Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk: Find an agent BEFORE you need one

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

There is no doubt there have been a lot of changes in the last few decades in how we buy a family home, invest in property or sell a property.  Technology has played a big part in shaping those changes.   One thing that has not changed though - despite technology – is the significance of getting the right agent.  Property marketing is like fashion trends - forever evolving and changing.   Likewise, agents are constantly looking for ways to stand out.  The goal of every agent is to stand out enough, so they are called in for advice by any potential seller.  This scramble to self-promote by agents can lead to confusion for a seller looking for the best agent. NEW – Join the Property Hub community on Substack! Sign up to get Australian property news, opinion, and episodes in your inbox: https://propertyhubau.substack.com/ Subscribe to RealtyTalk on the Property Hub channel: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Email Property Hub is a collaboration between Bushy Martin from KnowHow Property, Kevin Turner from Realty, Andrew Montesi from Apiro Marketing and Apiro Media, and Australia’s largest independent podcast network DM Media. Business and partnership enquiries: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What I've noticed is there's no real end-to-end solution. So a lot of prop tech businesses aiming to solve part of the problem only and really just agents left disillusioned and which in turn leaves consumers disillusioned when it comes to how to find the information they need to determine whether it is selling their property, renting their property and actually coming to market. Hello and welcome. That's my guest for this week. That's Daniel Street. More about Daniel in a moment. What's that saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Hello, I'm Kevin Turner and welcome to this week's Realty Talk show. Well, there is no doubt whatsoever that there's been a lot of changes in the last few decades in how we buy a family home, how we invest in property or how we sell a property. Technology, of course, has played a very big part in shaping those changes. One thing that really hasn't changed, though, despite technology, is the significance of getting the right agent. Property marketing is a bit like fashion trends. It's forever evolving and ever-changing.

Likewise, agents are constantly looking for ways to stand out. The goal for every agent is to stand out so that they are called in for advice by any potential seller. Now, that scramble for self-promotion by agents can lead to confusion for a seller looking for the very best agent. Given that the selection of an agent is probably the most important decision a seller's going to have to make ahead of price and method of sale, it's great to hear that there is about to be a new holistic marketing platform for agents

that's going to help sellers achieve that first critical step and eliminate false and misleading recommendations by agent finder type websites. More on that in just a moment with my guest for this week, Daniel Streak. Hey, if this is your first time with us, welcome. You're going to find us on all podcast players and through the Southern Cross Ulsterio Network. If you like the show, make sure you hit the subscribe button and help us continue to bring you the best guests each week. I'll be back in just a moment to kick off this week's show. Successful property investment is a game of finance. Do you have the right team and the right game plan? Realty Talk is brought to you by know how property more than mortgage brokers bushy martin and his team of

investment architects set you up with a sustainable strategy structured to lower your costs tax risk and stress while increasing your capacity for growth know how has helped over 1900 homeowners and investors secure more than $800 million in property wealth. So get set to live more, work less, and live your legacy. Want to know how to invest in your freedom? Visit knowhowproperty.com.au. This is Realty Talk, powered by realty.com.au. I'm joined by Daniel Streak from Realty Media Group. And in my introduction to today's show, I touched on a new holistic marketing platform for agents that's going to connect buyers, sellers and agents. And I guess more importantly, it allows for some direct interaction, communication on social media between all parties.

Now, what that's going to do is dramatically help all of the agents profile themselves so that there's no third party in the middle. they're dealing directly with you as a buyer or you as a seller. It's going to give them the opportunity then to, I guess, profile themselves fairly and honestly instead of consumers being recommended agents who actually pay for the privilege. And that's what happens currently with agent recommendation sites. So this is going to be a little bit different. They've taken a different stance on this, and I think it's great.

So I want to dig a little deeper into this. And Daniel Streak from Realty Media Group joins me. Daniel, thanks for your time. Thanks. Great to be here, Kevin. Just a disclaimer to start with, of course, Realty Media Group, one of the sponsors of our show, one of our supporters. And that's why we know a little bit more about this in its pre-launch stage. So I'm just keen to dig a little bit more into this, Daniel.

