by wes

Blank page week two.

I have opened this laptop every morning with the intention of writing something insightful about the property market and then immediately closed it again to watch dog videos or look at air fryers I absolutely do not need.

Because the truth is every sentence I start typing sounds like one of those agents on TikTok screaming “NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO BUY!” while standing in front of a motivational quote and a leased BMW.

And honestly, I hate that.

Real estate is my actual daily life. It swallows my days whole. The calls, the buyers, the sellers, the negotiations, the panic, the excitement, the endless voice notes from people asking if they can “just steal it”. So naturally I probably lean towards optimism because I spend my days actively looking for solutions. That is literally the job.

But optimism and delusion are not the same thing.

Yes, the market has shifted. Yes, buyers are cautious. Yes, the media has turned every interest rate increase into the opening scene of an apocalypse movie. If you listened to some headlines you would think we are all living in abandoned ghost estates eating canned tuna by candlelight.

But that is not what I am seeing.

Properties are still selling. Good properties especially.

People still get divorced, married, transferred, retrenched, pregnant, overwhelmed, ambitious and nostalgic. Life does not stop because the market gets nervous. Buyers still want lifestyle. Families still want better schools. Empty nesters still want smaller homes. Young couples still want that first set of keys and an overpriced coffee machine they’ll use twice.

And we live in a ridiculously beautiful part of the world. People want to be here.

The difference now is that skill matters again.

You cannot just throw a property online with twelve dark cellphone photos and a “motivated seller” caption and expect six offers by Tuesday. Those fever-dream Covid years spoiled everyone. Agents included.

Now we actually have to work.

We have to understand pricing properly. We have to justify value. We have to negotiate well. We have to market creatively and manage emotions and expectations like underpaid therapists with access to Lightstone reports.

And sellers need to choose agents based on ability, not who promised the highest number while standing in the kitchen nodding aggressively.

That is the reality.

I think there is far more negativity floating around than necessary and ironically all that panic becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. Buyers freeze because they are scared. Sellers panic because buyers freeze. Then everyone sits around forwarding doom articles to each other like it is a community service.

Meanwhile houses quietly keep selling around them.

Not every property flies off the shelf anymore. Not every seller gets their fantasy number. But there are still very good transactions happening every single week.

The market is not dead. It is just requiring a bit more intelligence now. Which honestly is probably healthier for everyone in the long run.

And maybe that is why I have struggled to write this. Because nuance is boring online. Panic gets clicks. “THE MARKET IS COLLAPSING” performs far better than “well-priced homes in good areas with realistic sellers are still doing fairly okay”.

But the second one happens to be true.