Tensions among Sydney’s top-end agents brought to the fore
As the market dips, Sydney’s top-end estate agents are on edge and taking public potshots at each other.
Sydney’s top-end estate agents are on edge.
Their plentiful spring listings didn’t come, and many of the houses they signed up are not selling, and certainly not as quickly as they’d come to expect over the past two luxurious years. Sales commissions have shrunk – often delayed given extended settlement terms – and are increasingly discounted given fierce undercutting by rivals.
It has prompted heightened anxiety among eastern suburbs agents – which has resulted in them taking public potshots at their competitors, rather than just doing it behind the closed doors of their private pitches to get prestige listings.
Ben Collier at the ASX-listed The Agency recently took a swipe at Alexander Phillips at Pantzer Phillips Donnelley.
Asked to contribute to a newspaper profile on his competitor’s ranking as Sydney’s highest-selling agent on the annual Real Estate Business list since 2016, Collier just couldn’t hold back.
“I’m surprised he stopped at Sydney,” Collier said.
“I thought he has always claimed to be the best agent in the universe.” he added.
Last week Ray White veterans Craig Pontey and Michael Finger took off to the McGrath Double Bay office. Their Ray White managing director Elliott Placks decided against niceties as the 1988 Double Bay office franchisee founders depart the agency four years after Placks had bought them out.
“I’m surprised they’ve gone to a brand (McGrath) that’s losing market share and has had low exposure in this blue ribbon area,” Placks told one scribe.
True, and no doubt Double Bay’s non-performance was partly behind the recent McGrath update to shareholders that its next EBITDA advisory would be 50 per cent lower than at the same time last year.
But Placks’ farewell to the duo would never have been aired amid the civilities of yesteryear.
The increased candour among the industry has certainly been fuelled by Luxe Listings Sydney, the Amazon Prime docu-reality series that brazenly airs the competitive tensions between estate agencies.
Agents tell Competing Bids they don’t watch it – most out of embarrassment for the real estate industry, but some out of jealousy at the exposure the show’s agents are getting.
While much is concocted self-promotion, there’s obvious genuine tensions between the styles of estate agencies on the show. These tensions reached a crescendo in the third season finale while out partying on Mischief, the lavish rental yacht on Sydney Harbour.
“They are scum … insecure little boys” said agent D’Leanne Lewis of Gavin Rubinstein’s blokey TRG sales team, which she described as a “peacock fest”.
“I think it’s the culture in the real estate industry, that it’s like a boys’ club, no matter how big the boat, it’s just not big enough for some egos,” she said.
But Rubinstein counted.
“The last 30 years of D’Leanne’s career have just been about D’Leanne,” he suggested.
“I have always been about the team as a whole,” the former Ray White Double Bay agent said.
“I have built the best team in the country, I don’t think anybody else compares.”
The inner-Sydney BresicWhitney agency, which emerged 20 years ago with two operatives from the McGrath Group, seems to have had enough of the industry’s escalating descent.
They published an agency marketing campaign earlier this month promoting its merits as “Experience, not ego. Professionalism, not pomp. Creativity, not a camera crew.”
They suggest BresicWhitney is “not your typical estate agency” in these modern times.
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Ray White’s top listing
The nation’s top weekend result was withheld by the Ray White group. It was a $10m listing on Sydney’s Balmain peninsula that attracted close to 10,000 views on realestate.com.au. The whisper is that 12 Wilson St, Balmain East was bought by a cardiologist. It last sold at $850,000 in 1996.
There was an $11.5m top auction bid when James Crow from Morton Pyrmont passed in his Darling Island Road, Pyrmont offering in inner Sydney. With 298sq m of indoor/outdoor space, it last sold at $12m this time last year when bought by property developer, Crown Group’s co-founder Iwan Sunito.
The top advised price was at Strathfield, in Sydney’s inner west, when the seven-bedroom residence on 750sq m at 49 Cotswold Rd sold through Richardson & Wrench Strathfield agents Lawrence Chong and Chris Virgona for $6.61m. The developer bought the then 1500sq m corner site, with Federation house plus tennis court, in 2014 for $3.25m. Its 2019 development application gave its building costs as $1.92m for owners Xiaoqiang Xu and Danling Zhuang and $2.2m for the adjoining new build at 49a Cotswold Rd.
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Clearance rate slips
The national preliminary clearance rate slipped just below 60 per cent for the first time since August with 1908 auctions held last week, down from 2169 over the previous week and 3546 this time last year.
Adelaide had the strongest success at 68 per cent, including a $3.16m sale at West Beach where Kate Smith at Harcourts Smith had 15 registered bidders for a five-bedroom house on 1373sq m.
With 1501 results collected so far by CoreLogic, 59.8 per cent were successful across the nation.
With the Melbourne Cup Carnival distraction, a reduced 494 results in Melbourne saw 60.7 per cent successful. Its top sale was Lexton, an 1880s double-fronted four-bedroom Rathdowne St, Carlton North house, sold through Abercromby’s agent Simon Curtain at $3.63m. The guidance had been $2.7m-$2.9m for the home of the late dentist, poet and photographer Peter Brown, whose ornament collection, including 158 wine decanters, were cleared out ahead of its styling.
There were four bidders after the opening $2.7m vendor bid with the next bid at $3m. It was called on the market at $3.03m, having last sold at $372,000 in 1997.
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Auctions on rise
There were 762 auctions in Sydney last week, up from 632 the prior week, and its 62 per cent success rate was up slightly.
The withdrawal rate sat at 18 per cent, including a Wolaroi Crescent, Tamarama home listing with $20m hopes with its auction pushed back to November 12.
PropTrack calculates steady volume this week, but Goldman Sachs’s Zac Fletcher, has sold his Rose Bay mansion pre-auction.
Listed with $25m hopes, the three-level, five-bedroom, five-bathroom residence, designed by architect Andre Baroukh on Chamberlain Ave, features a six-car garage, plus home office and gym. It was built in 2012 after its $1.8m development approval. The whisper is Zac and wife Kathryn, who bought the 700sq m block for $5.2m in 2007, are off to Point Piper.
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