So I just wanted to get that disclosure up front. tell me about the frustrations and the challenges that have led to this development and why do you think it's necessary for this to happen yeah look i think it's important um in the fragmented digital landscape that we all operate in and this is from an agent's perspective and a consumer's perspective trying to find um what's actually going to add value and help someone transact in real estate are i think really big challenges for all parties involved when it comes to real estate. So what I've seen over my years as an agent, and now sort of working within the prop tech space with Realty Media Group in particular, is that there's a real opportunity for us to both

help an agent put their best foot forward when it comes to their digital presence online. And ideally, what I've noticed is there's no real end to end solution. So a lot of prop tech businesses aiming to solve part of the problem only, and really just agents left disillusioned, which in turn leaves consumers disillusioned when it comes to how to find the information they need to determine whether it is selling their property, renting their property and actually coming to market. So there's a lot of resistance, hesitation to jump out

and reach out to an agent because you just don't know what to believe. That's the point I was making at the start there too about honestly being able to assess agents rather than what they tell you because agents are really good it's selling themselves but the proof's in the pudding you know if if social media the interesting other interesting point here too daniel i think is with with social media uh we've now got the opportunity to know a lot more about people a lot more about agents and see how they're interacting

how they're communicating so in effect someone is likely to have an agent who they've decided to list with who they may never have met yeah yeah they feel like they know them i think it's about building that digital trust um over time so that reach and frequency that you can sort of deliver through the digital space it's a bit like the old newspaper where people used to open up and see consistently every week that brand that business in front of an audience um digital is the same and i think agents have been treating it a bit differently um they sort of dip their toe into social and they don't necessarily then um create that behavior and consistency with everything they do so agents that are doing it extremely well are being rewarded because

consumers do engage trust and when they bring them into their living room as you said i've done the research and homework so now they're almost just sort of ticking a couple of boxes to make sure they feel comfortable to move forward with them so you're spot on it's important that they can use these tools to build their presence their profile and the trust digitally well before they get in the living room it's interesting you know uh five six maybe even ten years ago i don't know how long social media's been around but when it first came out there was this big debate about you know can you really sell property on social media no you can't you know you've got to it's got to be an agent involved but it's it's interesting and then of course we saw people

coming on and photographs with their dog and all that kind of stuff we've been through all of that but tell me um as we move on how how is social media being utilized to market property and how is it you know how is it working yeah so yeah like you said there's there's clever ways you can can use social media and whether it's to get the latest cat men out there or whether it's to really um create um yeah that that feeling and emotion and connect people to property i think is where i see the magic happen so um with social you can do everything from just popping your properties up as soon as they list um so they're things as well it can take agents time to sort of build that creative and content and publish that. We've really sort of honed in to be able to make sure

that is done very timely and can be done automated for an agent as well. So they can focus on creating that wow content, that trust content, comes through video and comes through that education information they provide, where getting the basics right and that consistency is something that we can really help with here at Realty Media Group. So I think when it comes to property marketing it's important that each property is given an opportunity to appear on social it can be very targeted so geographically demographically targeted and that's probably a strength of the business here is around not relying on just an active portal whether the buyers that are online or are using those tools we want to reach someone who's not in real estate

mode yet we want to reach someone who's just sort of curious who's having those conversations around the Netflix episode in between finding their next one is to ultimately determine, yes, we need a bigger house, a smaller house, or what have you, and then those properties seeking them out. I think that's the magic as well, using things like AI now to position the right property in front of the right person at the right time, and we can leverage a lot of this big data

and a lot of the habits that are built and the way people search to position property in front of them rather than rely on them searching for property. So that's how I'd be using social effectively is to make sure your properties are available. And these can be done strategically, even using things like coming soon campaigns where it's not going to damage the property's reputation in the market. As soon as you put a property online to a portal, that's captured, that's date stamped, and that price and the way that property is being promoted is out there forever, basically. So when it comes to how can we create the best first impression for a property, sometimes it is testing the market through a social campaign because an ad will appear and then it will disappear after that duration has run. and gives great data and insight to an agent and a consumer on getting the price right or getting the strategy right

or testing the best image to use through the campaign. So they're all clever ways I think you can leverage social because people are spending 80 times more of their time on social than they are actively searching on portals. I read some stats, interesting stats, about how much time people are spending online. You mentioned their portals, other portals, and, you know, elephant in the room,

we've got to talk about that realty media group does actually have its own portal um but i i guess this is a little bit different i'd like you to explain why that is the case and how you stand out from the realestate.com.au and domain um you know what what how are you actually helping an agent become that first point of contact yeah good good question and i think um it's the positioning a property uh further further afield um really understanding the the types of consumers that will have an interest in that property um like i said positioning that in front of them rather than relying on them discovering or finding the property so realty media group has been built for distribution keeping that in mind that it's about getting getting more eyeballs to see those

properties and doing it in a way that that traffic is is is basically sent wherever that agent wants so we want the agent to feel like they have control around the data and around the the way that person interacts with their business so that's sort of where we brought in the new agent platform is the ability for them to centralize all of their marketing efforts that really close that loop and allow an agent to to understand uh yeah where someone is on their real estate journey. So whether it is buying tomorrow because they've sold the property or whether it's just curiosity that they are thinking of selling and then looking to buy in that same suburban area, upsizing, downsizing once again. So when we can take that visitor from the agent's

website, we can then keep that brand front of mind with that audience. There was a reason why they clicked through, the consumers are clicking through to agents' ads because they're curious. They may not transact today or tomorrow, and that's what some agents struggle with, that they're always seeking that next transaction. So it is determining and helping agents to stay front of mind, build that mind share in their local markets so that it can help them grow their market share. Every agent is obviously it's a business they're looking to grow, to be profitable and those sort of things. And that's where we can really fit in is helping that agent stay front of mind during the whole time someone's... Yeah, in that journey. Because it is a journey, you know, and it does actually take time.

