We transacted close to $10m over Grand Final weekend.

The conversations were difficult. At times we felt uncomfortable. And our clients were far from ecstatic.

Then three more times during the week I felt disappointed – not only with the result (we had one job and missed two) but with the communication.

First, some perspective: My children are healthy, work is challenging and still semi-profitable, and I’ve just had an uplifting 60 days walking through Europe. Life is good.

So this isn’t doom and gloom. I write to help you face a Melbourne property market that, in my experience, is more negative than at any other time in my working life. The GFC is most people’s benchmark for property panic. This is as bad, and it will be worse for longer.

The result: harder conversations. Harder in content. Harder in emotion. Sometimes harder in ferocity.

But there are solutions. Read through to the end.

Conversation One: The Friends’ Haircut

Clients who are also genuine friends had to take what’s colloquially called a significant haircut. They bought several years ago and have now sold for considerably less.

That’s not a number on a spreadsheet. That’s family wealth disappearing.

The same decisions made in 2014–2017, or 2018–2021, would have produced a completely different result. But they were made in 2023–2026. And the market didn’t support them.

There comes a point when you stop talking about what a property should be worth, and start talking about what somebody will actually pay for it today.

We went through the options last year and discussed the ramifications in advance. They went ahead anyway, and I get it. I would have too. The opportunity outside property was very positive. The property side, as predicted, was very negative.

Everything was transparent. The purchase and the sale were both on market, to the market, and both times we discussed the property’s fringe nature in price and position.

But little of that counts when you’re feeling the loss. And some of that feeling will, by osmosis, land on those involved – including me.

Yes, I got it done, and they can move on. But the conversations needed to achieve their goals were very strong.

This isn’t therapy, for me or for them. It is what it is. And it’s happening across the board, as Melbourne property becomes a world of pain for more and more people during this significant downward transition.

Conversation Two: “But You Said…”

Buy-sell clients we’ve worked with before.

A year ago I gave an opinion of value in the high $2 millions. The result was in the low $2 millions.

Uncomfortable for the client. Uncomfortable for us.

Our opinion was honest, based on the evidence available at the time. Then the market changed. And in this market it doesn’t take a year. Six months can materially change an outcome.

That’s when relationships get tested. Everybody starts looking backwards.

“You said…”

“They told me…”

“I paid…”

“Last year it was worth…”

All understandable. None of it solves today’s problem.

The saving grace: we had bought very well for them, so the changeover price largely absorbed the weaker sale. On completion we received a lovely note about transparency and getting the job done even when the going got tough.

Keep Your Head

This is the most important point I can make this week.

When things go badly, we tend to go all-in or all-out. Selling at any price. Not selling at all. Never dealing with that agent again. Buying immediately. Buying nothing.

In a difficult market, sometimes you need to be half-in and half-out. Preserve your options. Even facing a loss, you may substantially reduce it through good decisions, by keeping your head and keeping your important relationships intact.

Separate disappointment from decision-making.

And accept this: the market doesn’t know or care what somebody told you last year. It doesn’t care what you need. It simply tells you what somebody will pay today.

This Is About Security

For most Australians, property isn’t just an investment. It’s security. Retirement. The children’s inheritance. Where the family lives. The feeling that after 20, 30 or 40 years of work, you’ve built something.

When that number goes backwards, people don’t just feel poorer. They feel less secure.

I saw a small version of that in my own family this week. My daughter recently bought a home, and for the first time she talked to me about what higher interest costs mean for her personally.

Suddenly it’s not an economic story. It’s her repayment. Her income. Her life.

Multiply that across thousands of Melbourne families and you begin to understand the tension out there.

So What Do You Do?

You can’t change the market as an individual, not immediately anyway. But you can change how you deal with it now.

If you’re selling, get good advice on where the market is now, not where it was last year. I still have people say “give me the truth”, then “well Mal, you’re not getting our business with that number”. Six months later the property is still unsold, at an asking price lower than their first – and lower than the number that cost me the job.

If you’re buying, don’t confuse a falling market with an automatic bargain. Buy the right property at the right price. Our friends’ property still sold because of its quality, while hundreds of lifestyle homes sit unsold and would stay unsold even if they were given away.

If you’re buying and selling, stop looking at each transaction in isolation. The changeover number is what matters. Our second clients came out very near the changeover they’d planned before they started.

If you’ve made a mistake, don’t compound it because you’re angry about the first one.

Keep cool and carry on. It will get you a better deal.

And it’s only what I think, but above all, keep talking. Have the uncomfortable conversation.

Listen to the answer, even when you don’t like it. Get another opinion. Keep your options open. And keep your head.

This market will change. I don’t know when. I don’t know what the catalyst will be. But while we wait, buyers are still buying (THIS IS A BRILLIANT MARKET FOR TRADING UP), sellers are still selling and families are moving on with their lives.

You may not be able to manufacture the market you want. But you can make better decisions in the market you’ve got.

And right now, that may be worth a very considerable amount of money.

Mal James

James Buy Sell Advocates