William Laing on the Sydney Sales That Never Reach a Portal

In this episode, we look beneath the surface of Australia's property market to explore the rise of the quiet deal, the growing trend of off-market transactions that never make it to public portals. Off-market listings are often seen as exclusive opportunities, but are they really?

Many of these sellers aren't fully committed to moving, reluctant to invest in marketing and often holding high price expectations. So is this trend reshaping how real demand and supply meet? Or is it just masking unrealistic ventures sentiment?

To unpack this, we're joined by William Laing, co-founder and CEO of Quietlist, Australia's first agent-only property platform designed to connect qualified buyers with off-market opportunities. Welcome to the elephant in the room. This is the podcast where we love to talk about the big things in property that never usually get talked about.

I'm Veronica Morgan, real estate agent, buyer's agent and buyer's agent mentor, co-host of Foxtel's Location, Location, Location Australia, author of Auction Ready and co-host of Your First Home Buyer Guide.

Hi, I'm Chris Bates, ex-financial planner and mortgage broker, currently ranked number three in the annual MPA Top 100 Mortgage Broker Awards. Before we get started, everything we talk about today is not personal advice, and we recommend you engage the services of a licensed and experienced professional.

Our guest today is William Laing, co-founder and CEO of Quietlist. With more than a decade in luxury real estate and a career built around discretion and dealmaking, William brings a rare insight into how much of the market is now happening behind closed doors and what it means for agents, buyers and vendors alike.

So William, this is going to be an interesting discussion. I know you've released some research recently and we're keen to understand all of that. So welcome. Welcome to The Elf in the Room.

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Chris and Veronica. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, thanks for joining us. I think I read your article on the AFR. We'll put a link in our show notes. And I said, one in five properties in Sydney selling off market. It's a good headline. And off market is actually increasing. Do you feel? How do you know?

And what's some of the stats you're basing that on?

Anecdotally within the industry, people would tout that it was 20%. When we launched Quietlist at the end of last year, we decided to drill into the numbers to see if that anecdotal figure was accurate.

I'm based in Sydney, so we did 10 different LGAs and the average of all of those LGAs turned out to be 20.5%. We aren't saying that this is a trend. because this is the only sample data that our team has done for the calendar year 2024.

We are compiling data for Brisbane and Melbourne for FY25 to see if we can get a comparison. And we will be collating the data on the settled sales next year. So we can't say that it's a trend, but we can say that the market is strong at 20.5% across Sydney.

And it's an interesting figure. It's money fives a lot.

There's a couple of things there. One is, which we'll get to in a little bit, I really want you to define exactly what constitutes an off-market listing. We'll get to that. Before we get to that, what I'd like to understand is the methodology.

So when you say that you picked, is it 10 LGAs or local government areas and assessed how many properties actually sold off-market, how did you do that? Where did you get those numbers from and what was the analysis?

So it's a very slow and painful process to do. I think it was circa 33,000 transactions that were analyzed and it was done using, I'm going to call it RP data. I know they're rebranded, but I can't remember what their new name is now.

And thankfully in RP data, you can search by LGA. You don't have to do the individual suburbs within an LGA. So RP data is an incredible tool, right? But it's not always 100% accurate. So where it said that a campaign didn't exist, that might not necessarily be true.

It could have appeared on the public facing portals. So where there was a gray area or we weren't sure, we would check cross-reference that was there evidence of a public campaign. In terms of what's constituting a off-market sale for us, it was the absence of a public campaign.

It was done all on settled sales, obviously. So anything that had exchanged but not settled was not included in the data set. We excluded anything that was done as what I would call an internal transfer.

So between a company to a person or whatever, it's usually represented by a very nominal figure, like a dollar or zero dollars.

And then anything else that was property, it was a two-bedroom apartment in Bondi and it was traded for, let's say, $400,000, but we know it's probably worth one and a half million. That was excluded from the data set as well because it wasn't seen as a market transaction, basically. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, good. I was hoping that you'd excluded those because there's a significant number of those at any time when you look into RP data. And one thing, because I pulled you up, I queried you about this actually on your LinkedIn post on this.

One thing that I look at, and you recognize when you're looking through the major portals, you will see an advertisement, say for a development. There's one ad, but there might be 40 apartments or 100 apartments or whatever. So was that taken out of the equation as well?

Yeah, because obviously being settled sales, right? There was a project marketing campaign that existed. That is a public campaign, so that didn't count as an off-market transaction. Even if that project marketing campaign was done three years ago, right? Because it would be done for the whole development. So no, that was not included.

So tell me what exactly counts then as an off-market listing or a quiet listing? So how do you define it? Because I can tell you that in our business, there's the real off-market and there's a sort of fake off-market. The fake off-market is really a pre-market.

It hits the agent's portal that doesn't hit, say, domain or REA. So it's sort of half on the market in a way, but it's sort of quiet to that agent's database. And then there's the genuine off-market that there's not even a photo taken. You know what I mean?

Like, oh, they might have a floor plan. That's it. This is totally word of mouth. The agent and the buyer in some way get together and that's truly off market. The general market does not get access to that. So how do you define an off market listing?

