S1 Ep 2 Who Can You Trust? Meet JON D'SOUZA (JD Buyers Agents)

Jon D'Souza (of JD Buyers Agents) is an agent who does “more than match people with homes” — he leads with data, strategy, and a deep understanding of what buyers really need. 

After 20+ years negotiating in the corporate world, he transitioned full-time into helping clients cut through the noise: avoiding overpriced properties, leveraging off-market opportunities, and negotiating like every dollar is personal. 

In our episode 2 'Who Can You Trust', Jon opens up about the importance of integrity, transparency, and trusting your agent with more than just your budget — with your goals and your risks.

Personal Story 

For JD, being a buyer’s agent isn’t just a job — it’s a responsibility. After his corporate career, he saw how often buyers were left under-informed, chasing listings that didn’t serve them, or missing out due to lack of access to true value. So he built a model that blends hard data (market comparables, growth indicators, risk assessments) with genuine empathy: listening to what clients really want, what they can live with, and what scares them. His edge is not just in being strategic, but in building trust — few things matter more when you’re investing in what might be your biggest purchase.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Trust in real estate is probably the biggest and most important question. Welcome to Meet the Agent Podcast. I'm Wendy Clare of Jujut. Today we dive in the deep end and meet John D'Souza of JD Binance Agent so that he can tackle that thorny question for us. First, I thought we should get to know him a little bit. So I asked John, how would your mother describe you?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

My mum? A pest, relentless. Um I when I want something, I go and get it. And I don't stop until I get it.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Ooh, okay. And your dad, would he describe you differently?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Um the negotiator, uh, the peacemaker, and the one that wants to have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Okay, so are you the youngest child then?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

The eldest.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Eldest?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, I'm the eldest.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Okay, so tell me a bit about your family like.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

We've got a wife, Sharon, and then three kids, Zara, Kira, and Xavier. So they're all, well, nearly all teenagers. Um, so my eldest is 16, 14, and 12. Xavier, my youngest, is 12. So um, yeah, they keep us very busy and spend and cost us a lot of money. The whole family are Paramatic Eels fanatics, so we love watching rugby league. Rugby league is on at our house from Thursday night through to Sunday night, it doesn't get turned off, um, which is great. We go to the football together every couple of weeks. We've got season tickets, so we all love that. We all love sport in general. So, all my kids generally on a weekend were at sport the whole time. Well, not anymore for me on Saturdays because I'm working. Um, that's that that's our number one day-to-seek properties. But um, yeah, between my wife and I, we're usually driving the kids around to training or something sport related.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

What singer or song kind of vibe do you feel most clicks with with you, your personality?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Bruno Mars. Purely because he's got variety, he's got style, he's got energy.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Meet the agent.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

He brings a smile to people's faces, and I love the way he does that through a variety of different music. Because I love variety. I I get bored easily.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Have you done any um Bruno Ma's TikTok dances?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

No, I haven't. That's for the next one. That's a promise.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

He does, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

No, no, no, not that good.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

All right, there's a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

What's a superpower?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

My ability to connect with people. I've just got a knack, I've got a personality, I brighten up a room, I just am able to connect with people. The reason I chose to be a buyer's agent is one, I'm very passionate about helping people. That's why I've been in HR for 20 years. I I just I get such a kick out of it. Um, I love property, and so I married the two up, and I thought this is a perfect mix for me. Um being a buyer's agent, you you can see firsthand the impact you're having with people. Not only are you saving them time, you're doing due diligence for them, you're doing research for them, you're doing inspections, you're negotiating on their behalf, and to see that client's face when they get the property that they want, they wanted. And sometimes they've been looking for six months before they've reached out to me. And within two weeks, in many cases, I'll find them something, and they're just like, John, thank you so much. And nothing, no, no amount of money feels better than when you get that smile on their face and they're like, We finally bought what we wanted to buy.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Ah, I like that. So, is is that a little bit of the Bruno Mars kind of moment for you? Like, tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, absolutely. Um seeing people smile, like I love it, you know. Um, my my wife will attest to that, my kids will. As long as I can see people happy, and if I can go to work every day and make people happy, and also earn money from doing it, I think that's the dream job.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

