The institute is a national membership body that represents 98% of licensed real estate professionals in the country.
As a membership organisation it provides services and products for its members.
Miss Baird said the best way to know what to deliver was to talk to members and find out what was going on, what was worrying them and what the biggest challenges facing the industry were.
She said the biggest worry she was hearing at moment was around levels of compliance.
"I think over the years there has just been more and more aspects of compliance that the real estate industry has picked up.
"Real estate professionals are very compliant with all of those rules but it’s a compliance burden that ends up being a cost both to the real estate business and to the client.
"As an industry we’re really supportive of the right level of compliance. Everybody needs to play their part and we will, but we are really focused on it being right-sized."
Miss Baird said the South Canterbury real estate market was doing very well.
"It’s been really interesting over the course of the last year to see this real north-south split.
"It’s fun for me to come down to the South Island and tell real estate agents here that even if though they think it’s difficult, it’s far worse further north, so they should be looking in the mirror and feeling pretty good with where things are at.
"The same can be said for property owners in this part of the world."
She said the House Price Index (HPI) for all of New Zealand had gone up 1.4% in the last year and in Timaru it had gone up 5.8%.
"This part of the world is outperforming the national measures, so it is rosier here than in other parts of the country, that’s for sure.
"Timaru is not immune to the economic situation and everywhere has seen inflation, cost-of-living pressures, challenges around job security and, of course, interest rates but we pretty much everywhere have seen the sun come out which makes a difference for New Zealanders."
She said the reserve bank reducing the official cash rate by 25 basis points will allow many New Zealanders to take a bit of a breath.
"They made the point that was the beginning of the cutting cycle.
"That will take some time for them to cut further so there will be some release of that pressure over time.
"I think there is a level of confidence now heading into spring that we haven’t seen for a year or so."
REINZ ambassador for Timaru and Harcourts real estate agent Julian Blanchard said it was amazing to have Miss Baird visit Timaru and speak to members and other industry participants.
"I’ve been REINZ ambassador for maybe eight to nine years now and we’ve had one visit from the chief executive very briefly a long time ago but we haven’t had somebody here in such a long time.
"It’s great to have somebody of Jen’s stature come here but not to just come here for five minutes but also spend a fair chunk of the day.
"We’ve been going around some of the other real estate offices, talking to law firms and talking to councillors about the CityTown project.
"The main reason, though, is to bring the people from the real estate industry, not just agents but lawyers, here to this room for an hour or two to not only listen to Jen but talk among each other about what’s going on."