So, I think for the purpose, for the listeners, for the purpose of the data, we can't really segment a pre-market versus, as you say, like a true off-market because A, there's too many sales to analyze to then dig into was it on a real estate agent's website as opposed to like only having a floor plan and only going out to just very minute number of people.

So... It was more highlighting that to the wider market that there is a certain percentage of these, let's call them pre-market and off markets that are occurring and that they are not going on the public facing portals. They may be on the real estate agent's site, but they're not.

You can't just be sitting there as a would-be buyer expecting everything that's just going to pop up on domain or REA. You're missing 20% of the market.

So you've verified that at least in those 10 LGAs in Sydney. Would you say that they're actually increasing or would you say that it's been like that for a long time and it just hasn't been, the spotlight hasn't been shown on it?

Is it a change or is this just something that has been happening for a long time that nobody's actually bothered to quantify?

I think probably the latter part, no one's bothered to quantify it and they've just cherry-picked this figure. The fact that it worked out to be basically the same figure was quite remarkable. I, to be honest, didn't expect the figures to actually be at 20%.

And if you look at the article, in some LGAs it's much lower and some LGAs it's much higher. This is obviously an average. It's probably been around that number for a while.

As you would see in your business, Veronica, you would see how much stuff is the pre-markets, as you say, that are getting snapped up. The days on market are so short because there's so much early lead time with the buyer's agent and hot buyers on a database that

Essentially, a lot of people have already done their due diligence and research before it goes on a portal, and it's only on a portal for two days anyway. In that instance, it was not included as an off-market sale because it went on a public-facing portal.

But I think I'll be interested, hence we need to come back in 12 months' time, and I'll be able to tell you based on the data that we see coming out of Melbourne and Brisbane and then the comparison on the LGAs for the calendar year for this year, that we'll be able to indicate whether this is a trend that's growing or if it's just sort of a stabilized figure in that corner of the market.

Where did this idea for Quietlist, I mean, and just explain why you've ended up with this business model. It sounds like you found out that there's a lot of properties going off market and maybe there's an opportunity here and how did you end up landing where you are?

Yeah, so Quietlist sort of came out of the idea, and I know you talk, you're very vocal about the rise of buyers agents, Veronica, and I don't think anybody can disagree that they are a real force in the industry now. Like real estate agents, they're not all effective.

Some are good and some are bad, but the number is growing. Like I was speaking to one of our clients that uses our platform. They track 30% of their sales last year was done through a buyer's agent. That's a big number.

That's it's here in Sydney, but that's a big number of their annualized sales figures so So as Veronica, you would know, you get the way that pre-market and off-market properties communicated from real estate agents to buyers agents is very, it's not streamlined in any way, shape or form.

It's email blasts, it's WhatsApp texts, it's short of sending a carrier pigeon. There is just no centralized spot to do this. So the idea came, well, we think it's 20%. The data backed that up.

What if we put all of that in a centralized location so that the buyer's agent could see all of the off-market properties that were available? But then the idea came, it sort of extrapolated, Chris.

The buyer's agents, their buyer briefs, currently due to the sheer number of buyer's agents, the volume of emails that go out about buyer briefs to real estate agents is prolific.

Yep. They hate it.

They hate it. They don't read them, right? But it's a qualified lead. Like someone's paid minimum five grand for that email brief to go out.

So we had this idea, well, in the same way that you can go to a portal and search for a property, what if we put all the buyer briefs in a centralized spot and the real estate agents could search by budget, property type, bedrooms, bathrooms, cars, same way you do for a property.

And then they can prospect off it. They can call the buyer's agents. They can look at it in their own time instead of trying to do a keyword search in their inbox. That's how it came about.

Just trying to make it a more effective way for verified demand to talk to supply and try and streamline the guys to do deals faster.

Well, you're not the only person trying to solve this problem. There's a number of people out there using tech to try to solve exactly this and other problem. There might have other things that add to their other features that they offer. It's sort of for me, it's interesting.

Because it's sort of about market efficiencies in a way, isn't it? I mean, like here we are, you've got one channel, the buyer's agent, you've got another channel, the sales agent. You've got this jointed communication between the two, one that's largely ignored. As we know, sales agents tend to ignore those email blasts.

And, you know, buyer's agents need to do a lot of work in terms of targeting those blasts as well. Because, you know, I'm in Balmain, I don't want to get an email saying you're looking for something in North Balgawa. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I don't care.

I'm just going to chuck that, right? But, you know, in a seller's market, you can sort of understand, I guess, why you'd load up the listings. You know what I mean? And the buyers usually be flocking to get in there because it's a seller's market and it's really hard to find stock.

But in a buyer's market, I can see that effectively pitching the buyer rather than the property might make sense. You know, so I guess is this type of platform ideally suited to one type of market condition or does it pivot and swing, you know, with, you know, with the way it goes?

Because, you know, as a sales agent, you know, and I used to be a sales agent, you got a good listing. I don't need to put it on some portal and try to push it to buyers agents. I actually want it to have its day in the sun. I want full exposure.

