The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
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The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
EP. 1447 - TIMES ARE HARD! KEEP GOING...
Has your real estate career hit a rough patch? You're not alone. Our latest deep dive reveals a startling trend: approximately 200 agents have vanished from Sydney's Northern Beaches in just 24 months. This unprecedented shift has transformed the competitive landscape dramatically.
We started this conversation after discovering some shocking numbers on RealEstate.com - tracking agent profiles showed a decline from around 650 to just 450 active agents. With the minimal requirement being just one sale or listing per year to maintain an active profile, this exodus speaks volumes about current market challenges. Rising interest rates have jumped from 2% to 6%, property investors are feeling the squeeze, and many agents simply couldn't weather the storm.
During tough times, advice often boils down to "just keep going" - which can seem frustratingly simplistic when you're struggling. But as we share in this episode, sometimes the simplest guidance proves most powerful. "Just keep answering your phone" was advice that initially disappointed, but became a mantra for survival during the darkest periods. Like the inevitable cycles of weather - from fires to floods to beautiful days - market conditions will always fluctuate. Those who maintain perspective, keep showing up, and continue providing value typically emerge stronger when conditions improve.
For property owners, there's actually good news amid this consolidation. Despite fewer agents, Northern Beaches inventory remains low at around 700 properties (compared to 1,200+ in a buyer's market), creating favorable selling conditions. The remaining agents likely represent the most resilient, experienced professionals who've demonstrated staying power through challenging times.
Whether you're an agent fighting to survive, a seller contemplating your next move, or simply navigating your own professional challenges, this honest conversation about persistence, perspective and market realities offers both practical insights and necessary encouragement. Subscribe now and join us each week for real, unfiltered conversations about the property market and business success strategies that actually work.
Okay, what happens when 650 agents turn to 450 agents in the Northern Beaches? What next? Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:I'm the ringleader, so what's up together this morning, make it the best of both worlds really awkward guys like I kept talking and billy goes yeah, billy was thinking billy goes um baby and then I just lost it.
Speaker 1:I'm like seriously, can you just talk?
Speaker 2:well, here we are. We're talking right now. We're talking about what happens when tough times hit. You know it's. I feel like we hear it day in, day out the motivational speaker saying just keep going, just keep going.
Speaker 2:You know it's like yeah, that's so easy just to say that it's like but what next? What next? Good for you, good for you, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure your, your, your work's easy kind of thing. Um, look what I wanted to just get off my chest this morning. I've never seen numbers like this before, but I was, I was. I was playing around on realestatecom at the beginning of the week and I noticed that we've literally lost 200 agents in the last 24 months and just real estate just on the northern beaches.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know if the way to look at this is you go on realestatecom, look at agents put in your area, sell. This is for the agents that watching you go sell suburb performance timeframe 24 months and down the bottom left hand corner you can see six hundred and sixty four. Then you look at 12 months. We list, you know, 100 agents in a month. Then six months, another 100. And then three months. So you're looking at literally 200 and more agents disappearing in 24 months. And to keep a realestatecom profile active I think it needs to have one sale or one listing published for sale within that 12-month calendar period. So yeah, it's a sign of the times. I do believe that.
Speaker 1:You know what? I had this conversation with Lisa this morning, and there's times like and I want to share this with something a little bit deep, with people that are out there Sometimes, and often we get friends and family saying, oh, you know, it must be nice, or how do you guys stay positive? Or you know, whatever look, the reality is it. You know there are, there will be, there are times where it just ain't happening, it just ain't going, it just ain't flowing and and for me it's it's almost like keep going head down, bum up, just keep turning up.
