Across Australia and beyond, agents are finding that it’s the soft skills — empathy, intuition, adaptability — that are getting the signature on the agency agreement.
Not because they replace the fundamentals, but because they round them out in a way that technology, scripts and strategy can’t.
What follows are four real-world stories, showing how these quieter, often-overlooked skills are not just nice to have, but increasingly essential.
When agent Holly Rose met Michelle, the seller had already been through three failed campaigns and was ready to give up.
Each agent before Holly had promised big — fast sales, inflated prices, flashy marketing — and delivered little.
By the time Holly arrived, the property felt cursed, and Michelle was exhausted.
But Holly didn’t try to fix everything at once. She listened. She asked questions. She didn’t promise to “make everything right” in one phone call.
Instead, she brought calm, consistent guidance and something less tangible but more valuable than a strategy — trust.
“She made me feel calm and in not only competent hands,” Michelle wrote, “but ones I could completely rely on and trust.”
The challenge wasn’t just selling a home — Michelle also needed to buy another. Finances were tight, emotions were high, and timelines were unforgiving.
Holly kept things steady. She revisited a property Michelle had previously loved but thought she couldn’t afford.
Quietly, persistently, Holly reopened negotiations and found a way to make the numbers work.
The house became Michelle’s, and her old one finally sold — not because of any silver-bullet solution, but because Holly kept showing up, kept communicating, and kept her client feeling safe when everything else felt uncertain.
It’s a pattern that repeats across the industry — in Australia and around the world — and yet it’s rarely celebrated.
While much of real estate culture leans on scripts and the psychology of closing, many deals still come down to old-fashioned human skills: being calm under pressure, listening properly, staying in touch.
Take the case of a Toronto agent — never named, but forever remembered by his clients as “the bearded guy.”
When three agents were invited to pitch for a listing, two came armed with slick presentations, designer suits, and memorised marketing spiels.
The third — casually dressed, with a long beard and a quiet presence — did something different.
He asked thoughtful questions. He walked through the house with the owners and gave small but useful tips. He listened.
The sellers initially leaned towards the polished agent — he looked the part — but something kept nagging at them.
Later that night, revisiting the materials the bearded agent had left behind, they changed their minds. “He had really listened to us,” they said.
And that, more than anything else, made them feel confident putting their biggest asset in his hands.
Sometimes it’s not listening or calm that wins the business, but plain old consistency.
On an online forum, a young US-based agent named Tyler shared how he won his first few listings — not by dazzling, but by following up when everyone else moved on. He targeted expired listings.
“I wasn’t the best,” he admitted, “I was new and didn’t know what I was doing. But I won the listing because I was persistent.”³
He mailed homeowners. Called. Checked in. When other agents lost interest after a few days, Tyler kept showing up.
That resilience became the reason sellers trusted him with their listings. It wasn’t about being slick. It was about being there.
The same thread runs through a testimonial from a client of agent Don Goins.
Don had met the homeowner a few years earlier and provided a simple Comparative Market Analysis — nothing special.
But instead of disappearing, Don added him to a friendly monthly newsletter. It wasn’t a hard sell; it was just helpful content, sent with consistency.
Years later, when it came time to list a high-value property, the client chose Don over others — even agents he personally knew — because of that long-term engagement.
“That follow-up program you do is awesome,” the client said. “It tells me what kind of service I’ll get when I actually need you.”
There’s a quiet lesson in all of this. In an industry obsessed with numbers, reach, and speed, the things that still win hearts — and business — aren’t always measurable.
Being calm when your client is panicking. Asking a question instead of launching into a pitch. Knowing when to push, and when to pause.
These are the things that close deals.
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This story was created using both Google Notebook LM using Deep Research and Data from multiple sources.
Sources:
Holly Rose Realtor
The Bearded Agent
Goins Real Estate Group
