Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
End-of-Year Strategies for Real Estate Agents
Let's uncover the hidden potential of a high-volume real estate market, and reveal the strategies that separate successful agents from the rest.
- We dissect the importance of focusing on controllable elements like client relationships and product knowledge.
- Discover how effective pricing conversations and clear expectations can transform challenges into opportunities, even when selling times stretch longer than usual.
- We discuss the necessity of using market data and buyer feedback to inform vendors, highlighting how regular updates can keep all parties aligned and ready to act.
Whether you're navigating seller expectations or managing buyer relationships, we offer insights to help you master this shifting market.
Million Dollar Agent, the podcast. Another episode Joining me is Troy Malcolm, john McGrath and myself, tom Panos, and today we're talking about narrowing the gap, because in certain markets there is a gap. But please not for one moment think to yourself oh, this is an atrocious market. It's actually a great market because it's got volume, and volume markets benefit good agents, because good agents know what to do with volume, they know the conversations, they're dealmakers, they're not order takers. And what I want to talk about today, gentlemen, is what should the agents do in October, november is what should the agents do in October, november and December knowing that we've got more stock than normal, knowing that, hey, maybe it's getting a little bit more favouring the buyer than the seller in certain markets? Days on market certainly indicate that it is taking a bit longer to do a deal, but I've got to tell you the results are still refreshing, they're good and it's a good market. So what are both your views on the current market?
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, I was just going to say Tom, before we recorded.
Troy Malcolm:We started talking about the market and what we're seeing, and there really is a bit of a tale of a multi-city approach and, to be honest, I'm seeing different markets perform outstandingly well out there, with really high levels of activity and bidding and strong results, well and truly over owners' expectations.
Troy Malcolm:Then I'm seeing other markets as well where it is quite challenging. The auctions are drawn out, they're longer, the bids that are open in the auctions are slower, the buyer activity seems to be at a lower level of registrations to what we saw three, four months ago. So it really is a hard market in many ways to pick what you're going to see and each market is presenting something like a micro market and it's really interesting to see the agents that are being most successful are really doubling down on what we're going to talk about today, which is getting closer to their clients, both buyers and sellers, to really create momentum, and I think that's the key. Those that are listening and controlling everything they can internally, as opposed to worrying about the external factors, are seeing some really great results out there.
Tom Panos:Yeah, John, do you want to add anything on that? Extend on that.
John McGrath:Yeah, look, I think the market is absolutely brilliant. I think that we've been through an unreal period which was unsustainable, and anyone that thought this was going to be the mark of threats our eyes were kidding themselves. Auditakers were selling properties and looking like superheroes. I think now this is a great market. Just the reality is you've got to work harder. But let's look at this Tommy, the average agent listening here in most parts of Australia they're getting a fee of $20,000 to $30,000 thereabouts per sale. I mean, that's kind of like a third of the whole average annual salary for most Australians. So three sales and you're probably at the average wage. I mean, this is just still an extraordinary opportunity. And it was Ryan Serhant told me. I think I read something and I'll butcher it, but it said something like the minute I stopped thinking about the market, it's never been bad since. Or the minute I start focusing on the market, it's never been bad since. I think everyone's got to stop this talk about the market, stop pretending that it's a bad market. It's a great market. And okay, what's the bad bit? Oh, it's taking you 28 days to sell a property. Boo hoo, boo hoo. This is a great market.
John McGrath:So I think it comes back to controlling the controllables, the agents that are finding it a bad market. I'll tell you why. Number one controllables the agents that are finding it a bad market. I'll tell you why. Number one they're not handling price. I'll go back to before one. They may not know exactly what the market is today. They might still be quoting comparables that are four, five, six months old, which may be less relevant today than when they sold.
John McGrath:So firstly is you have to be close, super close, to every transaction, to every buyer feedback, more close than before Before. You could kind of overquote a bit by being a bit slack or complacent or overly optimistic, and the market would probably cover your sins. So first is you've got to have the right product knowledge. Secondly, you've got to be able to have the conversation with a vendor that allows you to get the listing without sounding negative, tommy, but it also doesn't paint yourself into a corner. You know this whole thing of you know whoever tells the biggest lie about what you might get or should get for the property is going to get the listing. That's just a stupid game that this industry should stop playing. So second thing is you have to be great at handling conversation on price and I'm saying great nine out of 10, quality. And I've heard, you know you talk to vendors, Tom, at auctions and before and so forth, you know, and someone needs to practice the sort of dialogue that you use and we use. So that's the next thing.
