The headlines are full of noise, interest rates are the elephant in every living room, and a collective wave of uncertainty has swept across both buyers and sellers. Investors are sitting on their hands, weighing the stock market against property, and auction clearance rates are feeling the pinch.
Then – the Budget is the elephant that just broke the living room floor.
If you ask the average agent, they will tell you it is a tough market. But if you talk to Matt Lahood, the CEO Real Estate of The Agency, he will tell you something completely different.
“It is not a tough market,” he says, “It is just a market that has run out of patience for the unprepared.”
“Real estate is fundamentally a confidence business,” he says. “Confidence for buyers to buy, confidence for sellers to put their property on the market.
“They do not want an agent that does not have any confidence to work with. If you read the headlines, you can easily get stuck in them, but I am looking at our sales register, and there are sales going through every day. People still need to move.”
The difference between the agents thriving right now and those struggling in isolation comes down to a single factor, which is the gap.
Specifically, it is the mismatch between a seller’s six-month-old price expectations and a buyer’s reduced borrowing capacity.
Matt believes that closing that gap requires a toolset that the industry has not had to use in years.
“The problem is, there are a lot of owners that want to sell, but only if they get a peak price. As an agent, the unfortunate thing is you do not get paid until you sell. You spend around for eight weeks running buyers for a property owner that is not really keen to meet the market. Our focus is entirely on owners who are prepared to meet the market, because that is where the huge opportunity is.”
Forget resumes and leverage the hidden variables
For a long time, longevity was viewed as the ultimate real estate status symbol. Matt challenges that mindset head-on.
“People are running around saying they have got twenty or thirty years of experience, and it used to be a flex,” Matt says.
“But now when I hear people say that, I ask: Have you evolved in the last eighteen months? AI has compressed the entire skill set into one loop.
“The market rewards adaptation now, not tenure. Even if you have been around for decades, it can be completely irrelevant if you do not adapt to the current market conditions.”
This evolution is particularly critical for a generation of agents who built their careers exclusively during a historic, rising market.
When multiple buyers are fighting over a property, an agent is often just an order-taker; when there is only one buyer on a property and they are five to ten percent apart from the vendor, the real work begins.
“If you are just trying to sell by price at the moment, it is going to be a very lonely existence for an agent,” Matt warns.
“When you had four or five buyers running on an auction a few months ago, it was easy, but now you have got one buyer and a gap. You have to start working on other variables that the inexperienced agents do not understand or have not been skilled at.”
When price hits a wall, top-tier agents look at alternative levers that inexperienced operators miss entirely and Matt breaks down the creative deal structuring taking place into elements like time, inclusions, and financial flexibility.
Dollars are not the only currency in a transaction.
“The levers that can be pulled are time, money, inclusions in the sale, and the release of deposit,” Matt explains.
“A short settlement of four weeks if it is a cash buyer versus twelve weeks has an interest component that can be materialised and crystallised into a dollar value;iIf an owner has to settle on another property they have bought, these types of conversations have to happen now versus just letting it go to auction and watching it pass in below reserve.
“We are also closing a lot of deals right now by throwing in value to close the gap,” Matt says.
“The normal real estate agent who just came into the game only thinks of price. But to close the gap on dollars, you can suggest an owner throws in things like the double-sized fancy fridge, the washing machine, the pool equipment, or even the pool table. There might be a residual value of another $50,000 to $100,000 there to get a deal over the line. Once a buyer falls in love with the place, they fall in love with everything.”
Other strategies include the release of deposit lever or even a creative seller leaseback.
“Say you want to sell your house, but you have not found another house yet and you want to know what cash you have in hand before you buy. I can say to you as the buyer: I will give you six months to stay in the house after I buy it off you.
“We will use part of the price we pay to cover the rent, giving you a free six-month stay, but we want to pay this price for the house. The owner realises they do not have to move twice or go rent for a year. I have closed deals at $100,000 or more off the price doing exactly that,” he says.
“When you do not have multiple buyers, you have to get creative.”
Ground your conversations and double down
To successfully deploy these creative strategies, agents must first master the art of vendor education and relying on comparable sales from six months ago is ancient history in a fast-moving market.
“If you go in and use sales from six months ago, the market is completely different. Owners look at what the house across the road got in March and think their house is worth the same, if not better. If you do not use the last month or two of data, you are not giving them the right advice. You have to go with the facts. You absolutely cannot sugarcoat the facts,” he says.
“You could even start six months ago and actually show them the numbers four months ago, then three months ago, and then now,” Matt suggests.
“That is a highly effective education process. Remember, sellers do not sell every day of the week, but real estate agents are on the market every day. The sellers go back to their work and family, so all they remember is the peak price from six months ago.”
When volumes drop, the natural instinct for many real estate businesses is to cut costs by trimming marketing budgets, scaling back social media presence, and stopping newsletters. Matt advises his team at The Agency to do the exact opposite.
“A lot of agents will reduce things in a time like this … they will stop marketing as heavily, they will not spend as much money on promoting results, and they will knock back things like their social media accounts because they are not making as many sales.
“I am suggesting right now to our team to increase all that. If you are increasing things right now, you are standing out.
” Owners are picking agents based on visibility and who they can see is actually getting results. All the noise of this award and that award is completely irrelevant now. It is all about who is actively selling properties.”
Summary of Matt’s Creative Real Estate Strategies
When a property negotiation stalls on price alone, Matt highlights four dynamic, non-price variables that agents can use to bridge the buyer-seller gap and rescue the deal:
- The Time Leverage (Settlement Adjustments): Crystallise the holding costs and interest components into an active dollar value. A rapid, unconditional four-week settlement from a cash buyer can carry identical economic weight to a higher, prolonged twelve-week offer for a vendor needing to liquidate quickly.
- High-Value Inclusions: Broaden the scope of the sale beyond structural walls. Propose leaving behind premium, property-specific assets, such as industrial double-sized refrigerators, high-end electronics, pool tables, outdoor maintenance gear, or staging furniture. It protects the seller’s walk-away figure while saving the buyer time and setup costs.
- The Early Release of Deposit: Structure the contract to allow the buyer’s deposit to be released directly to the vendor prior to formal settlement. This provides the seller with the immediate liquidity needed to confidently secure their next purchase without taking out expensive bridging loans.
- The Free Seller Leaseback: Eliminate a moving family’s logistical panic by writing a post-settlement tenancy agreement directly into the purchase contract. Allowing the seller to remain in the property as a tenant for six to twelve months provides them with cash in hand and ultimate timeline certainty, which frequently motivates them to accept a more realistic market valuation.