Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
Truth Sells! Compliance, AML & How to List & Sell Before Easter
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A hot Sydney weekend might spark the jokes, but the real heat is this: honesty and respect are your sharpest tools. “Tell the truth and make everyone feel important” isn’t soft. It’s a system. It wins listings, steadies campaigns and future-proofs your brand as regulators tighten the screws.
We unpack compliance, social media bravado and buyer frustration, then get practical. Quote with evidence. Show comparables at opens. Keep clean CRM notes so your agency agreement, online range and buyer chats all line up. No grey areas. Just data you can defend.
AML is landing mid-year. Simple ID checks, tight processes and clear checklists alongside your broker and conveyancer. Small friction. Big protection.
With six weeks to Easter and a patchy April ahead, we map the sprint: short off-markets for qualified buyers, clear auction paths, sharper strategy above $2m. The $1.5m to $2m bracket has depth. Premium stock flies when priced right. And the quiet edge? Work with more buyers properly. If you’ve met 700 and only serve 20, that gap is your growth.
No spin. Just compliance, transparent quoting and buyer work that moves the needle.
Don Panos, John McGrath, Troy Malcolm, Million Dollar Agent, the podcast. This is officially the last time you'll hear Million Dollar Agent for summer. I just worked it out. This is our last. This is the last. This is Troy. This is the last week for summer.
Troy Malcolm:You wouldn't know it. It's hot out there in Sydney. Did you call auctions on the weekend, Tom?
Tom Panos:I did. I did. And I actually um went out. I've got a I've actually got a suit that includes a pair of shorts. It's actually a tailored suit, right? With a vest and a pair of shorts that's matching. It actually looks good. And um when I put it on. No, so John, let me finish. I put it on and I and I had three people at my house scream, and you're not going out like that, are you? So I had to rush in and um and get changed. Um it was so hot. But gentlemen, good to see you.
John McGrath:You know, today before you start, what a pleasure I had of uh at one of your events recently sitting next to your beautiful daughter. My God, what an interesting character and intelligent young lady she is, and uh it was an absolute pleasure. I got to chat with her for about an hour on and off and in different scenarios. So uh congratulations to you.
Tom Panos:So she got so Johnny, she uh um did a reflection summary of the events. Yeah, and um I'm gonna say she said, one thing is for sure, Daddy. She goes, people that should be nicer weren't, and people that deserve to be busy and not so nice were nice. And I said, What do you mean by that? She goes, Oh, Mr. John McGrath, like he was the nicest person there, but he's the one that's the busiest. And I said, Well, tell me about tell me about the other the other list. She goes, Oh, some of them were walking in saying, Where's the food? Where's the coffee? They were carrying on as if they were on the movie set of a Hollywood thing. And I it it it it goes to show, like, and one of them apparently one of them said goes, and who are you? And and and and she says, Oh, I'm Christina, and uh what what what do you do here? I've worked for Tom. And then anyway, long and short of it, John, that's not the first, that's not the first time it's been said. And I there I think people it's it's a guy that at the pharmacy at at Mascott at Quantas Pharmacy said the same thing to me. I think I have told you that, the pharmacist at uh uh at the pharmacy at the airport, Sydney Airport, the quantum the Quantas terminal, not the virgin terminal. There's no there's actually no chemist at the virginal terminal that's it.
John McGrath:The way I look at it, Tommy, and and I don't do any of that to win win win votes or anything. I just I think everyone in the world deserves to be treated well. And um it's just great. I think uh anything other any any view, Troy, other than that seems extraordinarily strange to me. And yeah, you often see agents they kind of you can see they're either ignoring someone or treating them poorly, and then someone says, Hey, I think he's got that big house up on the hill and he's thinking of selling, and all of a sudden they're charming and charismatic. And oh, you can we get you anything? Can we help you?
Tom Panos:Anyway, I I I feel I'll tell you when I feel the most uncomfortable when when when you've got someone who you might have had a relationship with because of, you know, they're a real estate gym member or or or whatever, and you're sitting down and you're having a chat, and then you see them speak in a negative way to another person in front of you. Um, um, you know, whether it's a waitress, whether it's, you know, a a PA that they have, and it makes you feel uncomfortable because, you know, on the one hand, you're sort of they're sort of being nice to you, they're not being nice to that other person. And to me, that's sort of yeah.
