Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
Pricing Strategies for Spring Selling Season
Let's delve into invaluable strategies for managing the increased volume without compromising your service.
We discuss the importance of staying on top of market trends, and having a proactive approach to reappraising properties.
We also examine an inspiring quote from Australian professional rugby league coach, Trent Robinson and discuss how it's relevant to your everyday hustle as a real estate agent.
Whether you're a seasoned agent or a rookie, this episode is packed with insights that can help you turn challenges into opportunities this Spring selling season!
P.S. - As an added bonus, we'll bring you our thoughts on who will come out on top in the upcoming AFL Grand Final.
Tom Panos, john McGrath, troy Malcolm another podcast, million-dollar agent. We are in the spring selling season. As we're recording this, we're talking about 33, 34 degrees heat in Sydney. There's no question about it. The stock's there and this is going to be the topic we spoke about. But before we move on, your tips GWS Sydney to win the grand final, and I'm going, brisbane. We're the two teams and the quote of the week, troy, the quote of the week in rugby league goes to the Roosters coach Trent Robinson. At his press conference when he said we don't expect to win 50-50 decisions. You know that's what he basically said. He felt like that they don't get favorable treatment. But a lot of people don't agree with that. Troy. The Roosters bowed out. Are they the only city team that was left? Who were we left? We got the Warriors. We got Penrith, we got Penrith. Sorry, penrith, sorry. I'm going to retract. Penrith is going to win the comp. Who do you think is going to win? John, give us AFL. We got audiences AFL. Oh, my heart, my heart says Brisbane.
John McGrath:I'd like to say Brisbane, penrith has had their fair share of success the last few years and I think Brisbane has come from the ashes. A couple of years ago they were down and out. They've done a tremendous job and of course we love our Brisbane team and so forth. So I'd say Penrith In the AFL, what is it? Collingwood Carlton.
Tom Panos:Yeah, in the AFL we've got, yeah, we've got. Well, we know that we've got the Western Sydney, not the Sydney Swan. Yeah, we've got this. Yeah, but we've got Brisbane versus Collingwood.
Troy Malcolm:Brisbane, collingwood and AWS and Carlton.
Tom Panos:Correct. Yeah, sorry, troy. Sorry, let's correct that We've got Collingwood versus AWS and Brisbane versus Carlton, is that right? Yeah, that's correct. So who's?
John McGrath:Again, I'm going to go for a Brisbane double. I reckon they're going to the AFL. There's a controversial one for you, Troy.
Troy Malcolm:I actually think it's going to be the black colours that are going to win this year. So I'm tipping Collingwood and Panthers. I just feel as if their form for both teams is just too consistent, too consistent. So that's going to carry them through experience in pressure situations. Both those teams have got the experience on the field and they've all been there before, so I expect both of them to win quite well.
Tom Panos:Okay, well, look, real estate agents are winning at the moment and I've said to a couple of them. They've said to me oh, we're scared, there's a fair bit of stock coming on. I actually said and Tom McGlynn I did an interview with Tom McGlynn on Friday and he actually said, if you think about it, you'll make a lot more sales in this market than in the marketplace that's got less listings and lower days on market, and that's, I mean, that's a basic thing that we all know. We're in a volume-based business. But, john and Troy, today's topic is more listings coming on. What's your game plan? So I want to talk about both servicing them and also don't get stuck where you've got 30, 40 listings at the end of November, early December, that aren't being sold because you've either had agent operating error, bad with pricing, bad with servicing. So let's talk about that. And I'd be curious to hear, troy, what the McGrawe team is saying about stock levels at the moment.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, tom, we've definitely said an increase in stock, but a lot of our team are focused on making sure that all the information that they're comparing it to, whether it's the competing properties on the market or the most recent sales, are up to date. I think if you're looking at pricing, if you're looking at bringing properties to market, you've got to be really sensitive and make sure that you're setting the campaign up for success, making sure they sell it as expectations and meeting the buyer's expectations. We were talking before we came online and we were saying that buyers, in a lot of options, if the pricing strategy isn't right, they're normally waiting to see what happens, as opposed to be really proactive and put their hand up or their paddle up straight away. So I think that this period in time, getting everything right, is going to set up those agents for huge success at the tail end of 2023.