I want to get all the marketing exposure for that. I want to run that thing to auction because I know I'm going to get 10 people register and fight over it.

My incentive to encourage an owner to go quietly is really low, whereas my incentive to encourage an owner to go quietly or softly, softly is when either the market's shit or the property's shit. So do we have a bit of a problem with that as well?

It's a really good point. I think that going back to the data set that we were talking about, what we've identified is, and why I say we don't want to be, we're not a portal, we're a platform, because I think we complement the portals.

We're not like, we're not running in competition too, because that 20% is already happening. But as we indicated, there's no efficiencies in how it happens, right? And the rise of buyers agents, take for example, Balmain, if

A real estate agent has something called a quiet listing and there's new buyer's agents with briefs entering that market. They don't have time to know all the buyer's agents in the market, but if you've got a client that suits that property, they want to do a deal with you, right?

Both sides are motivated to get a deal done. So I think you're right. Like it does pivot and swing with the market conditions. What we've seen effective agents using the platform for is a lot of them will start on our platform and end up going to a full public campaign.

It's not necessarily, this is the, it's just another, I picture it as another tool in their tool belt, right? Because the agents are required to have a draft contract of sale and exclusive agency agreement.

So you're getting a commitment from that vendor, even if it's just for a short period, that their intention is to sell.

And as you all know, if they're price testing or just getting feedback, after getting some foot traffic through the door and wrapping their head around the fact that if they got a good offer, they'd sell it or whatever, if they don't get the result in that phase of the campaign cycle...

odds are they're going to go on the public portals and you're still going to get your day in the sun at the auction and all that sort of stuff. So it's starting to get the vendors on that journey earlier and perhaps not asking for that expensive marketing cost upfront.

I always wonder if that's the right sales pitch from the buyer's agent. You know, you're stitching yourself up, you have a promise or something you can go under deliver on, but

Yeah, firstly, I think you have to be really careful who you let on from the buyer's agents because any manly dog can call themselves a buyer's agent. Secondly, they can put on any brief that they want, whether they got the brief or not.

And I just want a terrace in Paddington and I want to pay $4 million and I want it to be on a good street. And they just leave that brief up at all times.

Because I reckon, you know, whenever you've got a system or a technology, there's going to be people who don't really use it the way it's intended. Totally. Yeah. So how are you sort of managing that?

So right now, when a buyer's agent signs up, you don't automatically get access to the platform. We check that you are who you say you are because we've got an ethical wall between the two, right?

Buyer's agents can see all properties on the platform, but they can only see the briefs that they put up. Real estate agents can see all the briefs, but they can only see the properties that they put up. So it's defined by which side of the transaction you sit on.

But when they sign up, you have to give us your real estate license number based on the state in which you operate. And the key part is that you're an independent buyer's agency firm.

And then we check that you are who you say you are based on the real estate license and the firm and based on your credentials, you get access. So some punter who thinks he's a buyer's agent from the general public isn't going to get access.

The other thing we've done is we've limited the briefs to six active briefs per user. Because I don't think that one individual buyer's agent can probably service more than six clients at any one time. And that's to keep the brace active because there's not much point in matching it to a property.

And then the real estate agent calls Veronica and she's like, I bought for that person four months ago. It's a useless tool then.

It just cracks me up. Domain off-market. I'm sorry, but domain on-market, if you're on domain, it's like I was touring out for an off-market auction. I mean, like, really?

Look, and people think off-market is probably the most overused term in real estate. The data shows that it does, in fact, happen. But people think I'm a snake oil salesman when I'm peddling off-market, an off-market platform. So it does take the conversations like this to break down sort of any stigmas.

So the thing I was going to say is the same way that a real estate agent has to have a draft contract of sale and an agency agreement that's checked by the admin team before a property is published, some of the users, particularly in Sydney, where they feel like there's some briefs out there that may not be representative of

a real brief that that buyer's agent had. Some feedback, which we haven't implemented yet. We're in a growth phase, so we can't really do it. We're trying to become ubiquitous within the market, so we can't bite the hand that feeds us right now.

But in time, we could look at that you needed to provide the agency agreement that goes with that brief.

This is a very interesting one because it really easily verifies the things that a sales agent says that they have or haven't done, except if it's a true off-market. It's sold. It's on their portal. It's got their name on it.

Or if it's on market or REA or domain, it's got their name on it. And unless I leave the agency, in which case I remove all the names, it'll be a discontinued user. But

At the end of the day, you go into the backend of realestate.com.au or to domain, it's got the agent profiles, it tallies up all the properties that they've shown sold via that portal.

And I get that that's the on markets, not the off markets, but even the off markets, when you look on the agent's website, look at Breset Whitney, for example, has got a whole section there for off markets.

And you can easily go, yes, that agent does work for that agency, has sold those properties. Whereas with buyer's agents, it's much more opaque. And So, and also by law, they have to have an agency agreement and a draft contract of sale, as you said, before they can show a property.

