Greg Braun will be speaking at Prop20 in March and April. To register for this event visit proprea.com.au.
Greg, what’s your area of speciality?
My speciality is consumer trends, whether they be global or local – and often the two go hand-in-hand.
So what I try and do is understand what we’re seeing in consumers in real estate and understand the wider narrative around why they might be thinking that way or why they might be doing particular things a certain way. It also comes down to the way the world is working right now.
A simple one is how communication is changing and how we’re not using the telephone anymore. But when you walk into a room of real estate agents and tell them that most people don’t use the phone for phone calls ( its original purpose) they’re dumbfounded because they’re on their phone day to day.
This is a global trend, but what that means from a real estate perspective is that agents need to adapt the way they think about doing business with consumers because you’re annoying them if you’re forcing them to go down a path they don’t want to go down.
What topic(s) will you be speaking on at Prop20?
I will be speaking about sellers and what sellers are after right now. We know that typically a seller goes through five stages when selling a house, from having a look through to what can I afford and then actually researching an agent, the journey and understanding how it all works to getting an agent and signing of contracts.
There are a couple of stages in there, searching for and researching an agent, that are really problematic for sellers right now because there are a lot of things to consider, learn about, know about, understand and equip yourself with. So what I’m really going to try and do is home in on that stage and explain what the difficulties are, but also what the opportunities are for an agent right now.
What is your prediction for buyer and seller trends in 2020?
Sellers are going to come back to the market. We’ve seen a bit of a slowdown and while there are lots of buyers out there, sellers have been a bit reluctant to get involved. But the market has definitely changed and we’re going to see a change there.
In terms of what they want, it comes down to wanting a safe environment in which they can make these transactions. They want to know how to get the right agent, who to trust, and in a world of misinformation, they want a source of truth and to find an agent who will do the right thing by them.
This is an opportunity for agents who can be super transparent about what they offer so they can appeal to the widest audiences.
