What frustrates us real estate agents and why you should care

When you’ve been dedicated to your craft for just on three decades, we’d like to think you’ve earned the right to have a bit of a rant and a philosophical review of our industry and how it operates. The old saying ‘all’s fair in love and war’ is the way that many within our industry play this crazy real estate game, however in our view, when you’re managing high emotions and clients’ largest assets, we believe this is a terrible spirit and introduces unnecessary carnage to an already complicated process.

Our industry often questions why we’re relegated to the lower percentage of untrustworthy professions, however very few self-reflect on their own behaviour to find the answer. Our first frustration is that a large number of agents are working incredibly hard, always do the right thing by their clients and add serious value to the entire process. Unfortunately, it’s around 20% of our profession that play silly games that tarnish the entire industry. Like most things, we’re only as strong as our weakest link and when it comes to real estate, our weakest links are pretty darn awful.

From what we’ve seen – and we’ve been around the block a few times – many agents will often say anything in a listing presentation to woo clients and win their business. Many unsuspecting sellers can be swept up in the emotion and the promise of riches and gold at the end of the sale process. Unfortunately, when money and big outcomes get thrown around, it often means that sound strategy and meaningful information is cast aside and the pursuit of a dream clouds the vision of even the most conservative sellers. An example of this is the promise of the Eastern Suburbs buyer who will pay more than everyone else, land you your dream price and pay so much you can probably buy a holiday home as well. It’s absolutely farcical rhetoric and purely intended to stimulate greed and cause a seller to lose focus on a sound selling strategy.

Could someone please let us know why a buyer from the East would walk into a new area, do no research, look at the buying competition and decide they will outbid everyone for a property. We understand the argument that Inner West property has the perception that it’s less expensive than many suburbs in the East, but this doesn’t support the notion that someone moving from that region wakes up one morning and thinks ‘today’ is the day I crush the dreams of an Inner West buyer and purchase a home’. For starters, it suggests that buyers from the East don’t pay attention to value and secondly, it undermines the emotional and financial capacity that Inner West buyers have at their disposal. We see people from all regions and walks of life at our inspections and despite selling properties to buyers from the Eastern Suburbs, North Shore, the Hills, the Northern Beaches, the Shire, interstate and abroad, we’re still waiting for the day that a buyer from any regions rolls up to their first inspection in a totally new area and blows everyone away with an offer.

It’s crucial for sellers to pursue their maximum sale price. After all, our principal place of residence is the last tax-free haven and it’s where a huge portion of Australians park most of their equity. For any seller, the best path forward for sales success is to have an all-encompassing approach that is considered, tactical, runs off the real data in your local market and is executed carefully. Be very wary of the throw-away lines that appeal to greed as these are merely used as a distraction and don’t offer you any substance. We’re continually seeing sellers fall for the ‘we can take you to the promised land’ sales pitch only to see their auction pushed back continually, the price guide lowered or in the worst case removed from the market altogether.

It’s important for sellers to pay attention to the language that agents use as it’s easy to be led astray, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost opportunity. So, if you’re interested in making a move this Spring, we’d love to have a conversation with you, and don’t forget to ask about our unique Good Faith Agreement that provides our clients with full control throughout the sales process.