John McGrath:Third thing I had lunch with Peter Chauncey today. It was a pleasure. He talks about the importance of the set to sell meeting and he says exactly what you just said, tommy. You know, tom, here's the deal. You know, we think that you know, I know you're looking for $5 million thereabouts. You know, and I think that you know, we're not far out of that. In terms of ballpark, we should be getting about 20 to 25 people through our opening weekend. If we fall short of those sort of numbers, it's going to be of concern to me, because every other property around this price range, that's the sort of activity we've been getting at the right price quote. So I think you've got to be able to have a set to sell meeting that positions it with the vendors so they understand that there is a likelihood that you're going to come to them for a price adjustment if the activity is not as good.
John McGrath:Third thing you've got to be super close to buyers. Now, troy, I don't think many agents are anywhere near close enough to buyers that they should be. A lot of agents come through. You're interested? No, okay, all right, well, let us know what you want, we'll give you a call. But they never do. You've got to be having a really good business conversation with a buyer, tom.
John McGrath:What did you think about it? What are you comparing it with If you were me? What would you be comparing it with If you were the vendor? Where do you see the value lie? For you? It's not of interest, okay, but I still really love your feedback on where it might be. What have you seen off market or on market that's comparable to it? And you've got to get really close and you've got to ask them some qualifying questions that will give you the feedback you want, because buyers will actually be quite honest and open, especially if they're not particularly interested in buying it. They'll be totally honest and open with you. So I think that's really important.
John McGrath:And the last piece of the puzzle, troy, is unfiltered, frequent, fact-based communication with your seller once the property starts. I think I might have even mentioned last week Troy on our webinar. It could have been on MDA Podcasts where I was talking to an agent he's a very good agent, by the way and I said what's the feedback been? He said oh, x to Y. I said how's the vendor responded he said I haven't told them yet. I've had four or five through. I was going to wait until the first open on Saturday. I said why would you wait? Like, after the first buyer comes through, you tell them the feedback. Second buyer you give them the feedback. Third, fourth, fifth buyer. You don't wait and batch this up into some sort of weekly roundup. You actually tell them as things happen what the exact comments and feedback and comparisons are being made by the buyers. So there's four or five things Learn how to know your product knowledge.
John McGrath:Learn how to handle the conversation at the listing. Set to sell. Set them up for expectations on what may or may not happen and what you're going to do. Get mega close to your buyers like so close, like never before, really really critical, and then just give people lots and lots of communication. That's not designed to bring down their expectations. It's designed to align them with where the market is based on the feedback you're getting. So the intent should never be to, you know, sort of bring the vendor down so it's easier to sell. The intent should be the vendor deserves to know the truth about what people are saying about their property. That's my Troy, that's my little formula is you know, you and I do a lot of coaching together. That's kind of where I start from. It's the old Rob Dyrdek machine mindset that if you do one, two, three, four, five things in the process and then you will get the right outcome on the other side of the machine, but you've got to put the right ingredients in to bake the cake.
Troy Malcolm:John, do you think that's one of the biggest challenges that our agents face is not going deep enough in those meetings to understand, first of all, their client, the vendor's needs in regards to what they're trying to achieve in the sale, but, second of all, the buyers actually really understanding their requirements for them to move in the home. Do you think we go deep enough in those meetings when we're talking and asking for feedback, or do you think there's still a lot of agents that are just making calls to make the call, to see there's interest and then move on to the next one with OFI?
John McGrath:The last one, no doubt not nearly deep enough. This industry and a black belt agent is all about process. It's about here's the process. Here are the conversations. You have to have them. You don't miss any of them. Here's what you say, and it's a process-driven industry. If you learn that process and stick to it all the way along, you're going to be earning seven figures and more going forward.
John McGrath:The number of agents that are sort of writing a million dollars and I'm somewhat astounded, but I just look at their process is normally very good. Sometimes they don't appear to be that talented when you meet them, but then you actually listen to the process they follow and you say, aha, I know why you're doing well. So yeah, teresi, I think it's about getting closer and following. I mean set to sell. Meeting is easy to have, but it's easier not to have. So a lot of people list it and virtually I'll pop into the photos and I'll see you after the first open. You know you actually have to sit down and explain what are the expectations, what may happen, what may not happen. Here's how I think we should respond. May happen, what may not happen. Here's how I think we should respond, and you need to start that conversation right up front and as the information comes to hand.