And by law, a buyer's agent is meant to have an agency agreement. But again, I can tell you I bought all these properties, but unless you ring up the sales agent of each of those ones, you don't know whether I was involved or not.

There's nothing on the public record that verifies anything that a buyer's agent does. And if I had to give you an agency agreement, I'd be concerned about privacy. And so you'd have to have an issue. You'd have to have a protocol around how you would handle that information as well.

So privacy is great, protects people, the innocent, the clients. But again, it makes it more difficult, doesn't it, to verify a buyer's agent's claim, whereas it's much more transparent for sales agents. Yeah.

Like I have a New South Wales real estate license, right? If I went to sell a property in Victoria and it was on the portals, fair trading would be on me so quickly because I don't have a Victorian real estate license. But as you know, like- You can get one now.

You know what I mean? Yes, I do. So it goes back to your opaque point, right? Like it is, I say it's the wild, wild west. It will change, but it is, it's such a fast growing segment. I think it has to.

Well, we're going down a different path here, but I'd like to think it's going to change. I see it getting worse, to be honest, more nefarious players getting involved, but also there's no national oversight of real estate at all.

And as a selling agent, I'm not going to sell a property in Melbourne if I'm based in Sydney. It's just not going to happen. But a buyer's agent will call themselves borderless and buy everywhere. And a lot of them don't even know they're meant to be licensed. in different states.

So the amount of people I've spoken to that aren't even fully licensed in the state they're in, and yet they're running these businesses. So, and again, because like you say, if I was a sales agent and I was advertising something and fair trading wanted to check whether I was licensed, it's pretty easy.

They can join the dots, but nobody knows what buyer's agents are out there doing. So it's an interesting approach that you guys want to verify buyer's agents. And I think that that's admirable actually.

Yeah. Well, the idea is that in building a marketplace, right, you have to have the right audience on both sides, but you also have to respect the ecosystem that already exists.

So by having an agent only and checking and reinforcing that, I think buyers agents are an integral part and certainly have cemented themselves. They offer a great service, right? Like what do they say on average, a person buys a home every seven years.

Like I think it's a remarkable thing that for so long, people just think that they could figure out that whole end to end. Oh, they Sales on their own. So I think I'm a huge advocate for buyer's agents.

I think the ones that have the track record and have the right credentials can offer huge value to the end user. But for us, it's about having the agent on both sides of the transaction. That's what we're there to support.

With an off-market, right, so you... Yeah, because I just can see... I can just worry about this getting gamified and your platform getting used for the wrong reasons, right? And so you've got, like, a buyer's agent, right, who's mates with the agent, and agents are always hunting for listening.

And it's a dog-eat-dog world. Like, I would definitely not want to be an agent. Like, it's survival of the fittest. It is a... You know, they all bag each other out. No one's friends, really. Like, it's... And then people switch agencies and take their data, and then they tell... So it's a...

It's a horrible thing, right? And so someone, you know, as an agent, if I get this genuine off-market listing, I don't want no one to know about it, right? So I'll put it on this portal.

Does the buyer... Like, if I've got a mate as a buyer's agent, mate, can you just check on the portals? What else is coming on to... to, you know, because I'm mates and the buyer's agent probably do it because he's probably like, well, hang on a sec.

Yeah, I can get a bit of kudos here with the agent. Next time they get a good listing, they might give me a bit of preference.

And so do they see the actual address? The agents can put up as much information as they and the vendor feel comfortable with. So if they just want to say it's a four bedroom terrace in Paddington, contact Veronica for further details. That's what you do.

Some will say, here are the photos from when it last traded or some they've had photos done. You know, it's a pre-market, off-market type one. There's a million different things.

We have tried to safeguard that as much as we can, Chris, in that each time a buyer's agent logs in, they get a two-factor authentication. A code gets sent to their phone that's only valid for two minutes so that Veronica can't give you her login so you can just peruse.

The other thing, going back to your example, is that that can happen if the agent communicates that out through a WhatsApp text. Someone can just screenshot it and send it anyway. Yeah. But the only thing that we've done to safeguard is that at least that agent has an exclusive agreement in place.

Many times, particularly in Sydney, from my experience, the vendor will say, yeah, yeah, yeah, Veronica, if you can get someone to buy it at that price, we'll do a deal, we'll pay the con, but I don't really want to sign an agreement.

So in that instance, when that goes out on a WhatsApp and then I share it to you, Chris, and then you go and door knock it, The sales agent has no protection over cultivating that relationship and starting that off market.

Whereas on our platform, everybody knows that you have to have an exclusive agreement. The agency agreement and the draft contract of sale aren't visible to the buyer's agent. So they don't know if it's an exclusive agreement that's six months or 10 days. So that's what we've tried to safeguard.

So if someone does the wrong thing, we've still got an agency agreement. And if you're not going to sell it and the vendor is shaky and they terminate you after the agreement ends, then you're probably not going to get it into a full campaign anyway.

I'm on a personal mission to help more people make better property decisions. You know, most people don't realise that they can cost themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars over the medium to long term when they make property decisions without all of the information that they need.