John McGrath:I want to shout out, I mean, and Troy, you remember Christian West very well. Yeah, dear friend of ours, working for PPD now. He works in the Marubra territory, lovely young fella, and he was my PA for a while and then sort of became a bit of a junior associate, blah, blah, blah. And he's doing very, very well, very well. He's writing sort of between three and a half and four million dollars, and um, you know, and and he's still very young man. He might have just nudged 30, that'd be about all. Anyway, long story short, is I just congratulated him. I rang him up and I said, Man, I'm just so proud of you. How how were you doing? Congratulations. Uh and he said, I he said, Jane, he said, I remember there's two things you told me to always do. And he said, to be quite honest, it's the backbone of my business. And it might be interesting because I think I might dovetail in with what we're about to talk about today. He said, one is you said, never lie. And he said, I can honestly look you in the eye and tell you I've never lied to a vendor, never lied to a buyer about anything. And I said, Well, well done, you, you're a good fella. And he said, That's a big part of my success had to date has been that. Well, he didn't talk about his success, but he said, That's why I think I'm doing okay. Um, second one, he said, you said make everyone feel important. And you know, look them in the eye, remember their name, use their name, be interested in them, ask questions about them. It's not about you, it's about them. And he said, So they're the two things, foundations I do. I just I tell the truth and I make everyone feel important. And I just think of that, Troy, and I think, my God, what a good business plan, right? Tell the truth and make everyone feel important, and uh, and you and you can write three to four million books. Who who would have known? Um anyway, I think that is a bit of a segue, Tommy, isn't it? Because uh you and I and Troy have been hearing a lot about um compliance and New South Wales right now, but up until recently it was Queensland, and then it was you know South Australia, and then it was um Victoria and so forth. But um there's no doubt that the governing bodies seem to be uh escalating, increasing the amount of uh um uh compliance, I think, in this industry. And I reckon, Troy, partly it's because of all the atrocious egomaniacal uh social media it's actually drawn a huge amount of attention, and it's and it's really got up people's noses and and they're sick of it. And I think they're marching with their feet. I think they're complaining about uh I mean once upon a time you went to an auction, you assumed the agent was probably lying, so you added 10 or 20 percent to what they were quoting, then it went for 30 percent more, and you thought, oh, what a dickhead if I can say that on the MDA. What a dickhead this guy is, and you just walked away and didn't do anything. Now, because you've got you know total tosses on social media, oh I made half a million today, I uh eight contracts, and I did this, and last year I made five million, they're they're skiting, and that's on top of it. I'm not saying the ones that are doing well are are all doing that, but to be frank, some of them are, and I know one's about to one's about to be strung up and and and and caught up soon. But um it's I I think really people have got so offended by the way our industry, those that are getting a little bit of success, you know, crow about it, and the fact that many of them are not telling the truth, they're not terribly helpful, they don't look after buyers, they don't look after sellers. Everyone's sick of it. So I reckon the the um the governments and the OFTs and the VCATs and the NCATs and whatever else, they all got together and they've said, man, we've got to stamp this out. This industry's just got totally, totally ahead of itself.
Tom Panos:So um I think that's yeah, I think you're right. I I I hadn't thought about it, but the bottom line is we've done ourselves no favors. Uh and social I think if if if social media wasn't happening, it would be a different situation. But John and Troy, there's a few of these things. And I actually realized you you said it some time ago, John, you've got to act and behave that there's a speed camera every 50 meters, right? We're seeing every day, we're seeing um uh articles in the media where uh we saw one the other day and it had nothing to do with quoting, it had to do with people videotaping behavior of an agent. But I want to particularly talk about John. I'm getting a lot of real estate gym members. Um I mean, some of them have actually put on compliance managers full-time. They've actually allocated salaries now, and that is a role that's being formed around the country for the bigger offices, where they're making sure that they're doing things properly. And as I said at the the Kickstarter then, John, that you were talking about earlier on. I'll be in any event that I'm doing, I will always include compliance now. And the reason why is if you look at what is the highest asset a human being in real estate has got, it's their earning ability. It's the earning ability. If you're gonna work 20 years and you can ride a million dollars, that's $20 million in fee. But if you're gonna do the wrong thing, you're not gonna have the privilege to work in this industry, so you won't be earning it. So we do need to look at compliance, and I want to look at anti-money laudering as one, but also the others. So, John, maybe we kick it all off. Um what anti-money laudering is coming in in on the 1st of July. And by the way, this is not an Australian thing, because I'm talking to clients that I've got in the UK and in Greece, and they're saying, Oh no, this is a big this is a serious thing, this is worldwide.
