These Agents Make Less Money Than Uber Drivers 🗞️ Real Estate Market Wrap

 There is so much FEAR in the market right now…
 
 0:00 – 💸 "Real estate agents don't make as much as people think..." — Breaking down why that $600K commission figure you saw on TV is very misleading.
 
 3:45 – 🏗️ "I haven't seen ONE property built yet." — Chris Minns announced zoning changes a year ago. Where are the houses?
 6:10 – 📉 "Buyer depth is diminishing." — 8 out of 13 auctions cancelled or sold prior. What this really means for the Sydney market.
 
 9:00 – 📬 "Some opens had ZERO groups through." — Fear is gripping the market. Rate rises, inflation, and what it means for buyers right now.
 
 11:20 – 💍 "You're dating interest rates, but you're marrying the house." — Why you shouldn't let temporary rate fears drive a 25-year decision.
 
 13:00 – ⚠️ "Capital gains tax changes are coming — and they can't grandfather it." — Here's why that matters more than people realise.
 
 15:30 – ✅ "I'll give the Victorian Labor government a pat on the back." — Mandatory sale prices published. Why this one's actually a win for transparency.
 
 17:10 – 🔍 "Mandatory pest & building inspections — good idea or not?" — The detail matters. Here's the problem nobody's talking about.
 
 20:00 – 🚨 "Real estate agents, you are on notice." — The market has changed. If you're still listing on price, not process, you're in trouble.
 
 
 My clearance rate: 8/13 (70% of which were sold prior / cancelled) 