And I think the shift that I've noticed as well is this move from being transactional to a relationship. and you know one of the having been an agent myself one of the big problems was what we call peaks and troughs where you know you chase some listings and then you have to work like crazy to get them sold and when you do that you find that you need more listings so you go through this peaks and troughs of earning but I you know if you if you're building relationships and you're thinking more long term you touched on reach and frequency there which is a common media term you know constantly being out there becoming their agent before they even need one this seems to me to be the key for agents and doing what they're doing yeah i think it's just so noisy um online

these days as well so if you if you're not seen regularly um and you're not adding value during this journey like we say you're just not going to be on the shopping list and i think um there are lots of agents to choose from in your market and results are important um the the way they market property i believe is super important as an ex-agent as well marketing was very important to me and is why i got called in and chosen as the agent um was because of the strategy and the marketing and the urgency and competition that we can create through quality marketing so i don't think agents spend enough time explaining that anymore to sellers the importance of good marketing strategy very quickly it's a rushed discussion to what's your commission rate and what's the

marketing cost and it leaves consumers and sellers no reason to a struggle to choose who to go with because it just comes down to price where i think there's so much more to it and that's where i think there's is really a need to understand the power of marketing understand where consumers are spending time and then why their property needs to be looking its best and then promoted effectively. Well, Daniel, we'll be back in just a moment to answer the question that's probably running through your mind right now. And that is, will this replace the two big portals that we're currently relying on to find and sell a property? Daniel, we'll be back in just a moment to answer that this is realty talk property deductions can save you thousands of dollars

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more important to know what questions to ask. This book by Rasti is called the Property Wealth Blueprint. And it's one that you don't read just once and then put it away. It stays out as a reference. It's a book that you go back to time and time again, as I do, because it's packed with personal experience and with great examples of how to get property investment right. It's very Frank. It's to the point. And as you can see here, I've needed to bookmark several points. And I can tell you that it's a constant companion on my desk here. The remarkable thing is that it's absolutely free on Rasty's website, getrare.com.au. Get Rare. It's a gateway to a richer life. The website there for you again, getrare.com.au. So get this book, get it for yourself.

Realty Talk exclusive to The Property Hub. Welcome back. I continue to talk with my guest this week, Daniel Streak, about the agent ads profile platform for agents. It's going to help buyers and sellers understand more about their chosen agent or, in fact, how to best choose an agent. And given that Realty also has its own portal with listings from all over Australia, Right now, I asked Daniel if this is an attempt to replace realestate.com.au and domain.

Here's his response. No, I think it's an or rather than an end. I think they're the things now where consumers want a place to be able to jump on and do a lot of that filtering and those sort of things. But what we also know is that in markets where conditions change and there are more listings to choose from, you need to find ways to stand out and i think um that's where the power of ai and the power where we're really sort of leaning into is seek our properties seeking out the the right buyer um our our marketing and efforts here being able to position the right agent in front of the right seller at the right time they're the tools and technologies that we want to really hone in on

to give a point of difference so active portals absolutely will remain i believe we just need to change the balance of of um the the proportion of spend and making sure an agent is is having budget and um a consumer is considering budget for social media in particular yeah well the seller wants their property sold um you know the agent can direct that kind of budget but at the end of the day it's going to be about results so how how is it performing um yeah well So when you say and or, I assume you're saying that the portals will always have a place. But I'm just interested to know about costs.

Is this going to be an additional cost or do you see it being proportioned differently? It's a matter of return on investment, like you said. So really measuring and understanding the value you get from each piece of your marketing. And like even print, a lot of people say print's dead. print's making up very effective parts of agents campaigns where it's positioned uh positioned well used strategically uh timing those sort of things of when these uh parts of the campaign

are run so i'm a big believer of um yeah one chance of the first impression when your property comes to market so really sit down and understand if you want to create that level of urgency and competition and drive price up rather than driving price down which is common in any negotiation um that the strength and position we've been in is that there's been less properties and more buyers which often equates to higher prices automatically in growth in the market but as we see those conditions change and that sort of thing it's going to be more important than ever for an agent to be positioning their property above the rest so that may mean spending the most on on the portal listing it may mean delegating a subsizable amount and that that's the sort of thing which

