'Contact agent' listings

So this method, the contact agent method, is about one in five listings on the Southern Gold Coast right now, just under 18 percent, and the method has no price published at all. So the buyer has to call the agent. And from the buyer's point of view, this is the highest friction method. Sometimes it will signal a genuine premium home where the vendor wants a private negotiation. Sometimes it signals an untested price the agent would rather discuss than publish. And the only way to know is to ask. And unless the buyer is really interested in the property, they may be quite hesitant to call the agent. From the seller's point of view, they've got total price flexibility and a lead capture mechanism. So every inquiry is a contactable buyer. However, the cost of this is lost traffic because many buyers filter on price and never see a no price listing. So why would an agent pick it? Well, they'll use it for quite hard to price or premium properties, or a vendor that wants to test the market, or as a deliberate strategy to force inquiry and build a buyer list. So these non-disclosed methods are typically applied to houses. Disclosed number of methods drift towards units. Units are easy to compare and they've got many near identical sales. So they get firm numbers. Houses are quite variable in nature and they're far harder to value. So agents will hide the number behind an auction, an expression of interest or a contact agent method more often to let the market decide what the price should be. So a no price listing is more often a house and more often where independent valuation is most useful to getting an executive opinion. So sales methods are currently drifting more towards private treaty on the Gold Coast. We've had rates rise three times already this year, demand has cooled and the Gold Coast prices have ticked down for the first time in years. Auctions clearance rates have absolutely collapsed from 70% down to around 24%. So sellers have retreated from auctions towards priced private treaty methods. And that's exactly what our mix is showing here. So we've got around 8% showing as coming to auction versus 60% that are carrying a number when they're being listed. So the ways that homes are being listed as a real-time read on a softening market or buyer-friendly market that sort of transition.