Episode 120: Stick Or Flick Your Real Estate Agent?

We tackle the uncomfortable vendor dilemma of whether to stick with an underperforming real estate agent or flick them and start again. We share the practical markers that separate a tough but competent agent from one who is avoiding reality, plus the legal and financial traps that can hit when you switch mid-campaign.

• recognising when the market has moved since the appraisal
• valuing honesty and evidence over likeability and hype
• spotting “conditioning” and other avoidance behaviours
• separating price issues from agent skill and closing ability
• understanding NSW agency agreements and double commission risk
• knowing when switching agents usually leads to a lower result
• setting hard no-go lines around integrity and confidentiality
• using time on market and buyer behaviour as the real signal

As always if there is a specific topic you would like for us to cover, please reach out and let us know!    

Transcript

Welcome To Current Market Insights

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the common market.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Hello and welcome to another edition of Current Market Insights. I'm your host, Kieran O'Brien, and with me is Mr. Peter O'Malley. Peter, hello. Kieran, great to see you. Great to see you, buddy. I want to discuss a somewhat uncomfortable topic with you today, Peter. Given that we've talked a lot about the Sydney property market and its challenges, I want to spend some time discussing those vendors out there that have a property on the market with an agent that is not performing, is not getting the buyer interest, is not doing well. What do those people do in a situation like this? Do they stick it out with their agent and hope for the best? Or do

Stick Or Flick Your Agent

SPEAKER_03 1:10

they effectively kick them to the curb and try and find a better solution? I'd love to get your thoughts on the best way for our sellers to handle that at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, look, really relevant topic, Kieran. And uh there is not one right answer for this. This is very contextual, uh, which we can break down today. And unfortunately for a lot of vendors, when you're talking about an auction clearance rate that is stuck below 40%, it's a very, very real discussion for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Yeah, look, I can imagine it is. Now, I guess that the maybe the simplest way to tackle the topic is to uh break it down more broadly into some of the things or some of the flags or some of the indicators for these sellers that an agent may not be performing correctly uh and use them as a bit of a measure to talk about how they might handle the agent in that situation.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Well, Kieran, can I can I just go one step before that? Sure. The best way to deal with the way stick the agent or flick the agent is to hire the right agent up front.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

That doesn't help our listeners that

Choosing An Agent For A Downturn

SPEAKER_03 2:15

have already hired.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

But no, it certainly doesn't help the uh listeners that have already hired, but it does help the people that are saying, oh, that's a situation that we may be faced we might be faced with in the future. And what I say to those people is that having to change agents and and launch a second campaign uh is is not really a solution. It's crisis management. Yeah. And the best way to deal with a crisis is to avoid it in the beginning. So make no mistake, it's a little bit um like saying um how do I uh how do I build a um uh a winning sales team, for example, and there's all these great ideas about how to find you know great salespeople out in the marketplace, but the number one way to build great sales teams is to have a high retention. Yeah, because the longer someone's with you, the more likely it is they're going to succeed. And it's the same thing with um hiring real estate agents, you'd rather hire and keep the right agent in the beginning. The right agent is not the one who uh is playing a popularity contest, though. Yeah, the right agent is the one that's in tune with the market, he knows exactly what the challenges, both economically and practically, with the property are and can price you accordingly to get sold.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

True. And I imagine the right agent is also the one that you connect with as well. You know, you need to work with someone on a professional level, you need to feel comfortable, you need to trust their judgment. You know, you you need to obviously assess that they're in tune, but you also need to trust that uh you've got someone batting for you in what is potentially the biggest exchange of your life.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So I I think in a good market, vendors select agents more along those lines, which is I really like them. I therefore, because I like you, I trust you. One tends to follow the other.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

But that doesn't mean they're competent and up for it in the current environment. There's many vendors, and we're not avoiding the topic here, we're just giving scope of reference on this very deep topic. There's a lot of people over the years that have used the real estate agent in a boom, they're delighted with the results that agent's delivered and said forevermore that that that guy or that gal is my go-to real estate agent. Then they give them a listing in a downturn and the agent's got nothing. Yeah, all falls apart. Because they don't have the courage to confront the reality of the day. So when you're hiring a real estate agent in a downturn, you're not chasing a populist, you're not chasing a new best friend, you're chasing someone that's in tune and up for the battle of the day.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