And what I do is help people with tricky real estate problems, which often masquerade as simple questions like, should I sell my investment property because the interest repayments are hurting or should I buy before I sell or the other way around?

You can connect with me and access all of the tools that I've created to help you make better property decisions at veronicamorgan.com.au. And there you will find resources for first home buyers, details about my buyer's agent mentoring program.

You can connect with my Sydney based property management and buyer's agency teams, Australia wide vendor advocacy, or ask me for introduction to the small group of buyer's agents that I would personally recommend across the country. That's veronicamorgan.com.au.

If you're considering a property move such as buying your first home, upgrading, renovating or investing, the team here at Alcove would love to help you think through your decision and get the finance right. Please go to alcove.com.au to reach out.

And that's a good point because what I really want to talk about, why would somebody want to list quietly instead of opening up their property to the widest market? Now, I do know why some agents do.

We touched on it before in terms of a market testing or a conditioning process to get their vendor's head in the game as to where the price really is likely to sit. But that's sort of from the agent's point of view. Why would the owner specifically want to go quiet, do you think?

There's a million reasons why people choose to sell off market. It could be cost-related on the major portals. That's probably not the highest one, but it's the first one that came to mind. It could be all the things that go with life. It's divorce, financial issues.

Doing a public campaign is a very public thing. Because as soon as it goes up, what do the agents do? They ring the whole street and say, did you see 123 Smith Street's on? I heard they're guiding four and a half.

So even with, you might not be looking at domain every day, but someone in your street is going to know your house is for sale and whatever your circumstances are, maybe you don't want that. And you're right, it is price testing, but also it can be used in different ways.

There are some markets in Sydney or just outside Sydney where it's not, the market is not humming. It's not steaming ahead like certain aspects are. So the agents are using it as a tool almost in the reverse. It's been on, it's gathering days on market.

People think that it's getting stale or there's something wrong with it or there's something wrong with the price. So they're taking it off and they're putting it on our platform so it still has visibility to the buyer's agents because they're getting new clients all the time.

It doesn't get days on market and maybe they'll give it a rest and they'll do it after Christmas for the February rush. So there's different ways.

ways that people can use the platform to benefit them not just not just being like i don't want anyone to know that we're for sale or my expectations are two million bucks above where the market is

Yeah, there's the gap, isn't there? There's like, you don't want to use the portals because it's so public and it's on, you know, record, it's on IP data and, you know, you don't want to just put it on there, get it stale and there are days on market.

You've got to be, if you're going to be on there, you've got to be curious.

Yeah, you've got to protect the integrity of it. Buyers are very sensitive and if it's priced incorrectly, I think that's, Where you see the whole pre-market phenomenon really is getting that pricing accurate and that feedback is so important. And even just investors, right?

Like there's, you know, I want to sell it, but I don't want to sell it. I don't put it on there now because, you know, I've got a tenant and they're not keeping it, you know, 99 out of 100.

You know, it's okay, but I'm not going to sell it in the best conditions, but... You know, the lease finishes in July. Why don't I just list it on quiet list for, you know, the next few months? If a buyer's agent believes we'll pass that, right?

Yeah, if it's another investor buyer or whatever. Otherwise, when the tenant leaves, I'm going to have to get it repainted, recarpeted and get it all ready to do that marketing campaign. I think the brilliant thing about what we're trying to create is that it is agent to agent.

So agent speak is very different to agent. Yeah, that's right. So they can have that conversation and be like, look, it looks great. Like what's wrong with it or where do I need my client to be price-wise to get it to them?

And they can say, look, their expectations are up here, but I think if we can get somewhere around this number and you say, well, based on the data that stacks up, you know what I mean? That's a very different conversation than real estate agent talking to mom and dad at an open home.

How long have you been live for, like technically live? Is it just now or have you... November last year, we were live. And initially, we didn't have the BioBrief functionality that was introduced in March, which has been a bit of a game-chaser for us.

And how's the take-up going with agents? Like what are some of the... Are they still a little bit apprehensive because it's a new way of thinking about things?

They've got their own process? That happens with everything. When people are doing a process and you encourage them to look at it a little bit differently, like as you just... Ask, well, why would I put it on a portal?

But I said, you know, but what's the difference between a screenshot on a portal or a screenshot on a WhatsApp thread? At least in this instance, you've got an agency, Graham. So the agent's major change is that the real estate agents love being able to search the briefs. They hate the emails.

They hate being bombarded. I don't know why all buyer's agents seem to send them out on a Tuesday. On a Tuesday, they're getting between 20 and 25 emails with six briefs on each. It's a lot of briefs. It's not sustainable for anybody to read.

They like that they can just log in and if they're going to an appraisal on Friday, they can see that there's five briefs for a two-bedroom unit in Balmain that suits what they have. That's something that they can talk with the vendor about.

It's interesting too, because, you know, like you're trying to buy something, you can target, you know, 99% accuracy, which agents are going to be selling the property that you're going to be wanting to buy, right? You've got a finite area. Agents are typically locally based, sales agents that is.

