🛡️ The downturn is short, but Viking law is forever

GOOD MORNING FROM ELITE AGENT 👋

TODAY'S FEATURE

Your skills didn't vanish, your mindset did

One month you're smashing every target. The next, you're staring at the phone wondering why calls feel impossible, even though nothing about your ability has changed. Pancho Mehrotra, CEO of Frontier Performance, argues most agents misdiagnose this slump entirely, chasing motivation instead of understanding the emotion driving it. His four-question checklist reframes how you catch it before it costs you the month.

What you'll learn in the full article:

• The emotion audit: four yes/no questions that pinpoint whether your reaction actually fits the situation, or is sabotaging your next move.
• The "man up" trap: why telling yourself (or your team) to push through negative feelings backfires, and what to do instead when rejection or fee pressure hits.
• The perspective shift: how holding more than one view of the same setback changes the result, without needing a pep talk to get there.

Read the full article →

TOGETHER WITH ELITE AGENT

A signboard works because it stands where everyone passes. These days, that's search. Your next vendor is googling you the night before the appraisal. ChatGPT can only recommend agents it can read about. Ailsa turns your latest sale into a published story on Elite Agent. You talk for five minutes. Journalists polish it. Live in seven days or it's free. $97. Google gets exactly what it wants – and you didn't write a thing.

And unlike the board out the front, this one never comes down.

Start building authority →

DEPT OF DATA

Downturns average just 4.3 months, LJ Hooker finds

Forty years of cycle data, and the average price dip runs 4.3 months and costs just 1.6 per cent. Compare that to upswings averaging 13.7 months and 11.7 per cent growth, and Mathew Tiller's point lands: this is normalising, not failing.

"The market deserves attention, but it does not deserve panic," he says – handy line for your next nervous vendor.

DEPT OF OPEN HOMES

Mark McLeod's fix for a listing slump

A slump, says Mark McLeod, "is only when you expect something to happen without doing the work." His fix: go back to prospecting, revisit six months of open home lists, and call every past vendor to say hi.

One stat worth stealing – Saturday connection rates run 20 per cent higher, so don't stop your opens at 1pm.

DEPT OF PM

Six leaks quietly draining your property management fees

Some timeless advice from Brock Fisher who reminds us that sometimes it can be more profitable to optimise your existing business before growing. Here are six ideas to make that happen.

DEPT OF DATA

What each generation actually wants in a new home

Backyard beats car parking for young buyers – 64 per cent of Gen Z chose garden space over an extra car spot or bedroom, realestate.com.au's new trade-off research shows. Boomers stayed loyal to postcode and garages, while Gen X quietly opted for storage cages over wellness facilities. One thing every generation agreed on: groceries, green space and a GP nearby.

HOW IT SOLD

A Boxing Day launch that landed $2.3m

Nicholas Armstrong-Smith of Century 21 Armstrong-Smith timed a Clovelly oceanfront apartment's launch for pre-Christmas, banking on peak Boxing Day search traffic. The 90-day campaign drew local, interstate and overseas buyers, producing three offers and a $2.3 million sale with a 30-day settlement.

Find out the story behind how it sold →

This story started with a 10-minute phone call. Imagine boosting this on socials to your farm area. getailsa.com →

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Harcourts Foundation grant helps Smart Pups raise $35,750

A sold-out Winter Gala at Maroochy RSL has raised $35,750 for Smart Pups, marking 15 years of the Sunshine Coast charity pairing assistance dogs with Australian children living with autism, epilepsy, diabetes and mobility challenges. The Harcourts Foundation's $13,000 grant helped bring around 200 guests together for the night, with funds going towards breeding, training and placing the charity's next assistance dogs.

David Lu: Building a team-focused real estate business in Melbourne's west Eight years running as Cairnlea's top-selling agent gave David Lu the track record – now he's building on it as co-owner of Area Specialist Brimbank, launched with business partner Nick Makroglou just over a year ago. The team of seven has already notched up more than 100 sales, and David's multilingual work with the area's Vietnamese community remains central to the business.

Success doesn't rest on weekends!
Get top agent and agency moves every Sunday in Movers & Shakers. Subscribe now.

AGENTS ON SOCIAL

Seen an Agent On Social we should include? Let us know here

TRUE OR FALSE:

Thanks to an ancient Viking law, there are still property owners today who hold absolute, 100% ownership of their land - meaning they technically answer to no government, Crown, or ultimate landlord.

And the answer is …

True. Here in Australia, we operate under systems like Torrens title, where the ultimate underlying ownership of land (radical title) technically rests with the Crown (yes you read that right!) But in Orkney and Shetland, Scotland, some landowners still hold their property under an ancient Norse system called 'udal' tenure. When Norway handed the islands over in the 1400s, they never abolished the old Viking laws. This means their land is "allodial" - owned absolutely, with no superior landlord in the chain. Some owners can even trace their unwritten title through centuries of continuous family possession. Imagine trying to explain that one to your conveyancer! via Scottish Society for Northern Studies.