John McGrath:Don't save it up, don't collect it all for some one weekly meeting. Speak to the vendors every single time you have an inspection or a piece of feedback that is relevant for them, and I think if you follow that process, tom, you're going to get a fantastic result almost every time. Our clearance rates at the moment are 61% You've been saying about the same and then if you added in what sells in the next fortnight, that's probably another 10 or 15%, so we're probably 75, 80% of properties are selling within six weeks. Anyone that says that's a bad market they're crazy. I mean, that's one of the world's best, maybe the world's best market, you know, as we sit here. So I think people have got to get their heads adjusted to the fact that this is not a bad market, not a soft market, not a tough market. This is a great market for agents that know how to handle it.
Tom Panos:I'd love to spend one or two minutes because I put down. I don't have it with me but I'll remember it. I asked Sam Rogopoulos. I asked Ethan he, who's congratulations he's joined McGrath in Clayton, great operator. I asked a heap of people that write 2 million plus.
Tom Panos:Describe your seller servicing vendor management process. I was in Melbourne last week and I jotted it down. Let me tell you it was all pretty much the same. Here's the process. Process number one there's a meeting held before they launch, but after it's been listed, to let them know this is what people have said between the list and launch period, because you might have to look at price or presentation before the launch. So they do that. The second thing is they all seem to call their buyers three days before the date of the auction and they ask all their buyers what the buyer thinks the reserve should be. And then it's a straight out question. I'm seeing my owner and setting the reserve. Tonight You've come back two times. I'd like to give them what you think the reserve should be and then, without a filter, they go off and they give that vendor. This is what this person said. This is what this person said.
Tom Panos:The next part of the process is that they try. If it's not an actual offer, it's an opinion on value. They give one every week to an auction property, every week a number saying this is the number that's being scattered around by the high quality buyers. And if there is no high quality buyers, it's buyers that have said, based on what they've seen in the market, this should sell for this price. They have a written report, they have a WhatsApp group. No question about that as well. We're just giving them instantaneous.
Tom Panos:But the most important thing and you touched on it very early, john their listing presentation does not have a handcuff to lock that agent. In that. I think your house is worth 2 million. We will get you 2 million. There's nothing to worry about. They don't do that. They have a very flexible pricing tiptoe approach, which is we don't have buyer intel, we will have buyer intel. We have comparable sales info at the moment. So we need both those information sources by the time we come to auction day of its private treaty, when we're trying to work out whether we accept a figure. So it's not I wouldn't call it a 700-page manual that you need to get from the McDonald's Training Academy for vendor management. It's a set of processes that I think anyone can follow, on the basis that they're not dishonest at the time of listing. Because if you're dishonest or if you use language that actually gives people certainty, my house is worth $2 million. None of that stuff's going to work because the vendor's going to say but you came in here and you said you'd get this figure.
John McGrath:Yeah, you told me. No, it's 100% right. I think that the gun agents have good process, have candid, authentic conversations based on facts, and I think that you know whether you want to call it a set-to-sell meeting, an expectations meeting, a buyer feedback meeting. But you know, gone are the days where you launch it and then you see how things go and then you have a vendor pre-auction reserve meeting. You days have gone. They were the order-taking days. You actually now have to be every step of the way updating that. Now. Vendors are not silly. They're hearing, watching, they're reading auction clearance rates, they're watching and listening to other people about what's happening in the market. Vendors know in many markets the prices have come back 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% Not every market.
Tom Panos:John, I actually it's funny. I said to someone this morning I think vendors in 2024 were a lot smarter than the ones I was dealing in 1994, because I think their mobile phone has something flying at it every 10 minutes. They know what's going on. I actually had a vendor on Saturday. I wish I taped it. He said listen, it's 30 grand short. And then he looked at his partner, his wife, his partner, and said you know what? It's 30 short, but I reckon we'll probably end up getting something that we want to get. That owner that we're going to buy from is probably going to sell for 50, 100 lower, so we're probably better off doing the deal now. He goes yeah, just sell it. This is an actual vendor. I mean you could have actually thought an agent would have thought that approach to get the vendor. This was the actual vendor saying I'll sell for 30 less but I'll probably buy for 100 less. I'm better off trading in this market than in a booming market.
John McGrath:Yeah, no, that's definitely the case. So I think, Troy, it's all about process, process, process, honest, well-researched, hyper-local knowledge. If you do that and you follow the four steps, the five steps, whatever you want to develop as your sales playbook steps, the five steps, whatever you want to develop as your sales playbook, you're going to find this market improves rapidly. A lot of the agents that say it's a tough market, they're not doing the heavy lifting, the hard yards, they're not doing the grind to actually make it a great market. But I can guarantee you it is a great market.