You have a title of the podcast here about who can you trust? Who can you trust? Who do you know? What is that question mean?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah, look, there's been a lot of media around trust in sales agents and possibly even buyers agents as well. From my perspective, help me. Trust is built over time, right? Make my choice, take my risks, and sometimes that time could be over three phone calls. But you're not just going to build trust by speaking to someone once. It's very rare that you're gonna be able to do that.

unknown 5:01

Who do you talk to?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

And so when I work with sales agents, I try to get to know them, we sit down, we have a coffee, we understand each other's goals, we understand how we like to work. And so when it comes time to actually buying a property, that trust and that mutual respect is there. Now, if you're a if you're a person who's not a buyer's agent and you're ringing someone for the first time, that trust isn't there. And so for me, I always have a mutual respect with the sales agents that I work with. It's absolutely critical. I expect them to be transparent with me, without obviously telling me things that they can't and and breaching confidentiality of their clients. But same goes to me. If I know that there's a possibility I'm wasting this agent's time because we're nowhere near the budget, I won't waste their time and I'll tell them that. So for me, trust is being as transparent, as honest as you possibly can. You know, I say to agents all the time, this property is listed for $900,000. You and I both know that it's not going to be at $900,000. You're at least $200,000 off. And they appreciate my honesty and I appreciate them saying, yeah, John, you're right. But that saves me time, it saves my clients time, it saves, you know, it doesn't get their hopes up for nothing. And so for me, trust is building that mutual respect, building that trust so that you can get an outcome. Because at the end of the day, we're not on opposing teams. They want a property sold, I want a property bought. So if we actually work together, um, and that only comes through building the trust, right? You know, that they're not going to work with me if they've never met me. If I send a text message to an agent that I've never worked with before, they're going to see me as another number. But you pick up a phone, you talk to them, you meet them where possible, or just have a phone conversation, and you can really build that trust very quickly. And so I think real estate agents have probably had it a bit hard in the media because of a handful of people that do the wrong thing. But for the most part, I get along with almost all the agents I work with. And again, because we build that relationship. It comes over time, but we build it. They learn how I work. I you know, I learn how they work, and we work together.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Give me some of the worst examples, the biggest breaches that have happened.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, look, I I think it's a mismatch between what the seller is told their property is worth versus what it actually is, and then what a sales agent will tell them, tell the buyer what the property is worth. And if there's such a mismatch there, you lose that trust straight away. And I I had an example actually last weekend where I spoke to an agent a number of times and they told me that the the property that they were selling, it was an auction guide of 900,000. And and look, generally speaking, you put about 10% on that at an auction. So I said, okay, about a million dollars. I thought, well, this is a bit too good to be true, but you know, we'll attend the auction anyway. Now, they've told the world that this property is going to sell for 900 to a million dollars. That property actually sold for 1.4 million. Now, that's not because the area was, you know, booming, and it is to a certain degree. It's because the agent got people there to that auction that should never have been there. They never, they could never afford that $1.4 million. But that agent, I think, um, they they they weren't being trustworthy, you know. Um, they they told their their sellers that they were getting, they were looking at that 900 to a million and say, look, they look great when it's at 1.4. If they had been honest, they would have said to their sellers, this is probably going to be between 1.3 and 1.5. And everyone then has a true understanding of you know what the property's worth. So I think transparency is really important and it can break trust very quickly. And I think a big thing for a sell uh a sales agent is that they want crowds at their auctions. Because what happens when you have crowds? If you have crowds at your auction, all the neighbors see that you must be a really good agent. Look at the crowds you're getting in. What I don't agree with is if you're getting the crowds under false pretense. If you're getting those crowds because you're telling everyone that it's worth 900, but when you know you're wasting people's time because it's really worth 1.4. And so that's where there's a bit of a mismatch, but that's why you have a buyer's agent, because the buyer's agent will tell you it's not worth 900,000 and they're purely wasting your time. And so just like a sales, uh the person selling the property has a sales agent on their side, it's important that a buyer has a buyer's agent on their side. It's like when you go, someone goes to court, you're right. You don't represent yourself. Both parties have someone representing them, and it's exactly the same.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