No, look, good advice, good advice. And I know we have um we have done longer episodes on selecting the right agent, obviously. Uh, that's a topic you've written extensively on. So we won't go too deeply into that today, but it is important to recognize that that is the fundamental way to avoid

When Market Shifts Mid-Campaign

SPEAKER_03 5:05

some of the things that we will talk about throughout the rest of the episode. Uh, so let's let's flip it then and say, okay, unfortunately, I'm here and I'm selling my property and I've chosen the wrong agent. Um you feel you may have chosen. Or I feel I may have chosen.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

You're wondering, is it an agent problem, a property problem, a price problem, a luck problem? Where is the issue here?

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Well, I mean, that's the million dollar question, right? And just quickly before you you tell us more, uh, one of the things you mentioned initially when researching your agent, when we've done that episode, uh, is to make sure that you are doing your own research also on the market and getting as in tune as you can, etc. Um, so I'd like to think that in a scenario where you've chosen the right agent, you've done so because you are also intimately aware of the environment, that you are far less likely to then encounter a scenario where you're questioning whether it's me, the price, the market, the whatever. And in fact, you're then just left with, well, hang on, I've got all these things, so maybe it's got to be them. Does that sound reasonable?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Uh look, look, it does, absolutely. Um, you just need to, it's all context. Yeah. So I I think in a in a subject like this, I might give an example of what I've used in the past, but um that example that I've given in the past, and I'll repeat, has now finished. And that was a listing that I signed up last November to come on the market in mid-February.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

To run a month camp, month-long campaign in mid-February and and sell somewhere in mid-March. Uh the research when I signed that listing up in um mid-November told me a price range that was not there in February.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

And the owner confronted me and said, I've got your agency agreement here, and this is what you said. Yeah. And now you're here telling, you're sitting at my dining room table telling me something different. And I said, I said to the lady, look, I've got to I've got to say this to you. I don't back away from what I said, but I'll also highlight to you when I said it.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

And the world changed between November and late February, February 28, when the war started. Now, when the war started, um, we'd already had one rate rate hike for the year that nobody really saw coming late last year. So I said you've got to play to the conditions of the day because a trend is forming here where the prices are going down and interest rates are going to continue to go up. And the longer you hold on to this property, the lower the price is going to become. So you can shoot the messenger today and that'll make you feel good today, but it doesn't actually resolve things for you tomorrow or the day after. Now, we've told that story on a previous podcast, word for word.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

But that property just settled.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And the owner said to me, I'm glad we're not selling now. I'm glad we sold when we did. Thank you for getting us out of it.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

But at the time, um, they couldn't see the tough love until I said, I'm doing this not because I'm a masochist and I want to see you sell for less than you could. I'm telling you today so that you don't sell for less tomorrow or next month.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

And I imagine that, you know, from my perspective, the good agent, the one who's in tune with the market, etc., in that scenario, for example, has the conversation prior to the campaign beginning in earnest and says, hey, since we last met, you know, you sit down at the dining table and say, since we discussed this, before we start showing people through, this is where the market is right now. You don't do it two, three weeks into the campaign and go, oh, actually, by the way, I know I said three million, but actually it's only a million now because of the war or whatever it might be. Uh the good agent's going to front run that and be honest and say, hey, this is what I've said, but I'm telling you right now before I open your doors, this is where we're at.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I I would say with 30% of our listings, where between listing it and when it hits the market, things have deteriorated further. 30% of our listings this year, we've

Tough Conversations About Price

SPEAKER_01 9:00

done that, Kieran. Yeah. Again, not because we're masochists, it's because we know that if the vendor comes down behind the market, they ultimately sell for less than if they had have dealt with it uh straight up front. So dealing with it straight up front is the way to go, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

I think though, for our listeners, you know, that does highlight a good agent is willing to have that conversation with you and say, actually, things have changed a little bit. Uh, and I think it's reasonable. I think a lot of people who've never sold property before won't realise how long it actually takes to get from most often how you know, on average, how long it would take from that initial desktop, you know, dining table conversation about, hey, we should sell, let's work together, to actually getting a property on the market and sold takes a while, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