Transcript

hy Commission Totals Mislead

Tom Panos 0:00

Oh, by the way, everyone was, you know, like this morning, I had three or four people saying to me, Man, how can real estate agents make so much money? Right? And they were all talking about that agent that appeared on the show called Married at First Sight. She was actually a good, she's actually quite a good agent. I've met her, I think she was a real estate gym member. Or she's a real estate m-I'm not quite sure, but I have met her. Um and I don't watch the show, but all I've been told by people is that they freaked out that she'd earned$600,000 in commissions, right? So I want to make it very, very clear. Man, she doesn't get$600,000. I actually went on to realestate.com and looked at her profile and had a look. I think she sells about 30 houses a year, and the price is like under a million dollars. So if you're gonna work on roughly two, two and a half percent, right? Um, let's work it out, two percent. Let's just work out. I'm even gonna say, I'm even gonna say, you know, 20 grand a fee per property, and it might not be, might be less. But let's say 20 grand, 30 properties, and I think it was under 30 properties, but I'll even round that up. 30 equals$600,000 in fees. A real estate agent doesn't get the$600,000. Generally speaking, they get somewhere between$50 and 60%. In some places, they only get 45% because the office gets a split of the money. So let's just work on a split of, say, 50%, right? Just to make things easy. That's$600,000. 50% is$300,000. And out of that$300,000, you need to pay if you've got an assistant, and generally speaking, when people start doing more than 20 sales a year, they've got an assistant. The assistant costs$50,000 to$60 grand. So that$300,000, you know, is not$300. You take$50,000 or$60 off, leaves you$240, then you've got to pay for your other cost of business tools, phones and, you know, all that sort of stuff, car, car leases. Mate, before you know it, right, you're down to$200,000. Then you've got to pay tax, right? And on$200,000, I don't know, you'll pay$70,000 thereabouts. I hope they take the tax rates down. If they're going to collect this money, if Albow's going to collect the money, take the tax rates down. So then they're left with$130,000,$140,000. Looks really good, doesn't it? Agents wearing nice cars, right? But guess what? That's not that much of a different salary than what everyone else is getting in the world these days, man. Like it's lower than what an Uber driver gets. So get real. Real estate agents don't make as much as what people think they do, right? And I totally get it. They look like they do because they dress up nice and they've got nice cars. But let me tell you, there's leases most of the time. I'm not talking about this specific agent, but let me tell you, all I see is a lot of real estate agents around Australia leasing cars. Some own a property, some don't, some are renting, so it's not as flashy as what people think it is. The other thing I was going to touch on, the other thing I was going to touch on, you know, last year, and it was roughly this time, it was around the middle of the year, Chris Minns announced that they were changing the zoning and you know, the code on what you can build, and he introduced some books, pattern books that you could build it there. Team. I have not seen one property built yet. Not one. And we keep looking at every other thing but supply. If only the government stuck to doing their targets, we'd have less of a housing issue. Right? We would have less of a housing issue. And don't get me wrong, Albo. Enjoy the rabbits. But go out for a come out to Smithville. Come out to Smithville and instead of walking on the oval, walk the streets of Smithfield, Liverpool, Busby, St. Mary's. Have a look at what's going on out here. There's pain, there's suffering, there's uncertainty. Cost of living is through the roof. We can go on and on and on. But anyway, team, I'm gonna let you know. I'm gonna head off now. I've got another option to go. I am gonna stream it. So if you want to watch it, I'm gonna stream it. But I've got to say, um, team, it's getting hard. And I'm letting you know. Every real estate agent now is on notice. Today's results were eight out of 13, but get ready for this. Nearly 70% of properties never went to auction. They were either canceled or they were sold prior. And I want to let you know, my 13 results that I'm giving you include all the properties that were sold prior. This, my friends, is the leading indicator that we have a marketplace that is changing, at least where I'm in, Sydney. There is no way in the world that you've got a confident marketplace if eight people chose to actually not go to auction. They didn't go to auction because half of those properties were cancelled. There was no buyers, and the other half had one buyer, and that's why the real estate agency brought it to a head before the day of the auction. You don't have to be Einstein to know that they would rather not have a buyer see that there's no buyers on auction day, and if they can wrap up a sale before auction day, they feel that they've got more control in the negotiation. But to me, that is a clear indicator that buyer depth is actually diminishing. And I can also tell you that buyer depth in the lower price point, whilst it's stronger than what it is in the higher price point, buyer depth is also starting to actually get smaller in the lower price point. I had a client send me a text message today that their first seven open for inspections had a maximum of one group through. Think about it. Some of them had no groups through. We have got fear in the market that's being fueled by the war, by inflation, or prices driving inflation up, causing interest rates to go up. And two-thirds of economists have predicted that there is going to be a rate rise this week. And then most of them are also saying there will be a rate rise furthermore in May, and many of them are saying we will have three rate rises. So this essentially is getting the market very scared. But for me, rates are a temporary thing. I always say to people, don't worry too much about rates if you're taking out a 25-year mortgage, because rates are going to go up and down over the next 25 years, lots of times. So you don't make a temporary decision. As I say to people, you're dating interest rates, but you're marrying the house. What is concerning is that it's becoming very clear the government is moving very, very hard to try and make it law to change the capital gains tax. And if you listen to what I've been saying, and others are saying it now in the media, for them to make this work, they can't grandfather. Because if they grandfather, they won't be able to get any money till after people buy after May, wait for the property to go up. It can take years and years, and then they'll get the benefit of any law changes. So I think that most likely they're doing their modeling now, and I hope they're doing it. I hope they're doing modeling and I hope they don't just sort of come out there and actually just run it like it's a stand-up comedy show. Um and it was good to see Albo go watch the he loves he loves the Rabbits like I love the Tigers. Go the Tigers, and I'm letting you know I will never be doing an auction again at the time that the Leichhart is full with the West Tigers. I accept, I accept that if they're playing outside of Leichhardt Oval, but I do not want to miss another game at Leichhardt Oval like I did today because it was special. So I never thought I would actually say this, but I'm gonna give the Victorian government, the Labour government, a bit of a pat on the back because this week they announced that they were gonna make it mandatory that all sole prices have to be made available. Having sole prices up is important. That is the equivalent of um the share market telling you, right, this is what the price of this commodity is. So I have to say that well done. Because I've got to say to you, a lot of the stuff that the Labour government thinks of doing in real estate in Victoria has not been that good. This is good. Um of the things that I don't think are so good is having the reserve made available prior to auction. If that's the case, don't do an auction. Just do a for sale. It's not an auction, right? Just do a for sale. They also during the week announced that they were moving to make pest inspections and building inspections mandatory as well. So um, and that has obviously been spurred on by um what they're trying to do and change the issues with underquoting and having buyers who end up having to spend lots of money on building in pest inspections, missing out on property. So what they're trying to do is to make it a little bit easier and seamless for the buyer. Now, from my understanding, this already exists in some states in Australia. In in Canberra, they do, I think, provide pest and building inspections. For me, I'm not so sure. I need to see more information. Because if you're gonna make it compulsory for a vendor to pay for a pest and building inspection, man, what if it's a knockdown job? Why are you costing a vendor more money? Um, second thing is, because the pest and building inspection is gonna be provided by the vendor, I think a lot of buyers are gonna turn around and say, nah nah nah nah nah. I want to get my own. So then you're gonna be in a situation where you've got multiple building inspections, and that to me is wastage. Um I'd also so to me you've got to really look at the detail, and that'll come um as as the weeks go by, we'll learn more about it. Um there are other options. I mean, I used to be an ambassador for a company called Before You Buy, great people, Reese that runs it. Um he has a view that if this were to happen um and it was gonna become law, that inspection prices would go up and that buyers would also, I think, you know, like think you're giving me a building inspection by the vendor. So um I think we've got to watch this one out. But one thing is for sure, I totally agree that making it easy for buyers and sellers to work out on what they're going to bid without having to outlay lots of money up front is a good thing. So, a couple of other things. Um, by the way, I had the uh Office of Fair Trading come to my uh one of my auctions today. They're out and about everywhere, and I keep telling people you gotta act and behave like there's a speed camera every 20 meters, 20 meters. Mate, they came in there, they said, well run auction, thank you for everything, took the details, but I've got to say to you, Tang, and listen to me carefully. Real estate agents, be very careful. If you don't learn how to list property based on process and not on price, you could have overpriced them in the last year or two. That's changed. The market's changing, gang. You need to understand, you've got to list them well, and you've got to set your owners up to know that things are hard and you need to raise your level of vendor communication. And to me, that's basically gonna mean that you probably need to do two vendor meetings a week now, and potentially two vendor reports a week, because when things are like now, the biggest thing that you can have is transparent, authentic communication, and don't be gutless. Tell people the truth. It's hard to stuff up the truth. I'm going to my next auction and I might be going to the swans. But you know why today's a good day? Because the tigers have won at Lycard.