by Wes

I was at a barbecue on Saturday after a grueling day of Open Homes, balancing a paper plate like it owed me money, when someone asked it.

“What’s the market doing?”

Before I could answer, someone else chimed in.
“No seriously… what’s the market doing?”

Gym. Same question.
Coffee. Same question.
Scroll Instagram. Every second agent suddenly having an existential crisis about “looking after buyers.”

I nearly choked on my chicken wing.

Because… weren’t we doing that already?

Apparently not.

Now suddenly everyone has discovered that you need to call people back, explain things, maybe even… understand what buyers actually want. Revolutionary stuff.

I started my career in a market where nothing moved. Central Queensland. Same prices. Five years. Flatlined. Dead. You could list a house and grow old waiting for an offer.

There was no “hot market” to hide behind.
No frenzy. No FOMO. No magic.

You had to understand buyers. Properly.
What they value. What they fear. What they will actually pay for.

And then you had to position the property to match that. Not what the seller hoped. Not what the neighbour said. What the buyer would pay.

It was work.

So now when everyone is panicking because the market has a pulse again, I find it… amusing.

Back to the question.

What’s the market doing?

Honestly… who cares?

If you’re trying to squeeze some heroic, above-market, unicorn price out of a property you don’t even need to sell, then yes, maybe you should care. Maybe you should watch every rate movement like it’s a season finale.

But for normal people?
Upgrading. Downsizing. First home. Selling an investment.

You don’t need “the market.”
You need market value.

And that comes down to a few very unsexy things:

• Present the property properly
• Price it correctly
• Choose a good agent, not the cheapest one
• Actually do the work

That’s it.

Yes, the broader market affects confidence. It always does. Buyers get nervous, sellers get greedy, then everyone gets confused.

But you cannot control interest rates. You cannot control global economics. You cannot control what the Reserve Bank had for breakfast.

What you can control is your campaign.

And here’s the part people hate…

You also cannot predict this thing.

Late last year we were all planning for rate cuts in 2026. Champagne on ice.
Now we’re talking hikes again.

So much for certainty.

The most important timeline isn’t the market’s.
It’s yours.

When do you need to move?
What do you need to achieve?
What are you willing to do to get there?

Because the market will do whatever it wants.
It always has.

And the people who succeed in it are the ones who stop obsessing over it… and start focusing on what they can actually control.

Funny how that works.