And so that's easier to hone your activity. So buyers agents, much easier to go out there and I know which agents I need to deal with. Whereas the selling agent is is dealing with, buyer's agents typically run a bigger territory.

So even though I'm a big advocate for local specialists, you have to be a local specialist. I think otherwise you're not really adding a huge amount of value as a buyer's agent.

But my territory and my business covers as a buyer's agency is still bigger than it would if I was a sales agency with the same number of people. And so therefore it's much harder for the selling agent to be able to work out, well, in which direction am I going to target this?

So I can definitely see the advantage to corral these people in one spot.

um to make it more more targeted for the sales agent yeah like when i was selling i was sold a property and it was that the buyer was introduced by a co-agent so we split the com but the buyer was a buyer had a buyer's agent i just didn't have a relationship with that buyer's agent so i ended up splitting the fee if i knew that they had that brief i could have kept my whole fee

Because I was talking to an auctioneer only a couple of weeks ago who does quite a bit in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, right? And, you know, this could well be something that happens in other areas as well, but it's sort of a bit renowned. A lot of agents never get that.

They will list a property for auction. So we're getting on market back. We're talking on market, not off market here.

They'll list a property for auction, but they'll never actually get to auction because those agents have a method by which they basically will pin buyers' feats to the floor and they'll sell most of their properties beforehand. So they pay the auctioneer.

That's all paid for in the marketing, but the auctioneer never actually has to do a job. Great gig, really, when you think about it. But You know, is it that great?

I mean, and he was sort of nudge, nudge, wink, wink about a collusion that is occurring between some buyers agents and some sales agents. So there's off market deals that never would even hit this sort of portal because they're sort of got this cozy little relationship that goes on.

Is that something you're trying to attack or is that something you're aware of?

Yeah, well, that's always going to happen, right? Initially, when we started this, some buyers agents were concerned because, wait, you're going to put all of the off markets and make it an even playing field on one platform for all the buyers agency.

I've spent so long cultivating my relationships with the selling agents in my core area. So, there was a little bit scary for them about the idea of this. But it doesn't take away the relationship-based nature of what you do because you're

If I'm the selling agent and that's on quiet list and I've done a deal with Veronica and her brief matches my listing and Chris Soto's yours, I'm probably going to call her first anyway because I know that we've done a deal together and I know that she can perform to a transaction.

It doesn't mean I'm going to exclude you, but we have a relationship that you don't. So it's still going to come back down. If you come through with the buyer in the end, great. I'll know that moving forward, but I don't want to make a private appointment to you because I'm...

I don't know, I've got this nightmare vendor and, you know, I need to go tried and trusted rather than new, but I'll still get you through when I'm getting the other buyer's agents through. Does that make sense?

Do you imagine it's going to go, like, because they have to get the sales agreement right, do you think that you'll have, like, a... I don't know, like an archive function, you know, like live listings versus like semi-watt off markets.

Like, you know, we've got these properties that are, you know, they want to sell, but they're holding out for certain prices.

You know, like, is it like- We label on the platform like pre and off. Like if an agent says, look, it's pre, like we're just going to put it on for a week. We want to see what matches we're getting based on the buyer briefs out there.

And then we're actually like, we're scheduled to do our first Saturday open home in two weeks.

But maybe like a kind of off market. It's kind of like... Opportunistic. Do you have an opportunistic label? Yeah. Like where it's, you know, oh, we haven't done a sign to sales agreement.

I know we've got like three, this type of property on this street that's really keen to sell at 3.5, but they're just not committing to a sales agreement. Like, do you see there's going to be like a second tier of...

You know, because if, for example, you know, you've got a buyer's agent and he's got a brief, right? I want to buy this part of the suburb at 3.5. That just starts the conversation between the, you know, the agent and this buyer's agent.

It's like, no, our client really wants to be on that street and is probably happy to meet that seller's price because they really want to buy on that five property. You know what I mean? Like, it's kind of, it's almost like a matchmaking service thing

Where the agent can then really go in and go, look, I'm not just, you know, putting something in your letterbox pretending I've got buyers. I've got a buyer's agent here. I know there was. Totally. Yeah.

Is that where you're heading? And that's why we built that side for the real estate agent because you don't have to put up a listing to see all the buyer briefs.

Yeah. Okay. So, you know, you've gone through an appraisal. You know that those people, that's where you're thinking about. So, you go to them and say, you know what? We've got three buyer's agents that have got briefs that would sit this appraisal.

I mean, this is the thing too because- That's what I want for the real estate. That's how I want them to use it. I want them to go on and look at that there's 10 briefs in Balmain for whatever and then go and prospect from it. Go and door knock.

These are motivated buyers in the market. They're paid the engagement fee. They're looking to buy. Because on the brief, it's like an image tile. Veronica, you would see the briefs that people put out on social media. The brief has color to it.

It's like they only will do cosmetic renos, only north-facing or whatever. And often they'll be like, they've sold. They need to purchase. They've got a four-month settlement. They need to buy something. So the agents, the real estate agents, should be prospecting off those briefs.

