How to turn more of your listings into deals before Christmas?

CRE Success Principle: Vendors don't need good news every week, but they do need to hear from you every week. Consistent communication builds trust, makes difficult conversations easier, and helps owners make decisions based on market feedback.

In a slow commercial property market, having plenty of listings isn't a solution to the bigger problem: converting those listings into closed transactions.

With buyers delaying decisions and vendors reluctant to adjust on price, commercial real estate principals need to help their agents focus on the opportunities most likely to turn into deals before the end of the year.

Here are four things I'd prioritise over the next six weeks.

1. Categorise Every Active Listing 

Start by reviewing every sale and leasing listing with your agents. Put each one into one of three categories: listed, interest or offer.

Then assign one specific next action to every listing, with a person responsible and a deadline. This gives agents clarity about where to focus instead of simply responding to whichever owner is making the most noise.

2. Hold Two Deal Meetings Each Week

Increase the frequency of your team catch-ups. Use Monday to plan the week's activity and Thursday to check what's happened.

Keep meetings to 30 minutes and focus on two questions: Why isn't this deal getting done, and what needs to happen next?

3. Make Weekly Vendor Updates Non-Negotiable 

Every owner should hear from their agent at least once a week, even when there's nothing new to report. 

Regular communication builds trust and makes potentially difficult conversations about price, buyer feedback and changes to the method of sale much easier. 

4. Agree on a Decision Point

For every listing at the listed or interest stage, agree with the owner on what happens if an acceptable offer hasn't arrived by an agreed date.

That might mean adjusting the price, changing the method of sale, or revisiting the opportunity in the new year. 

Turn More Listings into Transactions

Your job as principal is to make these four activities standard practice, not optional extras. 

For more practical strategies to improve commercial real estate agency performance, listen to episode 294 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Episode transcript:

A lot of the commercial real estate principals that I'm speaking to at the moment are telling me roughly the same thing, which is that they're not short on listings.

The challenge is turning those listings into deals because buyers are slow, tenants are sitting on their hands, and some vendors are holding out for a number that the market just isn't capable of delivering.

And I've got to say, I'm recording this before the RBA decision on Melbourne Cup day, so I don't know what the impact of that has been.

But I can tell you that the calendar isn't helping things as well, because there are about six weeks left before the market slows down and then comes to a grinding halt for Christmas.

And a lot of what isn't done by mid-December turns into a conversation for next year, for 2027.

So, what can you do as the principal to help your commercial real estate agents turn more of their listings into deals in the next six weeks?

I've got four practical ideas that I want to share with you in this episode.

This is episode 294 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. My name is Darren Krakowiak, and I help commercial real estate principals to build an agency that can run without them, so they have the choice to work on or off the tools.

Let's get right into talking about how to turn more of your listings into deals by Christmas.

And the first thing I'd do this week is sit down with each and every agent in your business and go through each and every active listing that they've got, every sale and every lease.

And I'd put each one into one of three stages. Is it at the offer stage? Is it at the interest stage? Or is it at the listed stage?

I guess another stage would be under contract, but that's not where I want to focus today's conversation because that category is not really the issue, as long as you can just sort of guide it through to a closed and unconditional transaction.

So, let's go through and define those categories.

Offer means that an offer has been received on that listing. The question is, how do we turn that offer into a deal, into a transaction?

The category of interest means that there are inquiries coming in, probably inspections going on, but we don't have any offers yet.

So, the question here is, how do we convert some of that interest into an offer that we can present to the owner?

Listed means it's on the market, the marketing's happening, but nobody's biting. So, the question there is, how do we get some interest on that property?

And that's where I think your focus should be, all of your listings in those three stages. And I've got one question for you to ask about each property based on the stage it is at.

Then every listing gets one next action. Not a list of 10 things to do, just one action with someone's name next to it and a date by which it will be done.

