MARKET WRAP: THE GREAT REAL ESTATE AGENT RESET.

The market isn’t going to apologise for being tough. Stop waiting for rates, headlines or buyers to save you. The Great Real Estate Agent Reset is happening now, and the agents who adapt, tell the truth and sharpen their skills will own the recovery. 💪

Transcript

Tom Panos 0:00

This is normally the time of the week where I give you my auction market wrap. But today I've got to tell you I didn't do too much at all. After coming out of hospital yesterday, I made the decision to outsource all of my auctions to other auctioneers today. And I'm actually happy I really did. Because I've got to tell you, many of these professional auctioneers, they do nothing else. They're not real estate agents, they're auctioneers, that's what they do for a living. This is their livelihood. They don't get the big commissions that real estate agents get. They get a flat fee on auctions, and I've got to tell you, there's not many of them at the moment, and they've still got to pay their mortgages, they've still got to pay the rent. Whatever, school fees, groceries. Auction volumes have dropped enormously, so a lot of these auctioneers they're hurting. And I don't need to do as many auctions, right? I mean, auctions is like a fraction of my life, probably 5%. Monday to Friday is where it's at. But unfortunately, the results that they've sent me, the auctioneers, they're not pretty. Again, eight properties, zero sold, but most were withdrawn. Withdrawn's now have gone through the roof. Now, here's what I think is actually happening. By the way, I'm sitting in the same spot here in the sun by the bay run. I used to have chemo the day after. If I was allowed out to go home, I'd come here, sit here in the sun. But let me go back to this. Some agents are listing properties right now as auctions without really intending to ever go to auction, only using it as a sales tactic to try and get a decision out of buyers by the auction date. They're using the auction campaign as a deadline to force a decision beforehand. I understand that strategy, right? But they'll never book it with an auctioneer. A check-um auctioneers aren't making money. But when the buyers aren't there, the property simply gets pulled. I've even had auctioneers tell me agents are trying to book them at the last minute because they didn't want to commit to paying an auction fee unless they absolutely have to. So me handing out any auctions I've got is something I'm more than happy to do to auctioneers. But that tells you something about this market. It's tough. And here's the part some people in real estate won't like. In fact, I've had real estate agents messaging me saying, Tom, can you talk the market up a bit? Right? Tom, can you say this about this area? Guys, girls, the market's the market. Tell the damn truth. You want credibility with consumers? Tell them what's actually happening. No need to massage the numbers. Don't pretend withdrawals are happening or waiting a month to actually get a true clearance rate. And don't manufacture optimism just because reality is uncomfortable. Apart from anything else, why would you want to create the impression the market is stronger than it is to give the Reserve Bank another reason to believe financial conditions need tightening? Think about it. Think smart. It is what it is. And whenever an agent asks me to talk the market up, I tell them the same thing, all of them. Stop hoping the market gets better, hope you get better. Because let me tell you, let me introduce you to a few agents. I had a big event during the week, Black Belt. That room had people that wrote massive numbers. And Mitt Coomer, Ethan He, Daniel Harris, Joel Hood. Four members there alone of that group. Between them, they're doing 860, 870 sales in 12 months. Then you've got Darren Hunting Darwin, he's done a million in fees in 12 months. Then you've got Christian, who's riding a million fees out of Wollongong, and their numbers have not been impacted by this market. In this market, man, I've got to say to you, don't hope things get better. If you're an agent, you get better. And in this market, none of these people are ringing me up and saying to me, Tommy, when's the market gonna get better? We don't know when it's gonna get better. Can you talk my suburb up? Tom, please give buyers some confidence. Listen. Great agents understand something uncomfortable. We're the problem, we're the solution. Start with that. And the best of the best, I look at these agents in my Blackbill program. Why are they going so good? Because they've adjust pricing, they've improved their prospecting, they've improved their conversations. Their vendor management is on steroids. They have got vendors understanding this is life. And I think what we're witnessing right now is something much bigger than that. What we're witnessing is the great real estate agent reset. There are now two kinds of agents. One wakes up in the morning waiting for a headline to save him, an interest rate announcement, a government announcement, some new piece of data, anything that makes real estate easy again. The others know what they're doing? I'm not waiting for the market to change. I'm changing. And those agents are becoming incredibly valuable. Agents who know how to price properties correctly, agents who can negotiate, agents who can prospect, agents who can sit across from a vendor and have an uncomfortable conversation. Because a great agent is a bit like a great doctor. They don't tell you what makes you feel good, they tell you what you need to get better. And we're also beginning to see an exodus from this industry. Every week, 10, 15 recruiters calling me for reference checks off people. They're leaving real estate. Some people entered real estate two or three years ago when the market was doing the heavy lifting. They didn't have to prospect, they didn't have to master negotiation, they didn't have to build databases, they didn't have to sort of tell a vendor this is what you're actually going to get. I'm sorry. The market fed those people. Now the market has stopped feeding them. And some of them have started to leave. And I actually think that's healthy because maybe what comes out of the other side is a better real estate industry. Less obsessed with affluence, less chest beating, less showing everyone how successful you are, and more obsessed with actually being useful. Because real estate matters. We're dealing with people's homes, their wealth, their families, and often the biggest decision of their lives. And I reckon in the next 10 to 15 years of real estate, we're going to be looking back to a very different 10 to 15 years. The Great Australian reset has already started. Stop waiting for the next boom. Stop waiting for someone to talk the market up. Stop waiting for the market to save you. Use this market to become the agent who deserves the next one. That's my wrap for the week. I'm going to go rest.