Put up a listing, great, because then it'll match based on any new briefs that go on. But go on and just prospect off it because they're all, as they say, don't burn a lead, right? It's a platform of leads for real estate agents.

So does this sort of feed into that, you know, so the buyer's agents, a lot of new buyer's agents already oversell this off-market thing anyway. So this is almost quarantining a chunk of the market to say, well, we're going to lock everybody else out, you know.

So you have to, that sort of feeds into this terrible sales pitch that I hate, which is buyer's agents, I'm going to get you access to properties that nobody else can get access to.

You know, if an agent puts it on their – say they're Ray White and they put it on their own portal and they put it on Quietlist, is that something that happens or is it something that – They can do that.

They just can't be on a consumer-facing portal.

Got it. So it's just before they go on realestate.com.au or domain.

You don't count the rest. Whatever. Yeah, yeah. All the other portals. Yeah. The idea is that – We're advocates for buyer's agents. We think that they have a very good value add in the ecosystem.

We couldn't just have it to the general public because I know, to your point, buyer's agents shouldn't sell themselves short and pitch solely on their access to off markets. They add so much more value beyond that. Well, they should. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

But if that's how they pitch themselves and they're pitching themselves short, a vendor who wants to do a quiet sale wouldn't put their house on the platform if it was available to all and sundry because then they would just put it on a major portal anyway. Yeah.

Here's the thing too, though. I mean, we get vendors approaching us and my business saying, oh, I've got this property and I'm wondering if, you know, you've got a client for it. I'm like, I don't want to deal with vendors like that. You don't want to deal with that.

And, you know, and when we're negotiating with somebody to buy a property, I much prefer to negotiate with a sales agent than with a highly emotional vendor who's really precious about their property. They're a bloody nightmare. There used to be this, was it Air List? There was a platform which was sort of.

Property whispers.

There's a few of these.

Yeah, consumer facing.

Yeah, listing frequent property whispers. They're still around, but they're direct to consumer and they try and cut out the agent or both agents.

Yes. Yeah. And so it was funny because, you know, I look at these, they'd come across and I'd go, oh, look, I'll see what is on these portals. And hilariously, there was one of them had a two bedroom house in Birch Grove.

And Birch Grove is a little tiny point at the end of the tip of Balmain. A lot of properties do have harbour views and views across the city. And there's a lot of sort of workers cottages right up to waterfronts. Right.

And so this was one of those two-bedroom workers' cottages that did actually have a view of the city, a $10 million price tag. Now, this was a number of years ago, but even today, that property would not get $10 million, nowhere near it, right? And it just cracked me up.

And then it just got piled on by developers. It piled on all their shit stock that they weren't able to move, right? And I thought, what a worthless platform. And I think it does need the agents to be involved to make sure that it does have some value.

Like you're saying, they've got to have – and an agent isn't going to waste their time putting on a two-bedroom house in Birchgrove with a $10 million asking price. They're just not even going to get out of bed to try to help that person sell their house.

So I think that sort of – I can see that there's some pragmatism, I guess, that in your approach –

I guess there's a lot of misreading of the problem out there in the tech space, in real estate, and I've said this many, many times, but in this off-market thing, because every buyer who has unrealistic price expectations in terms of what they can get for their money thinks that off-market is their solution, right?

They think that it's like... oh, I know, I'm just missing this hidden market. That's why I can't get what I want for less money than the rest of the market is prepared to pay. Do you know what I mean? So there's always some realistic expectations, both vendor and buyer.

So I think this is quite interesting that it does bring the professionals together.

Yeah, I think they're the key part of this whole element because going back to the start, as the data showed, this was already happening, these deals, this percentage of deals within the market before our platform was even up and running.

So you're enabling.

So we're just trying to connect the two.

But I guess some of your posts, I was thinking that, oh, there's rising off markets. I'm thinking, yeah, really? I'm not sure about that.

Yeah, no, we're definitely not saying rise. We're just saying, here's the data. This is what we found and what- what we've uncovered.

This is what we think could be a really good solution to try and ensure that every buyer's agent or every real estate agent is getting that off-market deal in front of the right buyer's agent audience and not just the four that they know because they've done deals with them.

See, looking ahead though, I know, you know, you've talked to enough real estate agents and you know that they generally hate the red brand. You know, the REA group is dominant and they don't really like dealing with them. You know, that's sort of the common feeling.

They're a bit more ambivalent towards the green brand, but the red brand in particular. And You know, there's actually some legal action.

I think the RAI in New South Wales, I think, is involved in some action or reported them to the ACCC over sort of unfair pricing and other things, which we probably should put a call out, Tim. Tim McGivern, if you're listening to this, we should get you on to talk about that.

But why I've raised that is because sales agents would be looking – or agencies would be looking at ways – to cut out that type of market dominance to work around it. Do you think, is there a potential, I guess, for a change in the way properties come to market?

Say in an auction-dominated area like Sydney, could you envisage that that would change as a result of sort of a... you know, more focus on quiet listings?

Perhaps. I think that there is still – there's a reason why this is 20% of the market, right? Like as you talked about in the beginning, like that auction day, that selling agent, they want to get the exposure. They want to meet the new buyers.

