In a subdued market where buyers are limited by stretched affordability, pricing must be realistic and data-focused, allowing agents to make a successful sale while maintaining trust with vendors.
In a market where buyers have been cautiously watching their spending, data-driven decision-making will be the key to both maintaining vendor trust and securing sales.
According to McGrath Willoughby sales agent Nicholas Dunn, accurate pricing and transparent conversations with vendors have helped his team build trust and avoid unrealistic expectations in the ever-shifting property market.
Speaking at AREC 2026, Dunn said real-time feedback, data-driven pricing, and pre-market inspections were critical to advertising the right price guide and achieving a sale.
After building a database of more than 3,000 contacts through years of disciplined prospecting, Dunn said he used factual information and data to educate vendors on the current market, building trust and helping them feel at ease.
He said he would show vendors his previous sales, as well as the final prices, and ensure the vendors knew of their obligations when selling.
Given that many sellers had unrealistic pricing expectations, he said that educating them and showing them the proven data was essential to gaining trust.
“What I say to them is that you’re paying them a lot of money to do this, you’ve got to take the recommendations on board, and if you don’t, that’s totally fine,” he said.
“So it’s not about convincing them, it’s about saying, ‘this is what you should do, if you don’t, no dramas, but I’ve had a conversation with you’.”
To help sellers achieve the right price, Dunn said he used the most up-to-date market results to ensure the price guide was accurate.
He said it was particularly important to have an accurate price guide in the first week of the listing, with 75 to 80 per cent of enquiries coming within the first seven days.
“You can have the best house on the best street, you can have the best everything, but if the price guides are too high, your market simply won’t turn up, and you won’t sell something in 14 days, or even 30,” he said.
To determine whether a price guide was reasonable, his team would hold a pre-market inspection to gauge interest.
A couple of days beforehand, his team would send over a thousand text messages to their database, and if there were fewer than eight people interested, it suggested the price guide was too high.
On the other hand, if there were 10 to 12 parties registering to inspect, he said it often gave him a level of confidence that the price guide that has been pitched can engage the market.
“That feedback is then relayed to the owner. If I need to make an adjustment – in this market, a lot of the adjustments aren’t up, they’re down – the feedback’s coming from the market, not the agent,” he said.
Dunn said that when the data came from the market, the trust between the vendor and the agent could be maintained, which was crucial.
“Whether you’re going to sell something in a week, two or six weeks, you need to have the trust. If you don’t have the trust from the vendor, it’s going to be a hard job getting that deal.”
Dunn said that his team held six open days over eight days, starting with the Thursday premarket showing, before continuing with the rest over the next few days.
By hosting plenty of open homes, he said that he was able to gauge pricing, so that by the second Saturday, the owner could decide on whether to lower the price.
“We can either stay the course and keep the guide as is and try to find the needle in the haystack, which will be highly unlikely, or we can adjust it right down and try to get some offers,” Dunn concluded.
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