So our our topic today is should I stick with my existing agent or should I flick and go with a new one? Yeah. And we've just put the the train tracks down for the conditions where you should either stick or flick based on calling the agent out.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

And is the agent telling you what is happening in the marketplace as a vendor and justifying with evidence why they're saying what they're saying, and you're resisting it? Is that why the property hasn't sold? Or is the agent squibbing it, trying to say there's a downturn out there, but we'll just wait a bit longer and hopefully we'll get lucky and someone will turn up and it's a war of attrition, and the agent's not really dealing with the issues of the day. Now, the reason that's really important to articulate is if your real estate agent is displaying the courage required at the moment to say, Mr. and Mrs. Vendor, when we first met, this is what the reality was. This is a new reality now, and I must tell you this so you can make a decision on how to get yourself sold and you're resisting that, you can fire that real estate agent.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

And that will feel good for 24 hours. Yeah. But all you're doing is moving your dilemma from brand A to brand B.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

With, you know, extra cost to then incur and time to lead it all up, etc. I mean, it's not it's not a decision you can make overnight and just expect that you can pull one person out and drop them in the same place. It doesn't work that way. Um, one of the things that uh I we will go more into detail, but one of the things that just pops into my mind as you talk about that also is the nuances around, you know, sales contracts and agency agreements. And then if you are just to decide to kick your uh agent

Contracts And Double Commission Traps

SPEAKER_03 11:30

off to the side and the property sells, uh, there are some other complexities that can pop up, right, around how fees are allocated. You know, it's not as simple as just saying, I don't like you, Peter, I'm going with Kieran because he's nicer and he promised me more money.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

You you can protect yourself, and that's a big topic in itself. So um you don't like your real estate agent anymore. They've given you an offer. It's not quite what they told you originally, but it's an offer you don't want to accept. You can change agents, but in New South Wales, under 98% of agency agreements, you can't change agents and sell to the first agent's buyer without being liable for two commissions. Yeah. So when people are coming to the market for the first time, they're scrutinizing that claw in our agency condition, uh agency uh agreement, and they're really worried about it. It's like there's no issue with the first agency agreement. It's if you find yourself signing an agency agreement for the second time and you're putting your house back into the marketplace with the same buyer pool, that you're gonna have this crossover. And there's a whole legal precedent about what effective introduction is under the um, you know, under the Act, Stock and Stations Act. And agents will, as one tried to do to me two weeks ago, send me a list of every buyer that inquired and went through their open house and said, these are our buyers. And I just sent it back and said, You didn't have a contract request, you didn't have an offer, um, you didn't have any buyer display interest in it. I'm not interested in your open house list, it's not worth the paper it's written on.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

But I did say to the owners, had you received any written offers, binding or non-binding, and they said, No, no one displayed any interest in in the property. I said, Well, you're in the clear then, don't worry.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

But there are instances um where we have furnished vendors an offer on a contract, they've declined it, it's within the range that we told them originally. It's like you're welcome to go and try someone else, but you cannot sell your property to that buyer without paying us a commission. So make sure they're excluded from a future agency agreement. Otherwise, you'll have to pay two commissions to sell to them. And let me make a prediction for you in the market conditions that we're in at the moment, that will increasingly happen. Yeah. Where vendors shoot the messenger and say, you haven't done a good enough job, the offer that you've got me is too low. Joe down the road is so far optimistic over you as to how the market's performing. I'm going to give Joe a go. And what happens? The buyer that you're currently negotiating walks through Joe's open house, and then suddenly you've got two agents claiming uh a commission on your house sale, and the pain just gets worse.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Yeah. Yeah, which again, you know, I raise that because it's another one of those considerations you need to make. Um, outside of obviously the potential punitive costs, just going back to data, going back to feeling vibe, whatever it might be, what are the signs you need to be looking for as a vendor to even come to this decision? You know, is it just the prices they're bringing you, or are there other indicators or markers that you need to be mindful of as to whether or not your agent's the right fit?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

