Your buyers and sellers have never had more property data – and they have never been less likely to act on it.
That was the central argument from Domain’s President, Jason Pellegrino, when he took to the AREC 2026 stage, making the case that the industry’s biggest problem is not a lack of data, listings, or digital tools. It is a confidence crisis decades in the making.
He opened with a personal story; his grandparents, migrants to Australia, stayed in a house too small for their family for ten years because taking on debt to move felt terrifying.
Fifty years later, his parents repeated the pattern, staying on a rural property in New South Wales, just south of Sydney, for a decade longer than they should have after it became too much to maintain.
“It’s not because they lack knowledge. It’s not because they lack options. It’s because they lacked one thing: confidence,” Pellegrino said.
The numbers support the claim. Despite record property prices, transaction volumes have been quietly declining for twenty-five years.
Average hold periods have stretched from three or four years to closer to ten. And the flood of data that was supposed to help – median prices, clearance rates, borrowing calculators, price alerts – has not created more decisive consumers.
The irony, he said, is that while more people are turning to agents, they are not necessarily doing so because they trust them. They are doing it because they need human support to move through the decision.
“The more information we give, the less confident the market has become,” Pellegrino said.
He likened it to someone standing at a skipping rope, rocking back and forth, trying to time the perfect entry – and standing completely still while another decade passes.
Pellegrino was direct about the industry’s blind spot – a thirty-year supercycle of house price growth has masked declining volumes and eroding consumer trust.
“We have all been mistaking a rising market for a better industry,” Pellegrino said.
From there, he moved to Domain’s strategic response: a deliberate repositioning around building confidence rather than providing more data.
“One path is to declare, this is the number,” he said.
“But when you reduce something as complex as valuation to a single number… you’re not just simplifying. You’re trying to set the default.”
“Here’s what happens in real life. The vendor looks at that single figure without context, their expectations are not met, and they decide not to list. The buyer looks at that single number, gets scared, and backs away and never attends the open.”
Pellegrino said Domain does not believe an algorithm can pinpoint one single correct number for a family home or investment property. The true value, he said, sits in a range.
“It’s shaped by what a buyer is willing to pay, what a vendor is willing to accept, and what a bank is willing to lend.”
Domain’s position, he said, is to show consumers a broader range of values and then guide them to the person who understands value “on any given street on any given day” – the agent.
He also pointed to Domain’s commitments to agents: CPI-only price increases, the removal of distracting third-party ads from around listings, and the inclusion of Matterport flyovers, photography and floor plans within Domain’s most popular agent products, taking real costs off the marketing schedule.
The Matterport demonstration brought some of Domain’s new strategy to life. A dated property that drew little reaction in standard photos changed once the old furniture was stripped away, and buyers could see the floor plan, natural light, digital measurements and a flyover revealing open water at the end of the street.
“That is the exact moment a property stops being a listing and starts becoming a possibility,” Pellegrino said.
“And the technology didn’t win that listing. You did.”
His closing message was pointed: platforms can build infrastructure and help buyers arrive ready to act, but when someone stands in front of an agent and asks, “Should I do this?” the answer can only come from a person.
Your Tuesday morning to-do list
- Pull up your listing presentation and count how many slides lead with data versus how many address the vendor’s confidence to act – if it is heavily skewed toward data, rewrite one slide around the question, “What is holding you back from making a move?”
- Check whether Matterport flyovers, photography and floor plans are included in your current Domain product – if they are, use them on your next listing.
- Review your last three appraisal conversations and note whether you led with comparable sales data or with a discussion of the vendor’s situation and readiness. Adjust your next one accordingly.
- Review your current marketing schedule costs and identify any line items that may now be covered by your portal products.