Tom Panos:John, what's your take on this marketplace at the moment, with the extra listings coming out?
John McGrath:Well, we've been seeing this coming for a while, tommy. We've been talking internally that, with interest rates hitting a crescendo and about to fall off the cliff where a lot of people have, the reality of high rates is now starting to stick. Before it was just a concept that, god, I'm going to have to pay a lot of money Well, money soon. Now a lot of households have to pay double their mortgage monthly rates. So that's one thing. And two is, at the same time, simultaneously, we've seen, I would say, 30%, 40% increase in stock levels, some markets possibly more. So when you've got those two things assuming that well, I think it's a fair assumption the property prices, it's really supply and demand. So if you've got strong on the demand side or low on the supply side, it's good. If you've got a little bit of weakness on the demand side and you've got an increase in stock levels, it's going to bring prices back. So we've been thinking that around this time. We always thought spring would be when it's happened. So I think we kind of got that right. So I think what's happening now is no reason to panic, and I agree, tommy McGlynn is one of the great thinkers, as is Shannon Whitney in Australian real estate and I agree with what Tommy said about you can actually do better. Now the only thing I'd say is I don't see there's any reason days on market have to slide out I mean a great agent in this market. This is where great agents, tommy, actually come to the fore. This is where the agents, the deal makers that are, got great dialogue that can help influence both buyers and sellers to make the right decision for each of them, really start doing better business. So I would say some of the best agents, most of the best agents in the country, will have a better 12 months going forward than they had going back, because they'll have 30, 40% more stock to trade and to deal make on. So yeah, I think some of the things come to mind for me. I mean, there's two sides of every transaction a buyer and a seller. So let's look at each of them individually.
John McGrath:Troy, I mean on the seller side, you have to be much more careful at a listing presentation. You can be a little bit you shouldn't be, but you can be a little bit erroneous or loose looser in a hot market, because a lot of sins are covered up by frantic bidding and prices above reserve. Because now that's not going to happen so much. So you kind of need as Troy has just alluded to, you need to get the price pretty close to right. So make sure you're comparable. They're not comparable. If your market has adjusted in the last month, make sure they're not comparable from three months ago. Make sure they're comparable today, last week, last weekend, the weekend before. But make sure when you have a discussion with your vendor as to where price is late today, you're not being optimistic about where they were, perhaps when the market was in a stronger position.
John McGrath:I think make sure your language. Language is really critical and I think you have to be a little bit more reserved. You can still be positive, you can still be optimistic, but there's no more saying oh look, this is the hottest market I've seen and things are going off the Richter scale and we take this to auction and we'll smash it all that sort of craziness you just say to people look, the market's been terrific. It's probably lost a little bit of steam in the last few weeks and we think that that is going to be the status quo for about the next 12 months, while stock sorts itself out and while interest rates are at these kind of peak of the market. So your option is to take still a very good price today maybe not quite as good as it was a few weeks ago or wait for 12 to 18 months until the market, sort of the next cycle, picks up.
John McGrath:So I think you can just be a little bit more. Or you need to be a bit more measured, troy, in your discussion with your vendors and, of course, managing client expectations. I mean, that's a skill in any market, but it's more required today. So frequency of communication with your vendors, depth of communication, relevance of data points that you bring in. So it's not just about oh yeah, everyone thinks we're overpriced at 1.2. Give them some logical, rational or data points. So people, because people will make decisions generally on the emotional scale, but they always want to justify them with some facts and figures. So what can you provide? Information wise.