It's a good question and it's a nuanced answer to that one, Kieran. And the reason I say that is that you might finally determine as a vendor that the price is the issue. The market has slipped on you, and you need to adjust the price down to stimulate interest. Yeah. That's fine. There's no shame in that. That's how markets work. Sometimes they rise, sometimes they fall. But you may say to yourself, look, um, we're uh we're we're listed with XYZ real estate, and I don't actually want to um relaunch the property at a lower price with XYZ real estate because I'm not convinced his effort or her effort, skill, tenacity, ability to close a sale is there regardless of the price. So I would rather terminate the existing agency agreement, flick the existing agent, and hand it over to someone that we probably should have gone with in the beginning, because I believe that they've got the skill, the toughness, the street smarts, everything that you need of a good operator in a downturn to bring the sale home. So it's not just about price, it's can the agent deliver when the property is priced correctly? Because if I know

Red Flags Beyond The Price Tag

SPEAKER_01 16:00

one thing about downturns, bad agents mark it up even when the price is is the property is priced correctly.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Yeah. They uh yeah, somehow find a way to fumble the ball, right? Which uh which is unfortunate for the seller.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

This is where where the football this is.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Oh, yeah, it certainly is. I mean, much like the football at the moment. Um, I'm interested then, Peter, you know, you've said that there's scenarios where you think it is justifiable to flick the agent to the side and go with another one. In terms of you know, real dollars, because a lot of vendors are motivated by the price at the end, understandably, and it's an important consideration we're making a sale. Do you think, or what would be the average, you know, percentage impact of making that call, do you think, um, at one end? And conversely, if they make the right decision and switch to the right agent, are they just as likely, in theory, to recoup those losses through a better operator? Do you think?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Um, look, in the majority of cases where a vendor is forced to terminate their first agent and begin a new relationship with a second agent, the reality, and this is 30 years of anecdotal watching the market here, Kieran, the reality is 80 to 90 percent of the people at change agents sell for a lower price than what the first agent had it for.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

Yeah. Well, you you have always maintained that the best buyers often present themselves early, uh, in almost all campaigns, right? So they're, you know, and to to put that into real terms for our listeners, they're losing money on the sale, then. Then they're also potentially losing money on uh, you know, the new agencies, whatever it might be, marketing flies, like whatever they decide they want to do, whatever ad they might might want to do if it's a separate thing. There's other costs that are incurred. Uh, they then need some um agent uh some contract amendments uh because you've got to change the you know, there's a lot of things that actually get it uh you know require changes as a result of that.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Oh, they do, and that's why I started today by saying, hey, the best the best cure to to this, do I flick the agent or stick with the agent if it's not selling, the best cure is to hire the right agent up front because it's highly inconvenient to change agents. And when I when I say uh there's 80-90% chance if you list and change agents in the same campaign that'll you'll sell for less than the first agent had it for, that might be because the market's falling, you as the vendor in denial, the first agent overpriced you, and um there was a uh flaw um in the first campaign that wasn't addressed, like a um you didn't have a full occupation certificate, or you didn't have it styled and presented right, or you might have had um uh tenants in-house that uh were weren't conducive to um you know appropriate presentation of the property. It could be any of those reasons, and I've seen all of those reasons in my time selling selling real estate. So the key in a falling market, knowing that your property is going to be worth less in spring than it is today, is again get get the agents, the right agent up front, and they're not the right agent because they tell you what you want to hear, they're the right agent because they have a plan.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Is it harder to change your agent in the digital age with the digital footprint with the the kind of 24-7 real estate market that exists online? Is it harder to change your agent successfully than it was 25 years ago in the print media where there was you know less opportunities for the agent necessarily and the agency's campaign to be front and center on a property sale? And is that something that people should consider when they're thinking about this? Oh, I don't I don't like what they're doing, let's get rid of them kind of mentality.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Um I I think if you've lost faith in your agent, it's it's much easier to change. Yep. It's really just changing the name of the agent on

