In an industry where success has traditionally been built around the individual agent, their personal relationships and their ability to manage every aspect of a transaction, Chris Wallace is taking a different approach.
The director of Acton | Belle Property Albany believes the expectation that one agent should handle everything, from prospecting and buyer enquiries to vendor communication and negotiations, can ultimately work against the very people the industry is supposed to serve.
Rather than building his new agency around individual agents managing their own portfolios, Chris has created a team in which responsibilities are divided, client information is shared and everyone has a clearly defined role in delivering the service.
It’s an approach he believes could become an increasingly important point of difference, particularly as market conditions change and agents find themselves competing for business.
“I think a lot of real estate agents struggle to let go in terms of thinking that particular person or contact is their, quote unquote, client,” he says.
“But people are not anyone’s client.”
For Chris, that distinction is fundamental to the way he wants his business to operate. Rather than protecting individual relationships, he wants the entire team to take responsibility for ensuring buyers and sellers receive consistent attention, regardless of who initially made contact.
The philosophy is already being tested in Albany, a regional Western Australian market where, according to Chris, the traditional individual-agent model remains common.
Since opening in October 2025, Acton | Belle Property Albany has grown from a sole operation into a four-person team, been named a finalist in the 2026 Great Southern Business Awards’ Young Business of the Year category and achieved its highest sale to date of $2.17 million.
The Middleton Beach property attracted more than 30 prospective buyers and three offers, providing a significant result for the young business.
Making sure nobody slips through the cracks
Having worked in several real estate offices before establishing his own business, Chris says he had seen how easily service standards could deteriorate when agents became overwhelmed with competing demands.
The problem became particularly apparent during the stronger market conditions of several years ago, when high transaction volumes left some agents struggling to maintain the level of communication their clients expected.
Chris recalls seeing service standards decline across the industry as agents became increasingly busy, prompting him to consider how he could build a business capable of maintaining consistent communication when market conditions changed.
“I sort of knew that the market would eventually shift, and I just wanted to get ahead of the curve,” he says.
His solution was to rethink how work was distributed rather than simply expecting individual agents to become more productive.
In his office, Chris remains responsible for vendor relationships, negotiations and serious buyers, while other team members focus on buyer communication, generating new business and managing the administrative processes that keep transactions moving.
The division of responsibilities ensures every stage of the client journey is covered, from the initial enquiry and appraisal through to settlement, without relying on one agent to manage every aspect of the process.
“In Albany, it’s very common for real estate agents or real estate reps just to be by themselves,” Chris says.
“But I think for the client experience, having a team basically just allows you to do more to ensure that no buyers slip through the cracks.”
Importantly, the model does not mean clients are continually passed between different people or forced to repeat conversations.
Instead, the team works from a central database that records interactions, responsibilities and the progress of each relationship.
Chris has introduced a simple rule that applies to everyone in the office: if a conversation or activity has not been entered into the database, it effectively hasn’t happened.
That means anyone answering a telephone call or following up an enquiry can see who last spoke to the client, what was discussed and what needs to happen next.
It’s a relatively straightforward discipline, but one he believes many agencies still fail to implement consistently.
Technology is only part of the answer
While the business relies heavily on its CRM, automated communication and structured workflows, Chris is conscious that technology alone cannot guarantee a good client experience.
The agency uses automated responses for property enquiries, reminders ahead of appraisals and checklists that assign responsibility for each stage of the listing and sales process.
Chris estimates technology supports around 95 per cent of the team’s processes, although human oversight remains essential to ensuring tasks are completed and clients receive the attention they need.
The team holds short daily meetings and a more detailed weekly meeting to review progress, identify any gaps and make adjustments where necessary.
For Chris, the benefit is not simply greater efficiency but the ability to maintain communication when the market becomes more demanding.
In a strong market, that might mean ensuring every interested buyer receives a follow-up call, even when properties are attracting significant enquiry.