So for a listing that's at the office stage, we might say we've got to get the buyer and the owner on the same page about whatever sticking point is holding things up by Wednesday next week.

For properties that are at the interest stage, it might be to call the three people who have inspected and ask what's stopping them from making an offer.

And for anything that's at the listed stage, we just need to assess its potential to garner interest.

So if it's been listed for a period of time and it's not performing, the action item might be to send the owner the inquiry numbers and to book a meeting with them to talk about price or marketing.

So these are all specific and binary things, right? You'll know whether they have happened or not. The very nature of them is they need to be done by a certain period of time.

And this matters because when an agent has a lot of listings, they all kind of blur together, and the squeaky wheel gets the attention.

And by that I mean the focus is often on the listings whose owners are calling the most, not the ones that are closest to a deal.

So the stages tell your team where to spend their time, whether it's a listing, an interest, or an offer stage, and the action tells them how to move it through to the next stage.

And for the next six weeks leading up to mid-December, I think the priority needs to be moving the highest propensity deals through these stages.

So that's the first idea.

The second idea is to meet with the team twice a week to run through deals, not just once a week. So I want you to increase the frequency of your team meetings.

On Monday, make a plan. What are you going to do this week to move each listing at the offer and interest stages forward?

And maybe on Thursday you check what has happened. You have another meeting, and you've still got a day if you do the meeting on Thursday to do something about it within that week.

If a deal isn't getting done, there are two simple questions to ask: Why not? And what is next? So keep these meetings short.

I think 30 minutes is plenty, and keep it about the listings that can turn into deals in 2026.

We're not talking about admin. We're not talking about winning new listings. We're talking about turning existing listings into deals.

And the agenda can be pretty straightforward, and you can basically run the same agenda each time. Start with listings that are at the offer stage. 

They're the closest ones to completion. Where is each one at and what is the next step? Then run through the listings in the interest category. Who's interested? How do we get them to make an offer? And then review what's moved stages since last time, and that's it.

And if you have a specific action for every listing at the offer and interest stages, then I think you've covered the deals that are most likely to get done by Christmas.

Now, a few of the principals that I work with have increased the frequency of their team catch-ups around this time of year for this very reason.

In a slow market, a deal that doesn't get talked about ends up going nowhere.

I think there's another benefit to more regular team meetings right now. When the team is talking about a stalled transaction together, someone often sees an angle that the listing agent missed.

I heard about one recently where the bank wanted to see a stronger valuation before it would lend against the property, and the rent at the current level didn't support it.

Someone asked, "Well, what if the lease had a higher rent with a rent-free period built in?" This helped the value from the bank's perspective, and then the sale went through.

In another recent case I heard about, a buyer at auction needed a self-managed super fund set up quite quickly to purchase the property.

The agent connected them with a broker who got it sorted out, and the buyer ended up being the highest bidder.

So that is not luck working. That's just what happens when you get a few experienced people looking at the same problem.

And as the principal, you're often the most experienced person in the room, and of course, you're also the person that has a stake in every deal getting done.

All right, let's go through to the third idea now, and that is to make sure that every owner, every vendor, every landlord hears from their listing agent at least once a week, even when there is nothing to report.

A no-news update might sound pointless, but I can tell you, having been on the other end of it, it definitely isn't.

It can be as simple as, "Hey, for the last week, we've had no new portal inquiries. We've approached these three people directly. No inspections yet. I'll call you next week." That takes about a minute to write or to convey in a message.

One principal I work with put it really well. He said, "There's a lot of disappointed people at the moment, but the question is whether they're disappointed and informed or disappointed and have no idea what is going on."

And I think that really matters for conversion. A vendor who's been kept in the loop is much easier to talk to about price or the method of sale when the time comes.

An owner who hasn't heard anything for three weeks and then hears bad news just immediately decides to blame the messenger, which is your team.

Then I think if you're updating people once a week, once or twice a month, you can also go deeper. You can present recent sales and lease transactions nearby, rates per square meter, and you can also talk about what buyers are saying.