John McGrath:Yeah, New Zealand's uh a couple of years ahead of us, or at least a year. I know through our good friends at Bailey's um that are our business partners, uh they've been they've been doing it for some time. Look, and and it's probably to be frank, a little bit early to get into that detail, but we will as it becomes known. But I think it's July 1st, Troy, that it's due to come in. And and basically that's gonna be another layer of compliance. So whether you like it or not, or whether you think the government should be doing it or not, it's here and is it here to stay? We don't know. There might be a change at some point, but I think um you've just got to accept these things. It's like the referee in a game of NRL tell me, by the way, Tiger's on fire, Rabbit's on fire, uh, Bruce's Troy, very disappointing. We won't we're only trial games. I don't want to go off too early.
Troy Malcolm:Correct. Um can't win the comp in February.
John McGrath:That's right. That's right. Um it's like the referee, you know, you can't sit there and blame a referee for losing the match or or complain about the legislator or the governing body. Oh, you know, they're too tough on us. They are, they'll do what they're gonna do. They're not gonna stop because you don't like it. So anti-money laundering um will be a big thing, and it is around the world, as people are there trying to stop governments, are trying to stop um, you know, sort of uh black money and cash and and criminal criminal offences and so forth. But on the compliance stuff, Tom, because a lot of people say to me, So what do you do about it? And I said, Well, it's really simple. It's a bit like what Christian said, Troy. Just start telling the truth. Start telling the truth. It's it's not bloody that hard. Or for some people that might be hard to be honest, but it's not that hard. Tell the truth, do your homework because even you know, i it's almost equally as bad if you make a mistake with what you're quoting because you didn't do your homework. I mean, these are big sums of money. Whether you're a buyer or a seller, the outcome means a lot, it can be life-changing either way, and you've got to do your homework. So sit down. I mean, I'll just tell you this afternoon, I've I'm going to have a look at a property tomorrow. And I sat down for with Paul Tartak from our our our Strathfield office, and I spoke with him for probably 30 to 45 minutes, debating and discussing comparable sales that we should be presenting tomorrow. What about this? That was north facing, that was south, because I care, right? And this is not my primary role. Obviously, I'm just running around the company while in between listing appointments, but it's important to get the facts right and then to and a lot of people say, yeah, but if I tell the truth, I'll lose the listing. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have a conversation, you have an upfront, frank conversation with what similar homes have been selling for. Hopefully, by then you've identified what they're targeting, and then often will be the case, you know, the comparables are at two million and and they're targeting 2.3 to 2.5. And you say, Well, you know, here's what I'm gonna do. We're aware of what similar homes have been selling. Um, and that's the kind of appraisal range I'm required by law to put on my agreement. But what I'm gonna do is first buy it through the door will have a two and a half budget. Let's see what they've got to say. Um and I've I've found personally people don't argue with that. They say, Okay, well, as long as you know you give it your best and you try and get me a super price. I said, I'm employed by you to get you the highest possible price. Everything I do will be trying to get you the highest possible price. But at some point in time, the market will decide that, and then it's over to you to accept it or not accept it. So I think really important, Troy. The other thing is um you've got to keep today, Tommy, good records. You know, in in the past you could, you know, you could not keep good records, but now uh you know there's legislation coming in, and if it's not legislation, there's going to be evidence required to back up what you were quoting and what you were doing and why. It's funny, Troy, I had a friend ring me up um a few days ago and he said, uh one of my employees looking to buy in the Blue Mountains, Lower Blue Mountains, uh, through one of uh through one of our officers, and he said, Could you find out, you know, what's the real deal? Yeah, I hear this a lot, right? We all hear that. Can you find out what they really want? I think he was his quote was one, two to one three, I think. Um I'm pretty sure. Uh and uh so I I um I first before I rang him up, funnily enough, I actually went into Agent Box, our CRM, and I had a look. I had a look at the agency, what did he quoted? One, two to one three, what's on the agency agreement, one, two to one three, what's on the uh realestate.com and domain, one, two to one three. And then I went in and I had a look at all the activity, and he had logged every conversation, every offer, and even though it only been on the market eight days, he had an offer accepted that day of one three one one million three hundred and sixty thousand. So it was actually a little bit even above the top end, and obviously that's why they'd accepted the offer now moving forward. Um but long story short is he kept impeccable records, and a lot of people whinge about oh, you can't do this. Well, you know, just take a few minutes to slow down and log in your CRM. At worst, log into your diary or your notebook, you know what offers are made or what the date was. It just makes you a tighter, better salesman by keeping accurate notes. And um I I think and and I I just had total confidence. I saw I was on the agency, I saw what he was quoting, I uh and anyway, you know, sold it that afternoon for for the top end of the price range. Um I think you've just got to you've got to know your market, you've got to do your homework, Tom, you've got to talk straight with buyers and straight with sellers.