So it's really kind of mandatory in a sense. You'd be foolish not to have a buyer's agent nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I think, I think if you've got the time and the knowledge and the resources to do it yourself, absolutely you can do it yourself. It's like doing your tax return. I would never say it's wrong of someone doing it themselves, as long as they know what they're doing. I sure as hell could not do my own tax return because I don't claim to have the knowledge, I don't have the tools, I don't have the resources. If you've got that, then absolutely you can do it yourself. But as long as you've got that, but if you don't get the help, it is worth every penny.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Right. So the amount of money that people are spending on your service, are they definitely going to? I mean, we know nothing's ever fully guaranteed. Are they going to at least save that much or get that much value plus?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, look, I never promise them from a dollar value perspective that I'm going to save them that money. And there's a few reasons for that. Sometimes the buyer, I'll always aim to, but sometimes the buyer just wants a property and they're willing to pay overs for it, which is absolutely fine as well. Especially if you're going to live in that property, there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but I will certainly save them in time, in stress, and peace of mind. Because any decision that I help them make will be data based. It won't be a gut feel. So when they're laying in bed at night thinking, oh my God, have we made the right decision? They can say, Yes, we have because we've made this based on data. We've made it based on facts. It wasn't just because my wife fell in love with the garden or I fell in love with, you know, the man cave downstairs. Because people are very emotional when it comes to property. And a lot of the time, I, you know, my buyers will say, Yep, we really want that. It's like, but that is completely different to what you originally wanted. And they have to think, I said, think about it overnight. Even though for me, it's it's a it's a sale done. But I don't like doing it when I know that this is not actually what they set out to achieve. And so I'll ask them to sleep on it, and nine times out of ten, they'll ring me the next morning and say, You're right. We just fell in love with it for the wrong reasons or different reasons, help us stay on track.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Are the interior staging and styling influencing them?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

People fall in love. So a lot of properties that get sold now, the agents actually will design it, um, design the interior to make it to give it its maximum space and make it look fantastic, which I think is a great idea because it gives a lot of people can't see through, you know, the clutter or whatever it is that that was there before. But certainly because, especially in Sydney, prices are so high, people are spending so much money on properties that may not have been their ideal property. And so what they're doing is getting professionals in to think, okay, how can I make this my ideal? It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but how can I make, how can I work with the interior? How can I design it? How can I get the right furniture, the right colours? And so a lot more people are certainly doing that. And they certainly get their return because you know, for the the the money that they spend on that interior designer, their house looks exactly how they wanted it when they set out um initially.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

So you as a buyer's agent, are you sometimes then saying to your clients later, look, kind of look past?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Absolutely. I I think I think seven out of every ten inspections, I will say to them, look past that wall, look past that kitchen. You gotta remember, yes, that kitchen might be red. You don't need to have it as red, you know. Um, absolutely. People really struggle to see past what's in front of them there and then. Um, I usually take a builder with me. I have contacts for interior designers, and so what they do is they come in just as we're about to purchase, and they help them see what they couldn't originally see by walking into that house initially.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Ah, that's clever, right? Yeah, because sometimes you don't notice. I've got a place that has like really awful narrow hallway that when we bought it, I wouldn't realize just how irritating it is. But it but an interior design is a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Well, it's funny, like interior design. Um, also, you know, as I said, I've taken a builder out with me, and sometimes you'll say, you know how easy it is for us to knock down this wall and you can have the open plan that you wanted. But if they don't understand that, they see it as a huge job. It could cost four or five thousand dollars. Now, when you're spending $1.5, $2 million, what's five, what's $5,000 to knock down a wall, paint it the right colours, fix up the blinds, make sure you've got the right furniture. It's it's pretty insignificant cost to give you exactly what you want. But unfortunately, a lot of people can't see through that. And and when I first started, I struggled as well. It's only now that I've been through so many homes I can see that end goal being achievable, but it is hard.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

That's interesting. So you're actually using interior designers also to show your clients a vision of what they can achieve, where they might have otherwise overlooked a place.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Absolutely. It's it can be simple things like where to put furniture or what type of furniture to buy, all the way through to knocking down walls, changing the kitchen completely. But again, you know, if you can get that house for $30,000 less and you use that $30,000 to design exactly how you want your house, ultimately goal achieved, and it's it's it's exactly what you want. You're not buying someone else's dream.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