John McGrath:And then on the buy side, again, troy, it's just about you know, make sure you're close with the buyers. The buyers are going to get. They got a little window of opportunity. I think they've got about six to 12 months. We don't know whether it's going to be four months or 12 months, but let's call it six to 12 months when the market again is taking a little breather, before interest rates seem to have plateaued. They will come down at some point in the next year or two. So you know you've got a little breather to get back into the market before it goes off again, which it probably will in most parts of Australia because immigration is strong. Interest rates will come back down, bricks and mortar is a preferred asset or investment and investors will come back. They've kind of gone missing for a while. They'll come back. So I think you've just got to develop some good dialogue for both buyers and sellers. Troy over here, because you're in the trenches and sort of at the front line every day.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, john, I agree. And exactly what, tom, you know, we were talking about earlier in regards to the buyers is to making sure that you're giving them information that they seem useful. Don't give them information that doesn't make sense. Don't give them information from six to 12 months ago. Give them stuff that happened over to the last month. That's where agents are really getting cut through, and making sure that giving the buyers the right information for them to make the right decision. It's as simple as that. The information and the frequency of contact with both buyers and sellers again to reiterate, john, your point is going to set those agents up to have a really strong finish to the year, and you know we are only 14 weeks out from 2024. I know that seems like a long time, but it's actually not.
Tom Panos:Yeah, I think a lot of I've noticed a lot of the really good agents that there's another great term that Tom McGlin used the other day. He said, tom, clearance rates don't measure operator error, and I thought that was a very, very good point because you can actually have one agent that does things right, from the listing presentation, the way they price it, and then you've got another agent that just does it all wrong and you can have a totally different clearance rate because of that. But real estate agents that I think are very good at seller servicing are able to dig deep, particularly on those vendor reports that you get with Ignite, where because sometimes the vendor says, but we haven't even had many people come through the property, but great agents are able to say listen, you need to know your home has been seen. Here are the data insights that show how many people have actually looked at your property, how many people have downloaded, how many people have saved. People are aware of your property but there's obviously a gap between them seeing value in your property and that's what we need to address. I think great agents are very good at data analysis and that Ignite report. We should get real estatecom sponsoring this Ignite report is a brilliant report in helping vendor understand analytics on the amount of views saves and, basically, the virtual inspections on a property.
Tom Panos:The other thing, gentlemen, I think is super important is that if you've got, if you've priced this property three months ago, sometimes we've got this situation where you've done a listing presentation, you've done your proposal, you've got an owner coming on board based on the numbers you spoke about, but there has been a small shift in the market. What you should be doing is saying, hey, I want to let you know before we go full ball here. I want to do a reappraisal of your property and bring in the data of the last couple of weeks, because there has been a shift. Often you find a property is listed at a much different time to when it was appraised. In real estate industry, there's normally a big gap, so that's pretty important.
John McGrath:Yeah, I think it is. I think suckled is also slightly important here, tommy, that you don't need to run in with a sleazy hammer and sort of trewering saying, oh my God, the markets changed dramatically. I think if many markets had changed more than three before 5% I'd be surprised. But a 5% shift on a million dollars is material. It's 950 from a million or 960. So I think you've just got to be a matter of fact. You've got to have your finger on the pulse. You've got to be closer to buyers than ever before. You've got to not only be asked when there are pressure in the house and how do they feel about it and whether they see value. You need to ask some data points. Why is it that you see value at that level and sort of dig a bit deeper than you had to maybe a month or two ago? And yeah, just your mindset as an agent must be.
John McGrath:Everything is still incredibly saleable. The market is still strong. Prices have adjusted a bit. Maybe instead of six buyers per option we might have two, two and a half, but that's still a good market if you've got your finger on the pulse and you're doing what it takes. It's just.
John McGrath:This is going to sort the time. It's going to sort the cowboys out, those that are being, yeah, the old I mean naked without the trunks metaphor that yeah, those that have been just sort of doing quite nicely because the market's been pretty much on fire again in another little mini boom we've just been through. Well, they'll be caught out and they'll be the ones with, you know, not sold signs but for sale signs up past in options, unhappy vendors and expired listings and the like. The best agents, having been through multiple of these cycles in the last 40 years. The best agents it's steady as she goes, they'll do better. As Tommy McLean said, they'll do as well or better this year. Yeah, I still think it's a great market. It's just you've got to be aware that things have shifted a little bit.