Tom Panos:I can tell you, troy, you know Tanay at Werribee. I'm not sure whether he still does it, but I knew he did it before. He was doing a vendor report on Saturday afternoon or Saturday night by the time, and also a midweek vendor. He was doing two vendor reports. Because he said you can't over-service a vendor. If you think about it, it's really hard to do an over-servicing of a vendor, most vendors I mean I'm sure that there's the occasional CEO, very busy person that will say just send me a text or what have you. The majority of vendors will want to hear everything, and frequently and in depth.
John McGrath:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I'm not sure if he's doing that, but you know whether it's what Armit's doing having Zoom meetings followed up with written reports or what Tanae's doing the best agents in the country. They have a disciplined process to ensure that all the relevant information goes to the vendor. And the reason that the written report works so well is it doesn't allow people to edit out what they want to hear. Often, when you have a conversation, they'll hear the good bits and anything which might have been slightly critical or factual that wasn't what they wanted to hear. They sometimes miss that. So the written report just reinforces everything that you've heard about the property.
Tom Panos:Troy, can I ask you off air? There are a few pieces of information which I don't think you've covered on air which I think is worth talking about. It was you're telling me the best agents you're dealing with there are getting obsessive with working with buyers. They are spending long periods of time and they've got a minimum number of hot buyers at any one time and you're saying they're calling them, they're meeting them, the speed of getting back to them after their inspections Tell me more about that.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, so I think it started with. I can't remember who said it in our group, but someone said if a buyer is a genuine buyer right now, they want to commit and they want to buy. So work with the buyers that want to buy and it's kind of sounds obvious. But you know, a lot of our most successful agents are out there and they're working with them. They're calling them in and they're doing buy meetings in the office to find out exact circumstances and requirements that they're looking for. They're taking them online and saying, right out, of all the properties that are on realestateanddomaincom, which ones have you gone through, which ones have you liked, which ones have you actually bid on or expressed interest in and missed out on? And so they're getting to that level of detail. And then they're making sure that they're creating a VIP open list and they're getting those buyers that have actively been in the market, that we've seen at multiple open for inspections or auctions, that have missed out on properties. They're getting them through either at the photography appointment, the SWOT appointment, or straight after for a private VIP showing, because they know the speed that those buyers can work at is normally a little bit faster than the others that are just kind of starting the process, and so it's not only the multiple conversations, it's two to three, four times a week. It's making sure that they're going through that level of detail and getting really deep in the conversation what I was saying earlier and they're even encouraging.
Troy Malcolm:Tom, I haven't done this for a couple of years. I love doing it, but speaking to the top two qualified buyers or who's perceived to be the strongest buyers, pre-auction, just to see if they need a hand with anything. Now the vendor conversation, that happens all the time. I speak to every owner in the week leading up to the auction. But it's actually now changing a little bit and I'm encouraging a lot of my agents to let me speak to the buyers as well. Let me see if I can help them, because if they've got confidence, if they've got comfort at the auction, they're more likely to perform.
Tom Panos:And I think in this market. Well said, troy. You see that happening on the Saturdays. You can see that and I can tell you right now. When you leave an auction, the first phone call every real estate agent should be making while they're driving in the car if they haven't actually had a quality conversation post auction is the underbidder. How hot is that buyer? They were 60 seconds away from buying that property and they were an unconditional buyer. They are the hottest buyer. When you overlay emotion of missing out on a property and what that creates, you're talking about nothing more important than connecting with the underbidder of a property. Stick to them like a stamp sticks on an envelope. Don't let that buyer go. They are hot to trot.
Troy Malcolm:It's the difference between a relationship versus a contact. A contact is just someone that's in your phone or your database that you send a couple of emails to. A relationship is someone that you genuinely want to help.
Tom Panos:Well said, You've come up with some nuggets there. Troisy Well done. So, John. Next week, what I'd love to talk about is what great agents will be doing, because next week it'll be pretty much the end of October. I want to talk about what an incredible November looks like for a real estate agent. What are the activities that a November agent is doing? That might be different to a February to October month, Because you're taking into account, you're probably going to come across some vendors that are going to turn around and say we'll leave it till next year.
Tom Panos:How do you handle those? Do you list them now, launch them in the new year? Do you tell vendors at the moment that if you feel like there's too much stock in your area, look, let's do it now, but let's do a proper hard launch in the new year and end of year summary calls. You should be calling all your people in November giving them an update on what happened. It's a good reason to call people, so let's call. Next week will be what are your activities for a great November? Good to see you, gentlemen.
John McGrath:See you Tommy, see you Troy. Thanks guys.
Tom Panos:Happy days, see you everybody, see you Bye.