I love about social it can be flexible so you might have a budget anywhere from $50 but more consistently around that sort of $500 over the set duration so depending on the number of days on market which you will know in your area you may only need two weeks of quality marketing to really test and generate the urgency and competition and offers you need in other markets you may need the full four weeks or so of a campaign and that might be because it's an auction as well so you're building up to so the flexibility of social is key as well where a lot of the time the portal listing component can just be a very much a large sum up front whether you need it or not so flexibility around social media can be very much key to why i believe it plays a

key role and can be brought in at different stages of campaign as well because of our close relationship i've done a considerable amount of reading about your product and you know while that's about to be launched as Profile Platform, it seems to me that, you know, one of the big pluses is where the traffic is driven. A lot of it comes back to control by the agent. You've mentioned that term a couple of times in terms of data and lead flow and so on.

As I understand it, all of this information is going to be brought together in a platform that will give the agent a lot more contact with the buyer and seller. Could you just explain a little bit more about how that works? Ultimately, a dashboard where they'll be able to see all of that interaction, whether it's just a view, which a view is going to create mindshare for that agent in the consumer's mind because their brand, their face, their content that they've positioned in market has been seen. That's sort of where the foundation is. From there, when you are investing and running ads through a platform, very much so, you can see a lot of granular detail around the analytics.

So you'll be able to tell that people are seeing it on mobile. They'll be able to tell what age range is most engaging in there. You're very much able to mix it up when it comes to your campaign. You can run short, sharp blasts of a campaign as well, really changing the messaging. We're working with some of the providers in market around getting dynamic data of changing bids or changing things that are coming through on properties to then promote the property slightly different. Once again, increasing urgency and competition and driving price up in a lot of cases as well. So that's where the future, I think, lies with a lot of this is how can we be more responsive and more dynamic in the way we deliver our advertising campaign? rather than often it's a set and forget maybe great photos are taken of a property they're

listed and they don't get changed during the whole campaign well we know the way netflix do this with um promotion of what you want to watch next based on your habits it'll perhaps show a certain actor as the lead image on the netflix um screen for you which makes you then might want to watch that uh show over another because it knows the type of shows you've watched previously so once again it's all of this big data coming together but genuinely delivering insights for an agent to make better decisions rather than just data that's hard to act on insights that can help change a campaign or help an agent with future campaigns just on that point i i do want to write because this is a this is a consumer type show so i imagine the bulk of our viewers are buyers and

sellers it seems to me this product you know while uh it's a great benefit to agents because they'll get access to a lot more data and understand how they can market a property better. A consumer probably isn't going to see a lot of this product, but they will certainly benefit from it because of the education it's giving them. Have I read that correctly? Yeah, you have. But also, I think, don't be afraid to ask an agent around some of the statistics and data that's available, because if they don't know it, they should be able to find out. And this is where tools like what we're bringing to market is it'd be quite reasonable for an agent

to show this to a potential seller and give them the confidence of why they should be considering this part of their marketing strategy as social and why this amount of money is going to be best spent on social based on case studies results that they've achieved. So that's where I think our platform will evolve

and perhaps give the agent the ability to compile these case studies and deliver that information in the living room. So whether that's on their phone screen, on a tablet screen or those sorts of things, or be able to share that after an appraisal, after an opportunity where they've sat down to discuss the value of your property.

Daniel, it's great talking to you. Thank you so much. For any agents, and I know we do have some agents watching the show, if you'd like to make contact, is there a website? Yeah, we do. We do have a website.

So agentads.io website. Daniel Streak, thanks very much for your time. Thank you. Successful property investment is a game of finance. Do you have the right team and the right game plan? Realty Talk is brought to you by KnowHow Property. More than mortgage brokers, Bushy Martin and his team of investment architects set you up with a sustainable strategy structured to lower your costs, tax, risk and stress while increasing your capacity for growth. Know How has helped over 1,900 homeowners and investors secure more than $800 million in property wealth.

So get set to live more, work less and live your legacy. Want to know how to invest in your freedom? Visit knowhowproperty.com.au Subscribe now to Realty Talk. It's out every week. And that brings us to the end of this week's show. A big thanks to Daniel Streak from Realty Media Group. Make sure you don't miss a single episode of Realty Talk

or Bushy's Get Invested podcast delivered to you each week. And you'll do that by subscribing to the Property Hub now on your favourite podcast player or wherever you're listening to or watching this show. Thanks to our supporters and content partners, realty.com.au, BMT, Tax Depreciation, Know How Property Finance, Get Rare Property and Apiro Marketing. I'm Kevin Turner and on behalf of Bushy Martin

and the Property Hub team, we look forward to seeing you again next week.