Auction is a very transparent way to often get a really good result. I think that going back to your red and green –

analogy that the vendors need another avenue it can't just be this is how much it costs this is the four-week campaign this is what it is because every situation is different and there has to be a way to at least try or amplify their what they want to do in terms of the sale of their property outside of those

to main players and that set formula and the exorbitant costs that go with it.

So with the rise of AI, right, you know, people can get into ChatGPT now and look for listings. And I guess they won't be able to access yours because it's a locked platform. So, you know, that will be hidden to them.

But, you know, because, you know, I think that's probably more of a threat to the portals possibly than your portal. Your platform would be the very fact that you can go and – AI democratizes this data.

Other people will pay to put it up there, but I'm not necessarily using that platform to find out about it maybe.

Well, it goes back to the agents' own websites being perhaps a major player again.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

William, can you give us a property Dumbo, mate? My property Dumbo, it's not a personal experience. It's an observation that might be helpful for your listeners. Is it...

When it comes to probably like everyone's got a recommendation and some of them are good and some of them are bad, I think the one that gets overlooked the most is someone's mother's brother's cousin as their conveyancer or solicitor.

Particularly in Sydney, sometimes it's not necessarily the budget that makes you miss out on the deal. It's the speed of the transaction. And if your solicitor or conveyancer is in a mediation or just isn't doing- In court? Yeah.

You just need to go with someone who can review a contract in a timely and professional manner to, so you're at least in the running to get it to going back to your point. These things aren't always going all the way to auction.

And if someone's afraid you just some solicitor who's in a mediation for the next two days, guess what? You're not going to buy it and you might be able to afford it. So that would be my jumbo of the week. Like,

Check your buyer's agent, check your real estate agent, but also figure out who is the best solicitor and how quickly can they come back to you because the speed at which you can transact property is lightning in your seven hours at least.

I mean, in that same vein, I'm not going to give too much information away because it's just wrapping up now, but... Just don't use the conveyance that a real estate agent recommends as well. No.

Yeah, it gets... And then you find out that, you know, the property you're buying you want, which has got issues, and you see photos of the real estate agent and the conveyance all over Facebook and Instagram and...

Is this your Dumbo, Chris?

No, not me. No, no, no. It's a client that's just dealt with this issue in the last week or so and had to get another conveyancer, right? But he got a bit awkward. He was like, you know, oh, God, I realize that you're just basically in bed with this agent.

And it was really because, you know, when you highlight real issues with the property, like we're talking. Yeah.

Yeah, this is like building issues. Like, you know, the conveys are in a really awkward position here as well, right? But you could see there was a huge hiding of information and, yeah, and it was kind of like, yeah, how did you find out the excavator was through the agent? Ah, right, okay.

Yeah. And a buyer doesn't think about it until they're like, okay, what's a 66W? What are all these things that I need to have yesterday type thing? Getting someone to review a contract, they're just happy they've found something that they like and they want to buy and they might be able to afford.

The solicitor is not even in focus for them. And then often they'll just miss out because they get a recommendation from someone and it's unfortunate, but it happens all the time.

And also you see some solicitors that aren't necessarily very commercial. And so they actually get in the way of a deal by insisting on these ridiculous contract changes. And you go, how important is that really? Come on.

I mean, I know you're flexing your muscle, but are you really representing your client's best interests here? And so you've got to sort of

balance all of that out I'm amazed at you know the contract review what does that even mean so like in our business you know we often we recommend there's a handful of conveyances and solicitors that we would recommend sometimes our clients choose one of those sometimes they bring in their own and I've seen you know we send the contract off for review fairly early in the piece too because if there's deal breakers there or things that we need to investigate we need time to do that

And we want to be ready. If something's going to be selling prior to auction, we want to be able to either drive it or respond to that accordingly or hold back, wait for whatever's appropriate. But sometimes we found there's an additional question to ask the solicitor or the conveyancer.

You send it off for review, they come back with very little. And so you say, right, so on the basis of that review, would you recommend our client sign with the 66W? Oh, no, I'd be asking for all these things.

changes right and I'm like oh my god like you know so you think if a solicitor comes back says oh yeah it's good to go it's all good you mean it's good to sign but they don't always mean that so it's it's quite an interesting little tiny nuance but something that we put into our process a long long time ago to make sure we didn't get to the wire and then all of a sudden then the solicitor says oh no you want all these changes you know very late in the case and you think you're ready you think you're ready so yeah.

But let's have you back next year, mate, once you've got your Melbourne and Brisbane. Yeah, with our new data set.

I'll be able to tell you if it's a trend then or if it's just an observation.

Yeah, it'll be very interesting. And also the differences in different markets. You know, there's different drivers and different behaviours. So it would be interesting to know.

Cool. Talk soon. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for your time, guys. If you have a question that you'd like us to answer in an upcoming Q&A episode, you can send us a voicemail or written question via the website, theelephantintheroom.com.au, or you can email us directly at questions at theelephantintheroom.com.au.

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