For years, the rhythm of a sales campaign has been predictable. A property is photographed, polished, pushed to every major portal, then thrown open to the world on Saturday. It is a routine so familiar that few in the industry ever question it.
Nick Boyd, CEO of Belle Property, has started questioning it.
Not as a rejection of the existing system, but out of a steady accumulation of conversations that all sounded the same.
Vendors, increasingly strained by the cost of everything from groceries to insurance, began asking him a simple question: Is there a more affordable way to sell my home?
They were weighing up marketing items line by line and noticing how easily the total crept into five figures.
Photography, floorplans, social media, portal subscriptions, staging, minor repairs, even before commission, a vendor could be staring at a sum that felt uncomfortable.
“It isn’t unusual for a seller in a metro area to spend ten or twelve thousand on campaign costs,” Nick says. “Then they add everything else, and they’re suddenly looking at a very significant figure.”
Nick began wondering whether the issue was not the marketing itself, but the way agents had been conditioned to release a listing: everything, everywhere, all at once.
That led him to a more deliberate approach – not an overall rethink of real estate, but a methodical rearrangement of the order in which a property meets its audience.
The habit of starting from zero
Nick’s starting point was observing something paradoxical. Skilled agents have spent years building databases full of active buyers.
They meet people every weekend, note their preferences, and nurture these relationships with regular contact, yet the moment a new listing arrives, those same agents behave as if none of that exists. They hit go on every channel at once, then hope the market responds.
“It never made sense to me that an agent can know hundreds of buyers in a suburb and still begin a campaign as though they’ve just stepped into the industry,” he says.
In a period when the household budget is under strain, this habit feels increasingly out of step.
Sellers are no longer automatically accepting every item on a marketing schedule. They are making trade-offs; some withdraw from particular portals on cost grounds alone, regardless of whether those channels may hold strategic value.
The effect, inevitably, is that when a vendor feels stretched, the agent’s fee becomes the only lever left to pull.
Nick believed there had to be a better way to structure the early days of a campaign – one that took advantage of all the work agents already do, rather than discarding it the moment a listing went live.
A different opening act
The approach Nick shaped, ‘First to See’ is now used by a portion of agents within his network and begins with a reframing: a property does not need to be on every portal to be properly on the market. It needs to be placed first in front of people who already match its profile.
The first chapter of the campaign is not half-formed or tentative. It includes the essentials of any well-presented listing – professional visuals, clear copy, and well-executed social media – but the release happens inside a contained ecosystem of real buyers already known to the business.
It is, in Nick’s words, “one hundred per cent on market”. The only difference is who sees it first.
This early period works like the first week of any auction or private treaty campaign. Inspections run. Feedback is gathered. Offers, where they exist, are considered.
The key distinction is that early interest is not distorted by the noise of a major launch. Vendors and agents can look at the numbers and decide whether the first wave of buyers is enough to carry the property through to a result.
If not, the second chapter follows: the broader release across the major portals and wider channels familiar to every agent in the country.
It is a two-step model that gives a vendor time, clarity and choice, which is a rarity in an industry that has long preferred single, high-impact launches.
Nick is careful not to claim this approach as a miracle solution, but the early results are positive.
For perspective, one agent in Queensland placed five properties through this staged opening and all five received offers. Four were under contract within three days. None had reached the major portals.
For him, it proved that buyers with genuine intent will seek out opportunities actively, wherever they appear, and it showed that an agent’s database, treated with discipline, remains one of the most valuable assets in the entire process.
The overlooked asset at the heart of the industry
For all the talk of technology, lead providers and platform loyalty, the most consistent contact most buyers have is with agents themselves.
“No one speaks to buyers more than real estate agents,” he says.
“A platform might provide an enquiry, but an agent knows the person – what they want, what they can afford, where they’re looking.”
For this reason, the strength of the first chapter of a campaign depends entirely on how seriously an agent treats their own data.
Nick has watched the most successful agents record detailed notes after each interaction, keep preferences current, and maintain steady communication rather than sporadic check-ins.
They also understand the rising importance of consent, privacy compliance and the ability to demonstrate that their data is both current and willingly provided.
When handled with that level of care, a campaign’s opening act has texture and depth. It feels targeted, not improvised.
Perhaps the most transformative effect of this model is what it does to the listing conversation.
When a seller is staring at a marketing budget that rivals a small renovation, it becomes almost inevitable that they try to reduce the agent’s fee.
Nick understands the logic. He also sees the opportunity.
“If an agent can show a vendor that there is more than one pathway, and that the first pathway may save them significant cost without compromising their chances of a strong result, it changes the tone of the conversation,” he says.
The agent begins to look less like someone presenting a menu of charges and more like a professional adviser tailoring a pathway for the seller’s circumstances. Nick says that shift can make the difference between holding one’s fee or watching it evaporate under pressure.
Not a rejection of the portals but a correction of balance
Nick is quick to stress that this is not an argument against the major platforms; they remain vital.
What he questions is the binary thinking that has dominated the industry for years: that unless a property is everywhere instantly, it is nowhere.
“That idea isn’t accurate,” he says. “If anything, it undervalues the work agents do and the knowledge they already possess.”
He also acknowledges that the concept is not new. Many agents have, at times, soft-launched a property to buyers they already know.
His contribution has been to give the process structure, language and consistency, and to place it within a larger strategic shift that he believes the industry is ready for.
“If anything, this is about balance,” he says. “A recognition that there are several ways to reach the market, and that the immediate, full-scale launch is simply one of them.”
