Real Estate Agents are door knocking like CRAZY

Real estate agents are in a battle to coax home owners in regional Australia to sell up.

Agents say they have never seen rivalry so fierce with big rewards on offer in the booming rural housing market, especially in areas within commuting distance of the capital cities.

Some agencies are now paying sales staff more in commission to secure new listings than for the actual sales. The commission is paid when a home is sold.

Agencies have ramped up some traditional tactics and are trying out some new ones as well after exhausting their inventories.

“Selling a house in the country is not the problem at the moment,” veteran Ballarat agent and Real Estate Institute of Victoria member Trevor Petrie said.

“For every successful sale, and there’s been a lot of them, there are three or four people missing out who want to move to the country, we are all trying to find houses for them.”

Today’s “ramped up” tricks of the trade are:

• Letter drops – free appraisals for existing homes, particularly in neighbourhoods with recent sales.
• Door knocking – on-the-spot appraisals of home values, again in proximity to recent successes.
• Phone calls – calls from agents who may have listed the property or even sold the property to the current owner in previous years.
• Phone calls – rental admin staff calling landlords to advise of rising house prices.
• Commission to salespeople – increased payments for signing up new listings.

The competition in regional Australia for find homes to sell is white-hot.

Homes in regional areas, particularly those within commuting distance of metropolitan areas, are selling fast with owners keen to cash in on the 20 per cent rise in values over the past year.

There are still no signs of any slowdown to the rush to regional areas – courtesy of record low interest rates and the pandemic-induced escape from the cities.