Tom Panos:Well, I see I want to touch on is if you're a real estate agent that's been holding normally, say, five or six listings a month that's been your baseline and then all of a sudden you're doing 810, you got 10. You've got a service and extra five. That's a double double the amount of vendors you're servicing. What are some of the things that you think that you can be doing to help you actually handle and leave lever yourself to be able to doing it? Obviously, you're using tech techniques, like Amit Nayak does, where he does his vendor meetings in 15 minute increments. Using Zoom on a Tuesday is an example of how you can actually scale your time better using tech. Is there other things that are going to allow a real estate agent to get on top of having to service twice as many listings as they may have in the past?
John McGrath:Well at True. Again, I'd say checklists and systems here become paramount. When you've got four listings and you've got heaps and heaps of buyers, you're just servicing them and saying okay, but if that number goes to 12 listings or up all the 10, you do need a more robust system. So if you haven't built yourself a little system of checklists for listing a property and managing a property, getting ready for an option, post-option if it hasn't sold, you need, what are the next six things to do? What are the next 12 steps to take If you haven't already got that time to get that now and build it really critical. I know your gym members are like Tommy. You give them those sort of tools, so they're really critical to have right now those things. And yes, certainly your team. I mean you need to make sure your team hears this same discussion. If I haven't heard this podcast. If you do have a team, everyone's got to be on their tippy toes right now because this is no longer a rota taking. This will be good quality salesmanship market Troy.
Troy Malcolm:John, the efficiency is, and the scalability is, a really important part of any process right now. So what is going to create the biggest impact to both buyers and sellers that you're doing out there? Is it making sure that all backs from a Saturday's open for inspection time are done on a Saturday afternoon instead of waiting till Monday? Does that save you an extra couple of hours? Do you follow up with those that you can't get in contact with with the great SMS servicing techniques that we've got out there? The reporting side of things? Are you doing exactly what Tom said around Armit and doing zoom 15 minute increments? Well, it's the then the follow up printed version. Is that a direct email that just highlights the key points that you covered off in the meeting that's automatically sent as soon as that meeting's finished? What other things can you be doing around compressing private inspections when you do them back to back at the same property? Just save an extra couple of hours travel time in regards to getting back and forward to the office.
Troy Malcolm:How are you preparing your open kits? What does the support team look like? Are they executing a lot more of the tasks that you'd normally do when you've got smaller numbers of open for inspections and attendees at those opens. So I think it's the little one percenters along the way in each one of the processes and the standards that we have that is really going to set us up again for that. Saving a day or two or a couple of hours here or there to allow you to go from managing eight properties to 12 quite easily without losing or diluting any of your service, that's going to be the difference. So if I was talking to anyone right now and a lot of our team members, it's like what are the elements across all of our campaign that we can save time in, that make it really efficient but still have high impact?
Tom Panos:Well, I think a lot of the real estate agents I'm speaking to now have all said the same thing and that is an acceptance that on FM, that great radio station, october, november, february, march is a time where you basically have to say I am going to work harder, I am going to work longer. I know that I'm going to end up having a couple of weeks, maybe early off in December, maybe finish around the 15th of December. I know I'm going to have a fair bit of January off. So I'm just going to go full out and take advantage of these five volumes of stock and if it means I've got to work an extra one or two hours a day between that long weekend that we get, will some states get from October right through to Christmas. So it'd be it the team. Thank you so much. Great catching up.
Tom Panos:Another episode of Million Dollar Agent. I'm absolutely Troy. Someone said to me have you done a thousand episodes? I said no, we haven't. But I said that would be a great thing to achieve, to be able to say we did a thousand episodes, because you do see, you do see what cast start, and then they sort of disappear and you know, then they rebrand with another name and there's a new co-host. We've gone the we've Troy, roughly. Are we at six or seven? What are we? Is it? I don't know.
Troy Malcolm:We're past eight. I think we've kind of got eight years now. Two thousand and twelve was our. How many hundred? How many hundred? I don't know. I have to find that out. I will find that out. I'll be back. My research for next week?
John McGrath:Okay, Do that See covered games and what are we at? All right guys, All the best, Tommy. See you tomorrow. Thanks for signing off. Bye.