From PINZ award winning student to registered valuer
Tell us a bit about yourself…
I’m Brendan Tancredi, a rural valuer. I studied the Bachelor of Land and Property Management (Rural Valuation) at Lincoln University and started with QV following one final summer of farm work. I have been at QV since February 2022 so just over three years. I spent my first two years in the Invercargill office and have been based in Christchurch since.
You were awarded the Property Institute of NZ Student of Year Award in 2021 – can you tell us a little about how that came about and how far you feel you’ve come in your career since then?
The PINZ Student of the Year award is for the student who earned the highest aggregate grades in 300-level valuation papers. In my third and fourth years of university, I opted to take several commercial valuation papers in addition to my compulsory rural papers with the aim of gaining maximum exposure to career opportunities. A fringe benefit of this was that it drastically increased my aggregate 300-level grades, for which I earned the PINZ award. Since finishing university, I feel I have progressed massively in becoming a professional, and of course gaining registration is a notable career milestone.
What exactly does your job entail?
I work within the South Island Revaluation Team under Mel Halliday. My home patch is Southland having grown up in Invercargill, and therefore primarily work on Otago/Southland revaluations.
My role heavily revolves around rating revaluations. Each year I am involved in two or three revisions also known as rating revaluations in the Otago and Southland districts and regions and my work focuses on updating rating valuations for rural and lifestyle properties. Over the past year (2024/2025 financial year) I have been working across the Southland and Queenstown Lakes Districts. As can be imagine, while geographically close, property types, value levels, and market factors dramatically contrast. One property was focused on grazing resource management, and the other celebrity mansions. The revaluations themselves can be broken into the following stages –
- Strategic overview where the team travels to the district, meets with the council, local valuers, real estate agents, developers, and other property professionals while also inspecting recent sales.
- Analysis of sales, identification of market trends, market price points, and a comprehensive basis established.
- Apply an index of value movement to all properties and manually review. This often requires another trip to the district for physical inspection of certain properties or localities.
- The proposed updated values are audited by the Office of the Valuer General.
- Once the new values are released, property owners are able to lodge objections. These are inspected in the following months.
What’s your favourite part of your role?
I find the entire revaluation process to be really rewarding. Each one is a huge project where you take responsibility for a portion of the district and have to master its complexities. Throughout the project, you work alongside some exceptional people at QV and the feeling of passing audit with flying colours is not dissimilar to gaining registration! Furthermore, you get to travel to some extraordinary properties and picturesque parts of the country. My most memorable property inspections include $10m+ Queenstown mansions, high country stations in the Te Anau Basin, and countless idyllic beaches.
When did you get your registration and how does it feel to have achieved this milestone?
I sat my registration exam at the beginning of May 2025. Learning that I had passed was a significant achievement after seven years of combined study and graduate programme. There was a strong feeling of reward and relief.
At QV, we’re big proponents of work-life balance… what do you like to do in your time off?
Outside of work, I really enjoy the outdoors. I am steadily ticking off the South Island’s great walks (Milford Track is well worth the hype!) plus Christchurch’s Port Hills are great for escaping the city. In the colder months, I turn into an avid reader, with Lee Child a personal favourite. My 2025 has also included a lot of planning for an upcoming trip to Europe.
What advice would you offer young people looking to get into the biz? Is property valuation a good career choice?
For me, property valuation has been an excellent career choice as it offers a great office/field balance, career progression, and a well-rounded skill set. I take considerable satisfaction in my current role, particularly when our QV team is recognised and rewarded for completing very complex, technical rating revaluations to a high standard.
The advice I would offer to those considering valuation as a career would be to spend time with local valuers to learn what’s involved and the wide range of opportunities available. Valuers tend to be very encouraging of the next generation and very willing to further the profession.
