I have a photo from 2016.
Three signboards on one front lawn. Two say “for sale”. Mine said “sold”. I’m not saying this from a place of ego, so please humour me for five minutes on this.
Right now, “sign jumping” is a major talking point in our industry. Agents are frustrated. Group chats are running hot. Someone’s board goes up next to someone else’s, a listing changes hands, and suddenly it’s a story about ethics, poaching and who wronged whom.
I want to offer a different read, because I think we’re pointing the finger too quickly and at the wrong event.
Unpopular opinion. The person jumping the sign is usually the seller!
Vendor expectations have never been higher. Sellers are more informed, more connected and more impatient than at any point in the last ten years. They can see the data, but they can’t understand why prices are suffering.
They can see what sold down the street and how long it took. When their own campaign stalls, they don’t sit quietly for another ninety days out of loyalty to a logo or a name. It’s a buyer’s market, but they want action!
They jump. Not because they’re disloyal, and not because a rival agent whispered in their ear, but because they need a result, and what they’ve been given so far might have been just a promise.
That’s the part we keep missing. A seller who changes agents isn’t the villain of the story. They’re a person with a mortgage, a settlement date, a family plan that depends on this transaction.
They need to know what the market actually is, not what it might be if everything goes perfectly.
When the promise and the market drift apart, the seller goes looking for the market. The agent that got that listing isn’t the villain either.
That sale was one of my first where other agents had been involved before me.
The property had been sitting on the market. The sellers weren’t angry, and they weren’t playing agents off against each other. They just needed an option. They needed someone to tell them the truth about where the buyers were and what it would take to meet them.
Nobody jumped. A family needed to move on with their lives, and eventually the campaign that got there was the one that closed the gap between hope and reality.
I’ve thought about that lawn a lot since. Because here’s the thing, I’ve been on the other side of it too.
I’ve lost listings. I’ve driven past a property I appraised, or serviced, or once had my board on, and seen another agency’s sign standing where mine used to be. It stings every single time. Anyone who tells you it doesn’t is lying.
But when it happens, the most useful question isn’t “who took it?” It’s “what did I miss?”
Was my daily communication effective or was it wishful? Did I do everything to show the vendor the market? Did they feel informed or managed?
Sometimes the honest answer is uncomfortable. Sometimes you did everything right and the sale still walked, a relationship, a cheaper fee, or just plain bad timing. That happens too. It goes with the job. The board on the lawn was never ours to keep; it was ours to earn, every week of the campaign.
Either way, the play is the same: take the lesson, shake the hand, move on to the next. There is always a next.
When agents go to war over a signboard, nobody wins, least of all the seller standing in the middle of it. The public doesn’t see a principled stand. They see an industry more interested in fighting over the lawn than selling the house on it. Every public spat chips away at the trust that every one of us, every brand, every office, depends on to do our jobs.
Real estate is already one of the most scrutinised professions in the country. We don’t need to hand out more reasons for the communities to dislike us.
What we need is more of what the best agents already do quietly: tell vendors the truth early, communicate relentlessly, respect the colleague whose sign came before yours, and accept that sometimes yours will be the sign that comes down.
So the next time a listing changes hands – yours, mine, anyone’s – let’s skip the outrage.
The seller made a call about their biggest asset, and they’re entitled to do so. The agent who won it did their job. The agent who lost it will win the next one if they do the work.
Three signs on a lawn aren’t a scandal. It might just be the realities of the market working.
And in 2016, on that lawn, the sign that mattered most to the seller wasn’t the biggest one. It will always be the one that says “sold”.