Why Switching Often Lowers The Result

SPEAKER_01 20:00

the front page of the contract, push the photos across. You might try, you know, you know, you may choose to um uh uh redo the marketing to give it a fresh look, that's fine too. But it's really it's really easy to change agents from a practical level. Um, it's not the it's not the message you want to send to the marketplace, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Yeah. And then, and I think this is you know, one that I consider maybe the most important question of the topic. If you are uh how long do you give your agent? You know, in simple terms, how long do you sit with your agent on the market in the agency agreement before you start thinking to yourself, hang on a sec, I'm not I'm not 100% sure here. And obviously that's a nuanced question because there's going to be occasions where you probably meet them at the first open home and think, oh my lord, what have I done? Um, but given that most agency agreements are three months long, how long do you realistically sit and let the data pile in and your experience of this operator before you think to yourself, hey, actually this is detrimental to us at this point and we need to make a change?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Uh a lot of people uh commenting to us how quick our sales are happening.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

And it's because we're having those upfront chats before we come to market about this is where it is today.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Okay, we had a chat in good good faith two months ago or three months ago, and um the market was what it was then, but this is where it is today. So a lot of the properties that we're putting to the market are selling in under a month at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Yeah. Because we're dealing with it up front. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Um, trying to activity condition um vendors where you get a lot of people through and then you tell them all the negatives about their property and say, based on that, I've been brilliant with my marketing, but your house has let us down because the road's busy and the bedrooms are small, so you've got to drop your price. I'm not I'm not playing that game with people.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

And nor does a good agent.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I said to someone during the week when we we, you know, we we we tweaked their pricing strategy, I said at the end of the hour long meeting. One thing you haven't heard me say today is any negatives about your home. Because the finest home on Louisa Road has blemishes. Yeah. It has a flaw that a buyer would walk through and say, if it wasn't for that, I'd buy this property.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

So every property has flaws of some description if you're looking for them. The reason we're tweaking your price down today to stimulate more interest is the market conditions.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Purely and solely the market conditions. Because if you were on the market 12 months ago at this price, I'd have a multitude of bids right now.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Yeah. And as we say, like every floor is ultimately just a discrepancy on price, right? Every everything has a value. That's right. It suddenly disappears.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

You'd think it's a north facing rear. Exactly. Yeah. Um one of the things that you know, if you are failing on the market 60, 90 days, as you've uh outlined there, Kieran, you'll start talking to other agents. They'll find your number, don't worry.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

They'll call you.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

They'll call you. Rest assured. And you must immediately scrap the agent that starts telling you they can sell your property for more.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

So there is one that we've taken over from another agency after 120 days recently. And the competing agents were telling them they could get $100,000 to a $200,000 more than what the existing agent had it priced for.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yeah. Which is a bit fantasy.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

And I just said, look, that's nonsensical. That's an

How Long To Wait And Reset

SPEAKER_01 23:40

insult to your intelligence. Yeah. To think that the marketplace has watched your property sit on the market for 120 days at a price point and Johnny down the road can get $200,000 more than what the market has rejected it for for the last three months. And I said, Surely you can't you can't buy that story. And they said, No, not for a moment. And clearly they didn't give the listing to Johnny for that reason because he was just blatantly lying, telling them whatever it took to get them to sign up with him. So you mustn't fall for cheap lines.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Yeah, it's hardly like uh you know Johnny's got his mate in his back pocket just saying, Oh, you just go get it, mate, and I'll give you 200,000 more because I love you. Uh, of course, you know, a buyer's gonna buy. That's that's exactly what they do.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So, what the agent was doing in that instance was not being front with up front, the the agent who had the listing, Kieran. They weren't being up front with the vendor as to what was happening in the market. He was just turning up two, three times a week, showing the property, basically begging people to come through.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Yeah, selling all the time.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

He's doing leaflet drops, he's ringing his database, he's doing all these proactive things that he's learned at the seminar to try to get people to the property. And I said to the owners, if the buyers aren't turning up, if the buyers aren't turning up of their own volition, your price too high for the market of the day.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Yeah. Everything except have that conversation, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Sorry?