If a buyer said the building needs work or the price is too high or the tenant seems risky, then the owner should hear that in the buyer's words. It's much harder to argue with feedback when it comes straight from the market.

And here's one more idea that you might like. When a buyer or tenant says no, get your agents to ask one more question, "If you were interested, what would you pay?"

Now, many people will give you a number, and what you can do is put all of those numbers on one page and you can plot where the interest in the market is.

Now the owner isn't arguing with you or your team about the validity of one offer. They can see visually where the whole market sees value.

So, the aim here isn't to talk an owner into a lower price. It's just to give them what they need to make a decision. It's to educate them, not manipulate them.

And sometimes the decision is to hold onto the property, and that is still an outcome.

Your job as the principal is to make the weekly update the standard to give your agents a simple template.

A lot of my clients are using Claude to make these to make sure that the vendor update is going out every week like clockwork.

All right, so the fourth idea I want to share with you is where the calendar can help you.

For every listing that you've got at the interest or listed stage, have your agents agree on a decision point with the owner this week.

Something like, "Hey, we've got about six weeks left before the market slows down for Christmas. If we haven't got an offer that you're happy with by mid to late November, what would you like to do?"

Now, there are a few answers that you're likely to get. It might be to adjust the price, it might be to change the method.

For example, going to an auction or expression of interest with a closing date, to put more into marketing or just to hold back and to see what happens and to come back to it in the new year.

I think having this conversation around the third week of November is about the right time because it still leaves enough room for you to try something new before Christmas.

And if you leave it to the end of November or early December, I don't think you've got much runway left because what we're talking about is trying to get some transactions closed unconditional before Christmas.

Now, whatever they tell you to do is completely fine. What isn't fine is drifting into Christmas with no decision and then starting next year with the same listing and the same problem.

Now, if the owner says that they just want to hold on, that's completely fine. The agent can say something like, "I understand. I'll be here as long as you want me to. But just so you know, at the moment, the market's telling us there is a gap, and if you want to do a deal in the next three months, I think we'll need to close that gap."

So the agent is keeping them informed, and when the owner is ready, they can come back to the agent who told them the truth. While your team can focus on listings that are more likely to close by Christmas.

So your role here as the principal is to help your agents have these conversations.

Some agents avoid them because they're worried about losing the listing. So just try role-playing it with them or sit in on the first one. I think it's much easier the second time, so give people some practice, some ideas on what to say.

A closing date is really useful right now. Buyers who've been sitting on their hands need a reason to act, and a date gives them one.

Someone put it to me recently that it's very hard to price a property when you're looking in the rear view mirror and the windscreen is blurry.

A process with a closing date, whether it's an EOI or an auction date, lets the market set the price.

I think the same goes for buyers who've shown interest. If someone has said a number out loud, ask them to put it in writing. Getting that first written offer is, you know, often the hardest part, but once it's on paper, the conversation with the owner changes.

And make sure every offer gets to the owner, even, or dare I say, especially the lowball ones.

So that's the four ideas for the next six weeks.

Define every listing as being at one of those three stages, listed, interest, or offer, and give it one next action with a date to be completed by.

Meet with your team twice a week to go over active listings.

Make sure every owner hears from your agent every week.

And agree a decision point with every vendor before the market slows down in December.

Not very complicated, but this stuff doesn't happen on its own. It needs to be driven by you, because when the principal makes it a standard and checks that it's been done, then it's more likely to happen.

If you do one thing this week, sit down with each of your agents before Friday and sort every listing into those categories, listed, interest, or offer, plus of course stuff that is under contract.

And I think you'll see straight away where your deals are likely to come from before Christmas and where you need to have a harder conversation.

If you'd like to run any of this process by me as you're handling it, you can always find me on LinkedIn, send me a DM, and I personally reply to every message.

That is our episode for today. Thank you so much for listening, and I will speak to you soon.