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David’s Take · Weekly Letter
The Honest Number.The truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth. |
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| Dear Readers, | |||
| After more than thirty years in real estate, the hardest conversation I have with homeowners isn’t about commission. It isn’t about marketing. It isn’t even about auction versus private treaty. | |||
| It’s about one number. | |||
| Not the number a seller hopes to achieve. Not the number an agent quotes to win a listing. | |||
| The number the market is actually prepared to pay. | |||
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“The honest number.”
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| The honest number isn’t guessed. It is built. | |||
| It comes from comparable sales, current competition, our team metrics, buyer feedback, days on market, withdrawal rates, replacement costs, local supply and what buyers are proving with their money — not what sellers hope, or agents promise. | |||
| When enough pieces point to the same conclusion, the honest number begins to reveal itself. | |||
| For many homeowners, that number is difficult to hear. The home isn’t just bricks and mortar. It is years of work, the family’s history and, often, the largest asset. Of course they want it to be worth more. | |||
| But hope doesn’t determine market value. | |||
| Buyers do. | |||
| Every week, my team tracks every new listing, every price adjustment and every sale across twenty Lower North Shore suburbs, using our metrics. We don’t rely on headlines. We follow what buyers actually do. Which homes attract competition. Which homes sit. Which prices move. Which campaigns quietly disappear. | |||
| One lesson repeats. | |||
| The market almost always tells the truth. | |||
| Sometimes in the first week. Sometimes after six months. Sometimes after four price reductions. But eventually, the verdict arrives. | |||
| The real question is whether the agent is prepared to tell the truth before the market does. | |||
| That is where sellers face their biggest risk. Most agents genuinely want the best outcome for their clients. The difficulty is that there are two very different approaches to winning a listing. One is to tell the owner what the evidence suggests. The other is to tell the owner what they hope to hear. The problem is that both conversations can sound almost identical on day one. | |||
| The market eventually becomes the second opinion no one wanted to pay for. | |||
| The outcome is often the same. A campaign begins with excitement, followed by silence. Then the difficult conversations begin. The first price reduction. Then another. More days on market. Fewer inspections. Buyers begin asking, “What’s wrong with it?” And the property that once felt special quietly becomes just another listing. | |||
| This year, one in six Lower North Shore houses ended their campaign withdrawn. The reason was almost always the same — the market wouldn’t pay the starting price. | |||
| At Team Howe, we have chosen a different path. | |||
| We would rather lose a listing than win one on a number we don’t genuinely believe the market will pay. | |||
| That position isn’t always the easiest one to hold. Some vendors hear it as us not believing in their home. Occasionally, another agent is chosen because they have promised more. Sometimes that agent delivers. Often, they don’t. | |||
| Either way, our responsibility isn’t to tell people what they want to hear. It is to tell them what we believe to be true. | |||
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An appraisal should never be a sales pitch. It should be professional advice. The truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth.
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| If you’re considering selling and you want the honest number — supported by evidence rather than optimism — we’d welcome the conversation. No pitch. No pressure. Just the data and a straight answer. | |||
| Sometimes the most valuable advice isn’t the highest number. It’s the honest one. | |||
| Because every home eventually reaches its true value. The only question is whether you discover it before the market forces you to. | |||
| The market has an honest number. Our job is to help you find it. | |||
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| This week’s data answers a question buyers and sellers keep asking: is the auction still the moment of truth? | |||
| Across the Lower North Shore, only 17% of sales happen at auction itself. 43% sell before. 28% sell after. The auction system is alive — but the decisive conversations are happening in the days either side of the auction, not on the day. | |||
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| Across the Lower North Shore, 65% of houses on the market right now are still fresh under 60 days. The other 35% are telling vendors something. | |||
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Lower North Shore
140 Sailors Bay Road, Northbridge NSW 2063
Sources: Team Howe market data, week ending 29 June 2026. Figures are houses only, Lower North Shore. Provided in good faith and may have changed since publication. Interested parties should make their own independent enquiries before relying on any information herein.
© Raine & Horne Lower North Shore. You are receiving this because you have previously been in touch with our office about Lower North Shore property. |
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