In a slower market, the emphasis shifts towards keeping vendors informed about buyer activity, changing conditions and the progress of their campaign.
“If the market cools down and there’s more sellers and less buyers, it’s making sure sellers are having good communication too and sellers know what’s happening in the market,” he says.
“They’re not getting forgotten about.”
The approach also creates greater accountability, because everyone knows which tasks they are responsible for and the rest of the team can see whether those tasks have been completed.
Chris says the structure is particularly important for a growing business, where the principal must balance generating revenue with supporting and developing employees.
Letting go without losing control
One of the biggest obstacles to introducing a collaborative structure, Chris believes, is not technology or staffing costs but the mindset of the agents themselves.
Real estate has long rewarded individual performance, with personal databases and client relationships often treated as an agent’s most valuable assets.
Asking agents to share that information and trust colleagues to manage parts of the relationship can require a significant change in thinking.
He believes principals considering a similar structure need to begin by accepting that delivering a better experience for the client matters more than maintaining personal control over every interaction.
He also argues that agents who can trust their colleagues to interact with clients and the wider community are better positioned to build relationships that generate business over time, rather than relying entirely on continually chasing new opportunities.
That trust extends to the way he manages his employees.
Rather than monitoring every conversation or directing every task, Chris says he wants team members to have enough clarity and autonomy to take ownership of their responsibilities.
“I have a very trust based office, so it will always just be assumed that they’re doing the right things,” he says.
However, regular meetings and shared records allow him to identify when responsibilities are being overlooked or a process needs to be improved, creating accountability without the need to micromanage every activity.
The challenge for Chris is maintaining that balance while ensuring the business remains commercially sustainable.
With employees to support and wages to pay, he acknowledges that the structure must ultimately generate sufficient sales to justify the investment.
His responsibility as principal is therefore twofold: continuing to bring in business while making time to train, develop and support the people responsible for delivering the service.
Can the model work in a regional market?
While team-based selling structures are well established in some metropolitan agencies, Chris acknowledges that their effectiveness in smaller regional communities is less certain.
In Albany, where personal relationships and local reputations carry considerable weight, he believes there is an opportunity to demonstrate that a collaborative model can enhance rather than diminish the individual connection clients value.
“It’s definitely something that works well in the cities from what I’ve experienced,” he says.
Whether the same approach can be successfully established in smaller, close-knit regional communities remains to be proven, but Chris is determined to make it work in Albany.
The early results have been encouraging, although Chris is careful not to overstate what the business has achieved.
He says the team has been having more conversations with prospective sellers and receiving positive feedback from people who appreciate being contacted when other agents have failed to follow up.
However, with market conditions presenting their own challenges, he acknowledges it is difficult to isolate the impact of the team structure on referrals or client satisfaction.
For now, much of the evidence remains anecdotal, although the increase in conversations and appraisal opportunities has reinforced his confidence in the approach.
What he is more certain about is the competitive advantage that a consistently delivered service could provide.
He doesn’t necessarily expect the traditional individual-agent model to disappear, but believes agents without strong support structures may increasingly struggle to demonstrate why clients should choose them over a competitor offering a more comprehensive experience.
Chris argues that an agent competing against a business with a strong team and established processes may find it increasingly difficult to demonstrate a meaningful point of difference without resorting to discounting.
It’s a consideration for any agency looking to demonstrate value through the quality and consistency of its service, rather than competing primarily on commission.
For Chris, the next stage of growth is not necessarily about adding more people.
After a first year that has brought team expansion, industry recognition and a significant premium sale, he wants to concentrate on improving the structure already in place.
Whether that eventually means recruiting additional employees or developing the capabilities of the existing team remains an open question.
“We’re on a good path,” he says.
“We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing one day at a time and see what happens.”
And while the business is still young, the broader lesson Chris hopes to demonstrate is one that applies well beyond Albany: that an agent’s value need not be measured by how much of the process they personally control, but by how effectively the people around them can deliver for the client.