As market conditions become more challenging, agents can no longer rely on momentum alone, with stronger relationships, sharper vendor conversations, and a renewed focus on service becoming increasingly important.
As the market shifted towards buyers, agents who relied on market momentum found themselves under greater pressure, with finding purchasers and managing vendor expectations becoming increasingly critical in tougher conditions.
For Amanda Tate, owner and managing director of LJ Hooker Taree, to be successful, agents would need to return to the fundamentals of the profession, starting with honest conversations.
Rather than allowing market hype to shape expectations, Tate said agents needed to understand the market, particularly as buyers became more selective and borrowing capacity came under pressure.
For Tate, that meant agents needed to stay close to the evidence and use it to guide their conversations with vendors, rather than relying on market sentiment or outdated expectations.
“We need to have difficult conversations with the vendor.”
She said agents needed to have a clear read on recent sales, increasingly important, particularly when faced with vendors who still expected the prices achieved in a stronger market.
“It’s just getting back to having those challenging conversations with the vendors and being truthful and relying on the evidence, the sales evidence.”
She said the same principle applied to lead generation, with agents often overlooking opportunities already sitting within their existing networks while chasing new pipelines.
In softer markets, Tate said that reconnecting with past clients, existing contacts and people already sitting in their databases could provide a more valuable source of business than constantly chasing new leads.
“There’s so many people you can revisit, so many people you can ring.”
Relationships over vanity
For Tate, the fundamentals of real estate still came back to human connection, whether the market was booming or slowing down.
She said that to stand out to prospective clients, agents needed to prioritise human connection, returning to the “old-fashioned” methods of communication.
“Just get on the phone, stop texting, stop emailing, give people a call and have a human discussion with them,” she said.
“I think you’ll get more leads, people will trust you more and actually enjoy your day a lot better.”
Additionally, she cautioned against being over-reliant on social media.
She said that building relationships, being visible in the community and giving people a reason to trust an agent mattered far more than simply being seen online.
“A lot of people, when they’re using social media, it’s all about, look at me, look what I’ve done. Look at the awards I’ve won, look what I’ve sold.”
She said agents risked losing sight of what clients actually cared about when social media became too focused on self-promotion.
“People don’t care about them. They don’t care about what they’re doing or who they are, but they care about the person they’re dealing with, and they care about selling their home for the best possible price they can.”
For Tate, trust was built through real interactions and involvement in the community, from sporting clubs and schools to charities and local organisations.
“That’s how you meet people. That’s how you get credibility.”
Adapt, learn, and serve
As technology, compliance requirements and operating costs continued to evolve, Tate said agencies needed to avoid choosing between the old and the new.
“You can’t just keep doing things the way they were done 30 years ago.”
Instead, she advocated combining proven fundamentals with new tools and approaches.
“You’ve got to bring the new, the new way of things, mix it with the old, and that’s probably the answer to being a success in the future.”
She said that training would be particularly important for newer agents entering a tougher market.
She said there was often an imbalance between new agents and those more experienced, and managers should seek to streamline their learning when the conditions were tougher.
“You can’t tell me that an agent that’s fresh is going to get the same result as someone that’s been in the industry for 10 years, 20 years,” she said.
Tate said that experience could make a significant difference when it came to converting a listing into a successful result, making accelerated development essential.
“New people miss a lot of business – that’s why you need to accelerate the training, because you need to get the experience so that you succeed in the industry, especially coming into a harder market.”
“That’s why you need to accelerate the training, because you need to get the experience.”
Ultimately, however, Tate said the differentiator came back to service.
In an industry built around helping people through major financial decisions, agents needed to focus less on the transaction and more on what they could do for the customer.
That mindset also shaped Tate’s broader approach to the profession, with agents encouraged to look beyond the next commission and focus on the value they could create for their clients, their businesses and the wider community.
“If you’re in it for the money, you’re not in it for the right reasons.”
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