Speaker 1:And probably the best piece of advice I ever got from a late friend, norm evangelados evangelitis. Norm said you know, when I first um started in real estate, norm said like looking for advice, need advice, need help. And he said, and he'd done a lot of real estate stuff. And he said, mark, just keep answering your phone. And I was like it's the worst piece of advice. I. I didn't need that advice. That wasn't the advice that I was looking for, that wasn't the advice that I need at the moment. And it was and it was. And the amount of times that's resonated in my life in the darkest, deepest, hardest moments, and I'm like keep answering the phone. It's like saying put one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 2:Effectively, I didn't realize at the time, but that's what it is yeah, and look, we're not here to give you your motivational Wednesday speech this morning, but we are here to bring to light, you know, just the facts in front of us. I actually think, as an agent or as as anyone in a professional career, it's reassuring to know the facts around you because you can then actually have a better measure as to the market in general and its perspective. I guess Its perspective at the end of the day. But where our topics clashed this morning, you were saying you know, this is everyone, this is relevant to everything. You've got friends in business. You've got lots of people saying what do I do with my house? It's, it's.
Speaker 1:This can be applied to anything people are selling um investment properties because it's too hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Rates went from 2% to 6%. They're like this is hard. This hurts my gut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are having these conversations with everyday people all day, every day.
Speaker 1:Billy, you had a rough patch with your unit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't really want to, you know, talk about it on on here and make this about me, but so we want but everyone, everyone has had, you know, a period, and I think that's the, that's the thing that it comes down to.
Speaker 2:It's just timing. It actually got it happens in waves. It's just timing, um, it actually got it happens in waves. It's ups and downs, but if you just plateau through and and and just keep the head low, plateau through you, you actually just weather the storm and come out the other side, and often it's literally, you know, matter of months. It's not not long, not long periods of time.
Speaker 1:Um, if you really think about it, most shit works in cycles like there's nothing, that is just like flat line, like even the weather, like you know you got. You know you got fires that burn shit off, you got floods, that flood stuff, that you got these beautiful days in between and then you got these cold days and hot days. It's just you just work through it and you just push through that cycle and it comes through the other end. It really does. But look at the property market billy, like look at, look at um, you know the surges, you know it sort of goes late, it's always going up, but it goes like it goes in this way, like this scary wave towards in the upwards trajectory.
Speaker 2:Spot on Yep and, just like your, your your life and said just pick up the phone. We just tell people just keep going. It's, it's what did you call it? Selling hope? But it's. It's sometimes as simple as that and you just need to be reminded of it. Although I'm a fan of looking at the, looking at a perspective that sometimes is different. So lease has a really good saying you can't read the label within the jar. I really like that saying. Sometimes you just need to take a different perspective and that's why we're talking about 200 agents um vanishing from realestatecom in in two years, because it's a different perspective and if you want to geta gauge on the market, I think that's a. That's a fact that I've never seen reported elsewhere reported elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's, it's massive, it's bloody massive. Um so, anyway, industry people, um what does that mean to buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants, if that many agents?
Speaker 2:are disappearing from the industry. Well, we've been reporting that there's been low stock on the northern beaches for a while now. I think again that sort of coincides with that number. More stock on the market would normally mean more agents servicing the beaches but maybe being a bit of a consolidation of agents and agencies working the northern beaches. In the industry we've always had like this 80 20 percent no, not a rule but a trend, I guess you could say where 80 percent of the business is done by 20 percent of the agents. I think you find that's common in a lot of industries actually. But I think there's just been a consolidation of agents and agencies and it's of of the lower stock on the market at the moment and that's not really changed.
Speaker 2:We've been monitoring stock levels and I know it's. You know it sounds so boring because we're talking about it all the time, but it's. It's the best metric we can use to gauge the market and it has been sitting either side of 700 units I'm sorry, 700 properties on the northern beaches for sale realestatecom, but in a buyer's market that could be high sort of upwards of about 1,200 properties. So it's favourable selling conditions Interesting Anything else.
Speaker 1:Webb. All right, billy, nah, I like it. I like the topic. I think it's. You know you must. You must go through shitness and a shit period in order to have great levels of heights and happiness. So I guess it's just like you grit your teeth, move through, make sure you're doing what you love, all that cliche stuff that you hear, but it's so true exactly right it's.
Speaker 2:It's the worst advice you could have, but just keep going that's a shocker, really.
Speaker 1:Have a great day and just keep going, yeah there's your motivational wednesday 10 minutes yeah, just keep picking up that phone. Let's go all right, have a great day, everyone. See you guys.