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The buyer’s agent model prevalent in America is a model that can also work in Australia, according to one of the country’s largest buyer’s agents.
Simon Cohen, co-founder of Cohen Handler, told the attendees at the AREC 2018 conference that Australia was behind the times and real estate had remained the same.
“Things always take a while to pick up in Australia and real estate has remained the same for quite some time,” Mr Cohen said.
Mr Cohen told REB that he saw the prevalence of buyer’s agents in America and knew it could work here.
“I knew it would work. I was called crazy, no one knew anything about it. But if you never take risks, then you don’t know,” Mr Cohen said.
Nowadays, buyer’s agents are popping up all over Australia and are being included in the market.
“Buyer’s agents are far more part of the transaction than ever before,” the co-founder said.
Mr Cohen said that he started his real estate career in 2004 with nothing but the essentials and a dream to make it big in the industry.
“I did what most of us did when we started and called everyone I knew to let them know that I was now a real estate agent,” Mr Cohen said.
For Mr Cohen, his big moment came when driving past a house in Vaucluse with a tennis court and approached the vendor.
“I suggested to my boss that we should pull over and approach the vendor, to which he quickly responded, ‘No point in wasting our time. We don’t have a hope in hell’,” the co-founder said.
Mr Cohen added that he realised in that moment that he was staring failure in the face.
“To my right was failure and to my left was success. So, I got out and approached the vendor,” Mr Cohen said.
Mr Cohen managed to sell the house for $10 million, and it was the start of his journey which led to $36 million worth of sales.
“All I did was to look to my left instead of my right,” the co-founder said.
Mr Cohen told the agents attending that they should never stop questioning how to do things better.
“The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is that they ask the question knowing that the worst answer they can receive is a no, and they are no worse off than they were before,” Mr Cohen said.
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