What is the strangest or weirdest or wildest or oddest?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

The stories. Yeah, I've got a few actually, probably a couple that come to mind. One of the biggest ones that actually happens more often than not, surprisingly, is I've walked into inspections to people still sleeping in the bedrooms. Um Wow. Yeah. Uh so I've literally opened a door and seen a couple sleeping. Well, I hope they were sleeping. Um, but yeah, it it it always find that odd. I guess if they're tenants that don't really want the house sold, they're probably not doing too much. Um, the other one that probably stands out was at an auction. I remember it was an auction in Penrith, and a lady was bidding, and I think she got to about $1.1 million, and the auctioneer was asking everyone, and she went up by $10,000. And everyone looked at her. I think she was that caught up in the moment, she was bidding against herself. So the auctioneer obviously took her $10,000, and I looked at her and I was like, you don't need to give, no one's bid. So I think she got caught up in the moment. Again, another reason why you need to get someone, I think she was just that nervous, and she just kept going. And so they scored themselves an extra $10,000 for nothing.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Oh, that's good luck to them. That's a great story, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

So I think the industry needs to do a lot more to protect buyers. Um, I think sellers are certainly more in the driver's seat. Um, and so, you know, for example, a seller can decide when they want to sell, they decide how long they're gonna take to be able to sell, they can say no to offers, they can say yes to offers. Whereas in Sydney right now, a buyer can go to a property, see it for the first time on Saturday, and generally they're expected to make an offer by Saturday afternoon. Because the reality is if you haven't made an offer by Saturday afternoon, you've lost it. Now, the risk there is that you need you need solicitors to check, you need building and pest control done, you need a whole, you haven't done that due diligence. So ultimately you're taking a risk, and yes, we have cooling off periods, but you're still losing 0.25%. So it's still a few thousand dollars that you're risking based on you seeing a property once. And so, you know, I think whereas a seller is in the complete driver's seat, they decide if they want to take a week to make up their mind on an offer, they'll take a week if they don't, they don't. Um, and so I think there needs to be a bit more protection there, especially in Sydney where it's so competitive. In in in uh states like Melbourne, it's a lot better. Queensland's pretty good. Um but Sydney, it's yeah, it's pretty cutthroat. You go and see your property, you better be ready to make an offer that afternoon. And that's where my job is. I I do all that due diligence before we even get there on Saturday. And so once if the if the client likes it, we're comfortable making an offer because we've done that. But for your average mum and dad who are working Monday to Friday, they don't have the time to do that.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Yeah, that is hard.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

So it is hard, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

It must be very scary for people trying to make such a dig alive decision in an afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

It is huge. Most offers uh will go through till about 7, 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. So I usually, if I know I'm gonna make an offer, I will block out my time till about 8 p.m. Because the agent will go back and forth with the different offers, and we usually won't get settled in anywhere from 6 p.m. to about 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. And then you know, you're still expected to pay that 0.25 that night. That's that's the the cutthroat um world we're in in in Sydney property.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Amazing. So what um, I mean, this isn't on the sheet, but what and move your hands around so I can get that bit that you do that a lot. Like it's you know good for what we call cuts later. What is the biggest success that you've had, like your pri your proudest moment then? I mean, that's a nice question.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah, look, proudest moment isn't necessarily financially based. I actually think my proudest moment is I've actually helped a couple of two different clients, both divorced, and they had never really managed any of their finances, they didn't know their bank accounts, they they had no idea. When one of them called me, they said, I don't even know how to get my pre-approval. Can you help me? And seeing the journey that she went on from having no one in her corner, having no advice, she went from buying a house to an apartment to back to a house, then to an apartment, then to a townhouse. And I was able to help her and guide her through that journey. And she was recently divorced, wasn't getting any family support. And for me, that was my proudest because it wasn't about the money. It was I was genuinely able to help someone from end to end, change their life. They're now living in a property they absolutely love. They send me videos of their house warming, their friends over, their family over. That to me makes me proud. That's why I love what I do.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, you've really made a difference to their life.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

