🎧 Why 130 settled sales started with listening

GOOD MORNING FROM ELITE AGENT 👋

TODAY'S FEATURE

Why listening sits behind 130 settled sales

One client sold five properties through the same Mackay agent in four years, with the deals totalling about $2.6 million. Another has come back for more than eight transactions. Leanne Druery, of REMAX Select, took home two honours at the 2026 REIQ Awards for Excellence after a record year in which her team settled 130 properties. She says the real lesson sits in what happens before your listing presentation and after the sale.

What you'll learn in the full article:

• The stretch-goal pricing script: The words Leanne uses to show a vendor where their property statistically sits, without promising a price she says she can't guarantee.
• The no-surprises vendor report: What goes into her reports beyond buyer feedback, so sellers aren't caught off guard when a campaign needs to change direction.
• The rookie rehearsal room: Her newest recruit is 19, and the team's role-play sessions mean the tough vendor questions get asked in the office long before a vendor asks them for real.

Read the full article →

TOGETHER WITH @REALTY

Same commission split for 10 years? You're leaving money on the table

You're a sharper negotiator than you used to be, your referral base keeps feeding you, and every sale takes more work than it once did.

So when did you last look at the split you signed early in your career? For plenty of agents, it hasn't moved since.

@realty's suggestion is simple: pull up your last year of settlements and work out what you'd have kept on its standard 93% split, with the potential to keep the lot, and no introductory rate attached.

Grab a calculator and see what your numbers say.

Learn more →

DEPT OF SAFE WORDS

What if the principal's call isn't the principal?

It's Friday afternoon, you're three days into a new job, and your principal rings. The seller's changed banks, they've just spoken to her, and can you update the details before you head off? Samantha McLean cloned her own voice from a 15-second clip in February, and she reckons that call is now easy to fake. Her fix is two words everyone in the office can say to anyone, including the boss: call-back first.

PS. Transform XV starts Monday 16 November. Fifteen minutes a day for 30 days, building the published proof that gets you found on Google and AI. Early bird is $97 + GST until 9am today (Brisbane time), then $297 + GST.Book your spot →

DEPT OF POLICY

Rental screening tools face 10 December privacy deadline

If your rental platform ranks applicants or auto-declines anyone under an income threshold, the new Privacy Act rules could catch it – no AI required. From 10 December, covered agencies may need to explain that in their privacy policies, even when a property manager clicks approve. ADI's Thomas Beard suggests starting by listing every tool that touches a decision.

DEPT OF SALES

Older stock drives five-year listings high

No surprise if campaigns have felt longer lately. National listings just passed 300,000, yet fresh listings are slightly down on last year, so the build-up is homes that have sat for one to six months (up 41% annually). SQM's Louis Christopher says Melbourne and Canberra, both at record highs, show stock piling up because it isn't selling.

HOW IT SOLD

210 days unsold, then $720k in three weeks

Two earlier campaigns hadn't sold this Tarneit four-bedroom home, so Kartavya Thakkar switched to auction, using his buyer database and social media ads to build competition. Around 18 inspections over 21 days brought four offers, and the vendors accepted the highest before auction day at $720,000. Six buyers from the campaign are still active.

Find out the story behind how it sold →

Is your name invisible to AI? Start getting published. getailsa.com →

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Ray White Cottesloe adds five property managers as rents surge

House rents in Mosman Park and Peppermint Grove are up 16.7 per cent in a year, more than double Greater Perth's growth, and Ray White's Cottesloe and Mosman Park office has added five experienced property managers. Janelle Drew now leads a 14-strong asset management team, which director Jody Fewster and head of sales Sean Gibson say means more hands-on, local support for investors and tenants.

Harcourts Coast & Lifestyle opens fourth office in Grantville Bass Coast buyers and sellers have a new local base. Jason and Stephanie Dowler have opened a Grantville office, the fourth for Harcourts Coast & Lifestyle alongside Frankston, Balnarring, and Hastings. Jason points to the region's capital growth and improving infrastructure, and Harcourts Victoria CEO Adam Fiteni credits the pair's track record as they extend their reach across Westernport Bay and the Bass Coast.

Allhomes raises $74,000 for Canberra domestic violence housing $20 bags of Floriade bulbs really do add up. This year's Great Big Bulb Dig raised $74,000 for YWCA Canberra (a Bunnings sausage sizzle chipped in $1,848), taking Allhomes' two-year partnership past $160,000. General Manager Francesca Gasteen says the team is immensely proud, with all proceeds going to YHomes – purpose-built housing for women and families escaping domestic and family violence.

Ray White books 9,843 appraisals in group-wide drive Phones were busy in New Zealand. Ray White Manukau booked 631 appraisals and made 3,989 calls, taking out both Top Appraising Office and Top Calling Office at the group's 22nd Real Estate of Origin. Its own Ben Palavi was the top calling salesperson, while Sophie McKinnon of Ray White Sunnybank led the sales agents among 3,597 members who booked 9,843 appraisals.

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:

There is an Australian town called Come By Chance, and it's not just a phrase someone uses when they stumble across a bargain.

And the answer is …

It's true! Come By Chance is a tiny spot in north-west NSW, between Walgett and Coonamble, with a picnic race meeting that marked its 70th year back in 2017. The name goes back to 1862. George and William Colless bought a sheep station out there and were so surprised they'd managed to buy property somewhere that remote, they called it Come By Chance. The town kept the name. Some bargains really do find you. via ABC.