When the market’s running hot with sales, aka a ‘sellers market’, then we’re all off on fancy holidays and buying amazing cars.
And in a buyer’s market we’re often found wanting and worrying about whether we’re going to break even.
Our modus operandi shifts within the business whenever anyone talks about anything in the media around clearance rate trends, our conversations with buyers alter when an interest rate headline comes through.
I’m going to say something that we all need to admit – as an industry, we are way too reactive in our actions, and way too dependent on the news to write our professional story for us.
The minute that the Sydney market hit a bump in the road last year, industry leaders could not have been quicker in coming out to make the declaration that we have moved into a ‘buyer’s market’.
And the constant chatter around interest rates has given agents plenty of superficial excuses for buyers to not make moves on properties, and for vendors to not take action.
But here’s the question that I want to challenge all of us with – is all of this talk helping us…or holding us back??
For example, as soon as agents hear reports like ‘buyer’s market’, their operating system switches from focussing on buyers to focussing on vendors and the automatic need to reduce asking prices on listings.
Our collective mindset shifts across to a constant conversation around vendor management, and there’s an apparent desperation to get any offer over the line.
We treat buyers with a lot less disdain or apathy, and because ‘days on market’ figures drift out our vendor communication starts to wane.
This has been the tradition for our industry – to wait until the market changes before we switch our attention from one side of the deal to the other.
But it can be observed that this behaviour has generated a limited mindset that relies on external influences to dictate our functionality as well as the level of success available to us.
Basically put, we all appear to be at the mercy of the headlines!
Not only does this bring a distinct lack of control over our own short and medium-term future, but the inherent inconsistencies within our business operations exacerbates the rollercoaster of both income and emotion.
So I have to ask – why do prominent voices insist on promoting it?
The Missing Keys – What We Need To Bring In.
- Context around the media – The problem between the information and how it’s taken on by the front line is misunderstanding who the news affects. Realistically, the market sentiment only affects the people who it refers to, aka the customers, and it shouldn’t affect the way in which we operate.
Agents need to be able to understand and interpret the media reports, so we absolutely need to be across overall market insights because it’s what our customers are going to be talking to.
However, if we are as professional as the level of payment we receive suggests (as salespeople anyway), then our structures, work flows and strategies should remain consistent, irrespective of market sentiment.
- Set communication standards with clients – If clients aren’t getting the sale, they need to at least feel that they are moving closer towards a sale. The problem with not having set standards within the office around communication is that we don’t have consistent service in our brand.
A prime example of this is in our vendor communication and collaboration.
We are so hot and cold when it comes to our communication structures, i.e. we’re happy to talk to them regularly when the market’s running well, but if it’s slow and we feel that we don’t have much to talk about we tend to go missing.
This is largely due to not having a set structure or standard format within the office, or simply the thought that if nothing has happened then we have nothing to tell them and therefore don’t need to call.
That is until the sales meeting rolls by and a rocket gets fired by the sales manager because ‘we need to get price adjustments’!
Not only is this lack of process causing a lack of clarity for sellers (they get anxious if they don’t know when they’re going to hear from you), but it creates a reactive mindset in our teams because they don’t feel that they should talk to their owners unless something has happened.
- The eradication of excuses, collective understanding, and a shift in focus – We are really good at using the media as an excuse for not generating forward momentum! We use them as reasons for not getting action for sellers, we justify our lack of activity with it, and tend to hang our hats on reports to justify how many sales we’re getting (or not as the case may be). These headlines dominate a lot of client conversations, which is understandable from the client’s perspective, but they don’t need us to regurgitate headlines, they want solutions!
What would help is to bring in a standard practice that allows the office to be across any media article, but also how to best interpret it in a way that allows us to keep our momentum moving forward within the business.
The issue we have is the instant taking of a headline and using it ad hoc without really putting context around it, and we’re very liberal in our use of them in conversations with potential clients.
If we can arm ourselves and our teams with some information that allows them to put colour around the conversations, then it’ll be a heck of a lot easier to understand what needs to be done to keep the world turning.
For example, lots of agents have told me that clients are waiting for an interest rate drop before coming onto the market, which is ‘definitely’ going to happen in February 2025.
But now it’s looking like a general election will put that rate drop on ice until the middle of 2025 at the earliest, which is going to make it awkward to go back to all of these clients if we haven’t talked about how we are going to operate in spite of whatever the interest rate does.
Have we not learned from the last few years…nothing in this world is certain, so we really need to direct the conversation way more on what we do know, instead of what we could know!
So moving forward, whenever we make media commentary around the current state of the market, we need to make sure that it is put into a better context that allows our industry to get on the front foot with our work, and use some more consistent standards to utilise the information in a way that will provide greater clarity & simplicity around how we go about any market, not just a good one.
If we can do that, and come away from being headline readers, then this industry becomes a lot more interesting, and a lot less concerned about things that are simply out of our control.