Tom Panos:Um there's no John in 2026, there is no excuse. Like if someone turns and I had an agent goes, but but but why well what did he say to me today? He goes, Oh, but what is the uh what what is the anti-money laundering? What what is it? I said, Whatever it is in life, everyone can get the free version of chat GPT, right? Like even before you start any course, you can go on, like I'm doing it, just do it here now. How do who's AML, who's it affecting? It's actually says here the people that are involved are banks, lawyers, real estate agents, and accountants. Why is that? It then says, because property is one of the easiest ways to wash large amounts of money. This but then it goes on to say what you've got to do as an agent is to be able to uh go through a process, and if you are aware or think that there is something fishy that you reported. That is that does not mean you're changing your life forever upside down. It's two more boxes that you have a a process.
John McGrath:And Tom, I think I'm what I'm here at AML in its early days, but I believe that most conveyancers and lawyers at this point are using similar facial recognition software to identify clients before they transfer funds and so forth. And I think it's gonna be three people that need to do that agent at the point of listing, mortgage broker if there's gonna be a mortgage attached, and the conveyancer or solicitor. Um so someone has say, oh, well, you know, that makes it even worse. Well, probably not really, because it's going to become commonplace. And I did it the other day. I was it, I was logging onto my gov or something, and it required me to do it. I mean, it takes all of 20 seconds, it's not that hard. And people are used to it, and it's for a good cause. What's a good cause? Stopping people ripping off the government, yep, okay, getting rid of criminals, yep, good. So um I I don't think, and and I think the other thing you might have mentioned in the opening, Tom, is people were saying, you know, this could be this could destroy my business. Well, it mean must mean you're telling a lot of lies because mm-hmm is a few simple practices added into your checklists and and normal business routine and just telling the truth. And sure, if you're used to lying, as many agents are, then maybe it is a big shift in your business, not expensive one, just a shift. Um, but if you're not used to lying, you just go add a couple of little simple practices into your business, uh, and that's it. The AML, someone quoted us the other day a relatively low amount. I think it was 30 or 40 bucks per transaction, and that was to kind of help, you know, check out what it would provide you the software for it, and it did something. But you know, we're not talking telephone numbers here. Yeah, maybe it's fifty bucks a transaction. Most agents are getting, you know, 2% on an average price of one and a quarter million. So it's a rounding error, really. So let's not inner market, Troy, focus on what you can control.
Troy Malcolm:Uh I was gonna say, John, a lot of it and Tom, a lot of it is set up to protect um so many different people in a transaction as well. So I think you know, we've got to come from a place of um, you know, compliance is serious. We need to understand what the requirements are. And John, I think you said it earlier to make sure that everything's documented, uh, it's an extra step in the process. It may take you an extra five or ten minutes to make sure that that work's done. But how refreshing knowing that you've done everything right during the course of a campaign, that you when you exchange the property and then settle the property, you know that there's going to be no recourse from those buyers or sellers. I think the other thing that we need to remember is that most of the time when you are presenting these types of quotes to the to the market in regards to pricing, a lot of the best agents out there, they actually have a list of those uh recent sales that they've used at the time of listing displayed at the open for inspection. So the buyer does have that conversation. It's a much easier debate to have because yes, you can debate whether that property is the same value or not, but what you can't debate is the configuration, the orientation, the size of the property and the price and the time that it's sold. So I think both of those things, the AML side of things, compliance wins most uh 100% of the time, but also just being transparent and dealing with the the clients that understand the process in the sales side and pricing side is really going to set those great agents apart again.
