Agency leaders have been encouraged to prioritise education and the fundamentals as agents adapt to a slower, more considered market, some for the very first time.
With Perth’s market growth slowing and stock levels rising, agents who have been successful amid the city’s property boom will have to go back to basics to adjust to the new market pace.
Haiven Property Central director and negotiator Clare Nation said that as the industry adjusted to the new level of competition, it became even more important for agencies to support their agents.
Nation said that agencies needed to implement training programs to better equip staff to operate in the new conditions, particularly as some agents had little to no prior experience.
Additionally, she said it was important for agencies to ensure their agents didn’t hang their heads when they weren’t achieving the results they previously had.
“Is it going to be a bit slower in the harder times? Yes. Do we need to make sure that their energy is high and their cups are full? Absolutely,” Nation told REB.
“Right now, we need to bring it more than ever before, because if our buyers are being more considered and our sellers are feeling a bit nervous, then it is up to us to make sure agents have the energy.”
A back-to-basics approach
She said that a return to the fundamentals would widen the gap between high-performing agents and their competition.
If agents had strong processes, discipline, and client management skills in place, they would succeed, regardless of how the market was performing.
“I think the high-performers in this market are still continuing to do everything that they have previously done that has carried them through more buoyant markets,” she said.
“Really, we are just going back to real estate 101, making sure clients are educated on what is happening, and that agents are connecting with them regularly.”
Nation said that in a more active market, prospecting and client management were often the first things to fall by the wayside.
“I believe having those touch points with your client base is more important than ever.”
Education and training
With some newer agents having only experienced the rapidly growing Perth property market of the past five years, Nation said that one of the biggest challenges would be learning or relearning how to adjust to the conditions.
Nation said that agencies needed to provide comprehensive training programs to educate newer agents on the skills that succeed in a slower market, so they were not left behind.
She said that the training had been in place across the Haiven Property Group over the past three to six months, led by experienced trainers Josh Phegan and Justin Nickerson.
“They came into our teams and said, ‘If you aren’t ready to pivot by the time the market is moving, it’s going to be too late. We can’t be chasing the ball; we need to be getting in front of it.”
“A lot of agents who have been successful in the past five years have not worked in this market; they haven’t experienced an open home that has had nobody through and having to make that tough call to the seller.”
Managing seller expectations
As the market slowed, Nation said agents needed to show their vendors that they understood how sales activity and buyer interest had shaped their local area.
Nation said it was important for agents to rely on data and evidence when having conversations with vendors about their expectations for the sale, as those expectations may not be aligned with the market.
“I feel like sellers are still looking at sale prices and saying, ‘well, if that is worth that, mine must be worth more’, so it's making sure that you are having strong conversations from the outset,” she said.
She said that a big shift in how listings were marketed had come in the form of a closing-offers campaign, rather than listing the property at a set price.
When vendor expectations were not aligned with the market, Nation said that agents should challenge them to view the property from a different perspective and reassess it as if they were purchasing it.
“Challenge them to really look at the data and put it in front of them with their ‘buyer’s hat’ on and ask where the value in your property is compared to the others.”
Still a lot of opportunities
Nation said that while the market was going through an adjustment, there were still significant amounts of activity across Perth’s market.
“The appetite is still very strong in each marketplace. Where we are seeing a shift is that buyers are being more considered and not rushing into their decisions.”
“The market still has a lot of buyers out there.”
She said that a major challenge for individual agents would be restructuring how they handle both sides of the market.
“For buyers, it’s about adjusting to the fact that they are being more patient, while sellers need to be made aware of where their property’s value really lies, not where they could have sold for this time last year.”
“It’s not scary; there is nothing scary about it. It’s hard work, and the successful agents already know that.”
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