SPEAKER_03 25:07

The agent's doing everything except have that conversation. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah, he burnt himself out.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

It's not that complex. Yeah. To sit down and say, I'm sorry, but this is where we are.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, and and this is one of the things that vendors um uh are surprised to hear is that when a property is priced correctly, the agent doesn't have to do much to get people there. They just turn up.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Yeah. And you know, it's funny because it's it's uh it's unfortunate for agents, and I'm speaking broadly from a like social you know network perspective, it's unfortunate for those agents who are good insue with the market, really honest and forward with their clients, because then the property sells so easily. Some of those clients turn around and go, well, I didn't even need the agent. You know, they didn't do anything for me because it sold to the first guy on the first day, when in fact it's all of that work that's gone into it to make it uh you know accurate and appealing to the buyers out there, uh, which is the skill of the agent in the first place. My final question for you on this topic is we in a recent episode we talked about some agents that lack the skill, the training, the kind of now or the uh integrity, disclosing things or making comments or breaching privacy, etc., um, about their clients, which is obviously detrimental to a seller. As a hard and fast rule, if you are selling your house, Peter, you know, Peter O'Malley, the sales, uh, the vendor, not Peter O'Malley the salesman, are there any hard and fast just no-nos where you will immediately cut the agent away without even you know considering anything else? Is there anything that could happen where you would even advise a client, hey, if I did this, you should let me go?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Oh, condition. Yep. Yeah. So um an agent that tries to win the business with um a

Integrity Breaches And Closing Advice

SPEAKER_01 26:50

high price above the market of the day, a low commission, or one who starts conditioning me, uh, telling me bad news about my property, manufactured bad news about my property mid-campaign. Yeah, they're all reasons for dis non non-employment up front or dismissal or or dismissal during the campaign. Yeah. That's right. And then and then and then the fourth one is letting confidential information go. And this this is why people don't tell real estate agents the truth about what their circumstances are, because they're worried that the real estate agent's gonna blab it to the market. They don't want to tell their real estate agent they're getting divorced. But there are so many real estate agents that have been in the job for two years or more that'll tell you that they've sold properties and they've only learned at settlement when the funds are going to separate bank accounts, yeah, that the couple were going separate ways and they had no idea. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's because they didn't trust you. Yeah, they didn't trust you to not go out and tell the marketplace. And what I get nervous about is when someone buys a house and runs up and down the street and tells all their neighbours because they're so excited. It's like, mate, your neighbor's gonna be talking to a buyer leaving the open house next week, and the buyer's gonna say, What's this neighborhood like? I hope you buy Johnny and Sue's house. Um, we're gonna miss them, but they're bought over in Annandale.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Yeah, yeah. Think you're thinking they're well, you know, do gooders or you know, well, well meaning.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Loose lips sink ships.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Uh I'm glad to see you take up the navy attitude, mate. Good for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

So um these are all the sorts of things in a in a in a falling market that you need to be conscious of. Um, you never let your your reason get out there. Now, I had a circumstance during the week where um the owners didn't want to accept the offer. Um I had a cup of tea with them and asked them to level with me as to what was going on. It turns out they had a savage reverse mortgage on their home that was essentially eating the equity, and they thought they were just going to try again in 12 months' time. And I said, at 9.5% interest, the property needs to go up by more than 10% in the next 12 months for you to be back at the same position you're in tonight. And I said, if the market falls and you pay another 9.5% in interest, the bank, the bank is, you know, essentially sucking the equity out of your home. You you need to work with this offer and get sold. Yeah. And um uh they, you know, I won't say that they were cracking champagne at the sale, but the relief was palpable.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

As it should be.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Because they've just uh by selling the home, they've just taken the bank's uh equity vacuum away and turned it off.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Yeah. Yeah, look, really interesting topic, Peter. Uh certainly an important one for anyone who is out there looking to sell or is on the market. Uh uh, you know, despite all of the uh the factors that might influence you deciding to either flick or stick with your agent, unfortunately for those on the market, the most important step has already occurred for you, which is pick the right agent from the outset. Uh, but for those who are thinking about it, your take-home advice obviously is just sit down and make sure you get the right person from the get-go.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

And the right person is not the one who tells you what you want to hear.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah, it's the one that is willing to tell you what you don't want to hear. That's right. Look, really great discussion tonight, Peter. I appreciate you coming in, and I know our listeners do as well. Thank you, Kieran. And thanks to everyone for listening to Current Market Insights. We look forward to speaking with you next time.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Thanks for joining us on the Current Market Insights podcast. Brought to you by Hummer's Pumpless Realistically. The podcast providing realistically insights. You won't find anywhere else.