The market does not send you an email before it changes.
One month buyers are queuing at open homes and multiple offers are doing the heavy lifting. The next month enquiry slows, days on market stretch out and yesterday’s methods stop producing the same result.
A strong market can hide weak habits. A shifting market exposes them.
I recently sat down with Christian Bartley for The Shifting Market Playbook webinar, which you can watch in full below. Christian built Bellarine Property into one of Australia’s top 20 agencies and achieved an 80 per cent market share in Barwon Heads.
This was not theory. It was a practical conversation about creating buyers, educating sellers, reviving campaigns, and turning a database into listing opportunities.
Watch the full webinar replay below – then download the free Shifting Market Action Workbook to work through the key ideas and put them into practice inside your own business.
1. Stop waiting for momentum
In a strong market, agents can become order-takers. Upload the property, wait for portal traffic and sort through the offers. A shifting market rewards the agents who create activity.
The question each morning is not, “Who can I list today?” It is, “Who can I help today?” Educate people about buyer demand, days on market, finance and what the latest sales are saying. The useful and honest agent becomes the trusted adviser.
In a slower market, the agents who win are rarely searching for a magic script. They are doing the basics, doing them well and doing them consistently: more conversations, better follow-up and clearer advice.
KEY PRINCIPLE
Your database becomes your business, your communication becomes your marketing, and your consistency becomes your competitive advantage.
2. Manage sellers with evidence, not opinion
Vendor management begins before the property launches. If open-home numbers are down, finance is slower or zero enquiry is possible, prepare the seller. Realistic expectations are not negativity. They are leadership.
Use seven points of contact in the first seven days. Keep the seller informed about:
- The launch and the buyers being targeted.
- Enquiry levels, even when the number is zero.
- Open-home attendance and buyer feedback.
- Follow-up activity and your recommendation on what happens next.
A seller can debate an agent’s opinion. It is much harder to debate the market. LockedOn’s Vendor Portal gives sellers 24-hour access to buyer inspections, feedback and campaign activity. It also helps the agent see when a vendor is engaging and may need a conversation.
When an offer eventually arrives below the seller’s expectations, the owner has already seen the activity and evidence. They know you have done the work, which makes the next decision easier to navigate.
Technology should not replace vendor calls. It should improve their timing and the evidence behind them.
AARON’S RULE
An informed seller makes an informed decision. An uninformed seller makes an uninformed decision.
3. Reinvigorate the listing before it becomes stale
In a fast-changing market, a price that looked right three months ago may not look right today. Buyers like property the way they like bread: fresh.
If a campaign has stalled, complete a fresh four-step review:
- Reassess the value. Use the latest relevant sales and current competition.
- Audit the activity. Review enquiry, inspections, offers, feedback and days on market.
- Meet the seller. Clarify motivation, timeframe and the cost of remaining unsold.
- Reset the campaign. Review the hero image, headline, open-home time, method of sale, price position and communication plan.
The property may not only be poorly priced. It may be poorly managed. Refresh every controllable part of the campaign, build the evidence and then have the price conversation the campaign requires.
CAMPAIGN ALIGNMENT DIALOGUE
“I take responsibility for the advice I gave you at the beginning. We now have live evidence from this campaign, and buyers are not seeing value at the current position. My advice is that we reposition to the level supported by today’s evidence.”
A property is for sale in competition, not in isolation. The owner’s desired price matters, but so does every alternative available to the buyer.
4. Stop waiting for buyers and start creating them
When organic portal traffic slows, agents need to create self-driven traffic. Christian and I used almost the same three-step process:
- Tuesday or Wednesday: Send a targeted property email to the relevant buyers.
- Thursday: Identify the people who clicked and send them a personal SMS invitation.
- Friday: Call the most engaged buyers and invite them to the open home.
By Saturday, the buyer has received an email, a relevant SMS and a human invitation. They are no longer cold portal traffic.
LockedOn makes the process practical by showing opens and clicks, helping agents identify who to retarget and turning engagement into a focused call list.
BUYER MESSAGE
“We are meeting with the owners after Saturday’s open home and presenting all current interest. If the property remains in your consideration, please let me know before that meeting.”
Be precise. You are presenting interest, not pretending offers exist. A response gives you potential buyers. No response gives you valuable evidence for the vendor meeting.
Turn buyer engagement into your next action
See how LockedOn helps your team identify engaged buyers and create more self-driven buyer activity. Book your one-on-one LockedOn Demo here.
5. Turn your database into your business
Christian kept three priority lists in front of him:
- Hot buyers: people able to buy tomorrow if the right property appears.
- Potential sellers: owners likely to sell within the next 12 months.
- Buyer-seller conversions: buyers who must sell, upgrade or downsize to move.
Start with your 10 before 10 and call the best opportunities before the day becomes reactive. A database is not valuable because it contains names. It is valuable because it creates the next conversation.
Most agents already have future sellers sitting inside their database. The problem is often not lead generation. It is that those people receive too little useful communication and the agent cannot see who is becoming more engaged.
LockedOn’s automated Digital CMA sends personalised market information to potential sellers on a chosen schedule, shows who is engaging and gives owners a pathway to request an appraisal.
PROOF POINT
Christian’s first Digital CMA campaign generated 34 appraisal enquiries from people already inside the database.
Automate the communication that should not depend on memory: just listed, just sold, market reports, anniversaries, birthdays, reminders and routine updates. That gives agents more time to list, sell, negotiate and have the conversations that matter.
6. Make education your next prospecting campaign
Christian’s final advice was simple: call the people in your pipeline and educate them about the market. Do not lead with, “Are you ready to list?” Lead with questions that help you understand what has changed.
- What are your property plans over the next 12 to 18 months?
- How are you feeling about the current market?
- Would updated local sales or value information help you make a better decision?
Explain what is happening with buyer demand, stock levels, days on market and finance. Offer advice and earn the trust before asking for the business.
Five actions to take in the next seven days
- Audit every current listing. Review price, competition, activity and vendor motivation.
- Activate the Vendor Portal. Make campaign activity visible and establish seven early touchpoints.
- Run the buyer campaign. Email, targeted SMS and personal call.
- Build the three priority lists. Then complete your 10 before 10.
- Automate one repeated activity. Choose a touchpoint currently relying on memory and build it into LockedOn.
Is your CRM helping you compete, or holding you back?
Christian has used LockedOn since 2014. Twice he tried alternative CRM platforms. Twice he returned. The reasons were straightforward: usability, team adoption, automation and the Vendor Portal.
If you love your current CRM and it is doing everything you need, stay with it. Otherwise, ask:
- Is our database generating regular appraisal opportunities?
- Can we immediately identify engaged buyers and sellers?
- Can vendors access live campaign feedback in one place?
- Are our most important client touchpoints automated?
- Does the whole team use the CRM consistently?
If several answers are no, your database may contain opportunities your current system is not helping you uncover.
LockedOn brings CRM, automation and marketing together in one real estate platform designed to nurture leads into listings. See the Digital CMA, Vendor Portal, engagement tracking and automated workflows working together in a live demonstration.
Download the free Shifting Market Action Workbook
Want to put the playbook into action? Complete the workbook as you watch the replay to score your current approach, build more consistent systems, and create a seven-day implementation plan for your business.
See what your CRM should be doing for you
Book a one-on-one demonstration and discover how to turn more of the opportunities already inside your database into listings.
Let’s list and sell!