John McGrath:If you're making a big deal about it, that means you're probably not telling the truth.
Tom Panos:So telling the truth as we now, gentlemen, I sent a message to all our black belt real estate gym clients because one of them raised it, it was I think it was Ethan that raised it to me. He said, Tom, it just feels like we've finished Kickstarts, and he goes, Have you looked at the date on when Easter is? And I had a look, and then it hit me. April's a tricky month, and I think good real estate agents should really go hard the next six weeks. Because April, you've got stool holidays, you've got multiple different uh you've got Easters, you've got Orthodox Easter, you've got normal Easter, you've got Anzac Day. Um, and I think that with six weeks before Easter, it sort of makes sense. Treat this like it's your Australian Open now, like it couldn't be a more important period. I know there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of noise politically with capital gains, there's noise about interest rates. But I have to say, what I'm hearing from real estate agents, there's buyers out there under the one and a half million. They're still going over the one and a half, two million dollars. Good, good real estate agents are saying things are great. Um what what are the what are your agents saying?
John McGrath:Totally. I think um, yeah, uh the really great agents, and and this is important, I think, especially in a period like this, they're not just one trick paint, you've got to auction, got to have a clear auction path. I mean, the they're saying we can do it off market for two weeks, let's let this period go, do it off market. I've got some good buyers, I'll bring them through tomorrow as soon as I've got a contract. So I I think right now, Tom, people are saying it's not quite as punchy as it was six to twelve months ago, but it's fine. Um average properties or properties that have got some inherited issue attached to them, you know, might be on an absolutely busy main road or something, are a little bit pretty hard to shift at the moment. Properties that have got some X factor that are that are really nice in in prime streets are going gangbusters, uh, and the in-betweens in between. I mean, you'll you'll find if you get it priced right, you'll find buyers for everything. So, well, yeah, I I think you've just got to um yeah, get back to basics, Troy. Get back to basics.
Tom Panos:Troy, uh Troy, how's the weekend? Can I just ask you, with you in your new role the last six months or so, are you still doing auctions outside of the Northern Beaches area?
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, yeah, still working across the McGrath group. Um, predominance on my market was always low north shore, mid north shore, north. Beaches, anyway. Um, up to short. So it's very similar market. We're still seeing transactions happen. Um, I must admit, the the lower price properties, that sub one and a half, sub two mark um in a lot of the areas I'm working, um, very active bidders. Um, so they're registering, they're bidding anything over that. It is um a little bit more of a negotiation strategy on the floor. We're still seeing multiple registrations, but there is a lot of um work for the agents on the floor, which you know the very best agents do on a weekly basis anyway. But we are still seeing pretty strong clearance rates um over the past uh four or five weeks. We've seen some great results. All righty.
John McGrath:Plenty of buyers there, guys. Just just can't go out there, work with my more buyers. As Matt Simway said when COVID hit, just work with more buyers. Yeah, just find more buyers, work with them. Like it's pretty simple philosophy. And the number of people that uh, you know, I've said it before, you know, how many buyers you're working with, 20. How many buyers you met in the last three months, 700. So what about the other 680? They don't matter? It's it's insanity. And the only the only answer, and I appreciate people's honesty because people are usually honest. They say, Oh, I'm probably not organized enough, am I, to follow them through? I said, that could be the reason. You know, maybe I haven't got the right team. Oh, or maybe it's worthy putting on a buyer specialist. Um, whatever it is, you know, you need to be working with more buyers. That is the key to listing success. Work with more buyers.
Tom Panos:Beautifully said. Troy, John, we'll talk to you next week. Once again, everyone, last week of summer, but we got six weeks to Easter. Let's get to it.
John McGrath:See you guys, have a great week. Go to the bunnies, go to the bunnies.