals.
2 min
Some of the world’s most recognisable names in luxury real estate will headline this year’s Australasian Real Estate Conference (AREC), as organisers sharpen the event’s focus on practical skills, performance and long-term growth.
Scheduled for May 24 and 25 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, AREC 2026 will bring together high-profile agents, business leaders and performance mentors at a time organisers describe as one of its most complex market environments in recent memory.
Izzy Savva, Head of Total Real Estate Training, says the program has been shaped by feedback from agents seeking guidance on how to stay competitive amid ongoing change.
“After listening closely to agents in this current market, it became clear that now is the time to focus on the fundamentals — the core skills that build sustainable careers,” she said.
“AREC is designed to focus on what really drives success in real estate: client relationships, negotiation, listing mastery, and personal growth.”
Among the headline speakers are internationally renowned US agents Josh Altman and Josh Flagg, known globally through Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles.
Both have built careers representing some of California’s most prestigious homes and have collectively transacted billions of dollars in property.
Flagg will appear in a Q&A session with AREC founder John McGrath, offering insights into reputation-driven business, marketing and client relationships.
Altman, who has sold more than $9 billion in real estate during his career, is recognised for consistently achieving record-setting results in highly competitive luxury markets.
They will be joined by Tim Smith of Coldwell Banker’s Tim Smith Real Estate Group, who has achieved more than $6 billion in sales and built a reputation for strategic marketing and negotiation expertise across Orange County’s sought-after coastal communities.
Beyond sales performance, AREC 2026 will also explore the mindset and leadership skills required to succeed at the top end of the market.
Performance strategist Phill Nosworthy, leadership expert Holly Ransom and high-performance mentor Ben Crowe are among the confirmed speakers, alongside Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks, whose research focuses on negotiation and communication in high-stakes environments.
Entrepreneur and endurance athlete Jesse Itzler will also join the program virtually, bringing insights from his experience building and scaling global businesses.
According to John McGrath, the event is designed to deliver more than inspiration.
“The real estate industry is facing challenges like never before, and agents need to sharpen the fundamentals while embracing new growth opportunities,” he said.
“AREC is exactly the kind of event that helps our industry step back, reflect, and come away with strategies they can implement immediately.”
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All three vehicles will form part of a broader charitable initiative benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the American Red Cross and Starlight Children’s Foundation
Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.
4 min
For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.
The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.
“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.
That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.
Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.
The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.
“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”
Collecting instead of decorating
Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.
Collecting is less conclusive.
A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.
That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.
A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.
The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.
For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.
Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.
A design perspective shaped by travel
International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.
Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.
More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.
“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”
Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.
Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.
A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.
The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.
Designing the complete experience
FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.
The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.
That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.
Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.
The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.
Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.
The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.
A home that can keep changing
The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.
Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.
“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”
That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.
The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.
This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.
Fact box
- Designer: Jack Freeman
- Role: Founder and managing director
- Practice: FREEMAN & CO
- Base: Australia, with international projects
- Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean
- Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts
- Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation
- Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials
- Website: free-man.co
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