15 Apr 2026
Words Trudy Crooks Informer

Jack Be Nimble, Vendors Be Quicker

The market right now is like a hypersonic rocket — fast and hot (much like this crazy world we’re living in!).

Normally, there’s a very clear delineation between calendar years. The market would enter a holding pattern in the lead up to Christmas, then pick up again in February — the second busiest listing period after the end of financial year in July/August.

That’s not the market we’re in. It’s like 2025 never finished and momentum has carried us into 2026.

I don’t need to tell you basic market fundamentals — supply and demand. This market is low supply and high demand. In the motel space, make that very high.

Some examples on our books:
Jindy Inn (75+ enquiries), (80+), Border Motel (85+), Cattle City Motor Inn (95+), Lakeside Tourist Park (95+), Ballina Homestead Motel (100+), Squatters Homestead Motel (110+), Motel Ingham (140+) and Southport Motel & Apartments (170+)!

These are just the assets we’ve listed on market. ResortBrokers is also doing a record number of deals off market.

We've always believed the best sale price is generated through competition. High demand is one thing, but a good agent is one who can harness high demand into the best possible price for their client.

In the off-market space, we’re doing that through invite-only campaigns to a select number of qualified buyers. That strategy has proved very successful for getting great sale prices for our clients in this market.

But you’ve got to price and present assets correctly.

If you take nothing else from this column, let it be this: in the current market, assets that are priced and presented correctly are selling — and fast.

Any agent telling you it takes up to eight weeks before they know whether an asset is priced correctly is doing you no favours. There’s no part of the country where it should take up to eight weeks to know whether you’ve priced your asset correctly — the market is just too hot!

The first few weeks of any campaign have always been the most critical. That’s particularly so in this market. Buyers are sophisticated, educated and have short attention spans. If you go to market with an overcooked price, you risk missing out on buyers who may have bought your asset if you’d priced it correctly. Those buyers just aren’t going to be there when the wheel goes around again.

The last thing you want in this market is a ‘stale’ listing — that’s a listing that languishes on the market so that buyers think there must be something wrong with it. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

In this fast-moving market, the only time to ‘slow down’ is at the start. We often get feedback from vendors who say we ask for more information than any other agency.

But the thing is we want to prepare you for success not failure. We’re trying to foresee problems ahead. Getting buyers is one thing; the other hurdle is getting deals past banks and valuers. If we’re not asking relevant questions, I guarantee they will be! This means we’ll be honest with you and sometimes tell you things you don’t want to hear. But it’s all designed to get you the best result.

It’s self-defeating to do otherwise! We simply don’t understand agencies that ‘buy listings’ by telling you what you want to hear. We don’t want to be constantly letting clients down with false promises.

We want to be transparent, and, ultimately, to exceed your price expectations.

That’s why we’ve invested so heavily into research and give our clients data-driven appraisals. We’re the only specialist accommodation property agency to have our own inhouse research department, which has at its disposal the industry’s largest database of sales — both ours and our competitors. If we get our price appraisals wrong, which sometimes happens (though not too often!), we’ll put our hand up and admit it — then quickly change tack and change our marketing strategy.

Whatever agency you engage to sell your asset, make sure they have the data to support their appraisal. Ask them to show you the sales they’re basing their analysis on. Because in this market, it may well be the difference between sales success and failure. END