Meighan Wells
REBAA Queensland Representative
Enquiry is down. Transactions are slower. Deals that would once have been signed in a week are sitting in the “still thinking about it” pile. If that’s your reality right now, you’re not alone.
I started selling real estate in 2002, when the market was racing, and launched Property Pursuit in late 2003, just as it began to cool. Since then, I’ve ridden the GFC, the Brisbane floods, a credit crunch, COVID and more rounds of tax reform than I care to count.
Every one of those challenging periods taught me the same thing: the businesses that came out stronger weren’t the lucky ones, but rather the operations that used the quiet to do the work they’d been too busy to do before.
A slowdown gives you back the one thing a hot market steals… time. The question is what you do with it.
Get brutally clear on three figures: revenue, expenses and debt. Not a rough idea, but actual numbers on a page in front of you.
Then work through your expenses line by line and sort them into three piles: cut, delay, or rejig. Software you signed up for during the boom and barely open. Supplier contracts you’ve never renegotiated because you never had to. A slow market is the right time to ask a supplier for better terms; they’re feeling it too.
I’ll also say something rarely said out loud in our industry. I have seen good, capable buyers’ agents not survive a downturn not because they weren’t good at the job, but because they didn’t do the maths early enough. Work out honestly how many months you can keep the doors open, and if the answer is uncomfortable, act while you still have choices. Closing on your own terms is a world away from having an administrator knocking on your door.
Most of us have a database full of people we haven’t spoken to properly in years. Past clients who bought in 2021 and have heard nothing since. Enquiries that went cold. Investors who were “waiting to see what happens” and are now watching a corrected market with real interest.
When you were flat out, you had a reason not to call. You don’t now. These conversations aren’t a pitch, they’re a check-in, and you’ll be surprised how many opportunities are already sitting in your own contact list.
Fix your marketing while you have the room
Right message, right target market, right platforms.
In a busy market, you’ll get leads almost in spite of your marketing. In a quiet market, the weak spots in your marketing will show up immediately.
Ask whether your content speaks to what your ideal client is worried about today, because it most certainly isn’t the same as what worried them 12 months ago.
Show up in the places where those buyers consume news and spend time demonstrating your expertise in their niche.
Put your people to work on the future
If your team has capacity, make sure they use that free time for prospecting and networking, not looking busy.
The same goes for your referrers. Brokers, accountants, planners and conveyancers are navigating the same conditions, so take them for coffee and ask what they’re seeing. Referral relationships are built in slow markets and harvested in fast ones, never the other way around.
Most of all… be kind to yourself
Downturns are draining in a way that’s hard to explain to anyone outside the industry. Look after your health, protect time with your family, and talk to people who understand the work.
Markets turn. They always have. The buyers’ agents who thrive in the next upcycle will be the ones who spent this one getting their house in order.
Meighan Wells is the founder and director of Property Pursuit buyers’ agency, and is REBAA’s recently appointed Queensland Representative.