That's really nice. Yeah, I like that. I mean, I had no idea you guys even have this service. And I remember saying to my mother, like, I need you to buy this place for me because once you pass away, I'll be clueless. I have no idea how to even begin with property. And she's you know, bought things, and now I realize, no, I just needed to have a buy section.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

It's it's funny you say that actually, because part of why I moved into being a buyer's agent is because I wish I had that help when I first started. I've I've told this story before where dad and I were at an auction at a property that I was buying, and we just went in with 100% emotion. We just didn't want to lose to the other the other party. And so at that time, this was 20 years ago, we probably probably paid 40,000, 20 to 40,000 too much. Now, back then, $40,000. Was a lot of money for me. And so, you know, I wish I had that help. Now, in hindsight, thankfully I did buy because it ends up being the property that I um ended up knocking down the building and living there. So paid off um, you know, a lot there.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

But so you made uh lemonade out of a lemon, did you?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Absolutely. Cheers to that. Absolutely. Cheers to that.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

That's excellent. Okay, I can see then. Did that actually spark your thoughts to become a buyer's agent? Was there a lot of people?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Look, it drank it didn't at the time, but since then I bought several different properties, some of which went absolutely pear-shaped, others which did well. But I thought if I had that knowledge, or if I was able to get someone with that knowledge, those ones that went pear-shaped wouldn't have gone pear-shaped, I'm sure of it. I was buying based on gut, I was buying based on emotion, and it's the worst thing that you can do. So everything that I used to do, I now help educate other people not to do it to them and make the same mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

So it's a don't don't do what I did.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

What kind of clients do you see the most? Are they people like me that are clueless about money, or are you getting some you know, sharky investors?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yeah, so it's it's a 50-50. So I I help people buy their property that they're gonna live in, but then I also help investors who are buying all over Australia. So it's 50-50 from that perspective. Ultimately, it's people that don't have the time, don't have the knowledge, and don't have the resource at their fingertips to make these right decisions. Um, so it can, you know, generally my my let's call it my last 10 clients have been um double income families, they're both working, they don't have the time to be doing research, they don't have the knowledge. Yes, they can scroll maybe for 30 seconds, uh 30 minutes a night, that's not enough, right? You've got to do a lot more. So it's time poor people that need the help um to purchase a property.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

So we've talked a bit about trust. How do buyers know they can trust you?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yeah, it's a really good question. Um, so as I said to you, the first conversation I have with them is all about them, it's not about me. And by me listening to them, I just I go as far as asking their dog's name, their kids' names. It's it's building that relationship, right? I don't even talk about the property in that first discussion. Yes, post that discussion, I'll then give them solutions and we'll talk property. But generally, um, my aim is to build that trusting relationship with them, make them feel comfortable. Because you know what? There's hundreds of me out there, they can go and find another buyer's agent that will give them the same technical data. I really look for the service I provide. Um, experience is what people look for. You know, you can go and get a burger from any of these shops out here, but you want a nice experience, you want a memorable experience. And so for me, I want people to come back to me. Um, and so I get to know them, I understand how they like to operate, I listen. Listening is key. A lot of people just don't listen because they've already got their words ready to respond. So I'd like to listen to them and then really understand what they want, and that trust gets built over time. They're not trusting me the first day they sign that contract.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, you look a bit sharp.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

But you know, after a few days of me speaking to them, it's like, yep, we can definitely work with this guy. And and same goes for me. Yeah, I was joking with my one thing I'll say to anyone who's looking at getting a buyer's agent, speak to them a couple of times, understand how they operate, make sure you have a connection. Connection is huge because you are trusting this person to spend a lot of your money. So build that connection. Don't just go online and pick the first one that comes up. You need to speak to them. Uh, make sure you can trust them, make sure you can connect them, make sure you can have fun with them. You're gonna be on WhatsApp groups and you're gonna be speaking to them almost every day. Make sure you can connect, make sure you can have fun. That's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

That's all we've got time for today, but you can ask John more of the hard questions by his Insta or ours. He says buyers ask all the best questions and they come back. Meet me back here next week for our next episode of Meet the Agent podcast. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Now it's the L time. Meet the Agent. Choose the Agent. Bring the color.