The Power of a Tightly Defined Patch
Top-performing agents don’t scatter their efforts – they double down on a defined geographic patch. According to Elite Agent, hitting 50 sales a year is a tipping point where volume agents pull ahead, and the common factor is laser-focused geography. Rather than chasing listings all over town, these elite performers concentrate on a few suburbs or postcodes and make themselves the go-to expert there. This localised strategy, often called geographic farming, means consistently working one area until your name becomes synonymous with the local market.
Why is a tight patch so critical?
It comes down to relevance and recognition. When you’re updating one community day in and day out with new listings, auction results, and market insights, you become the local news source. As Ray White’s Chief Strategy Officer, Mark McLeod notes, agents above 50 sales “continue to tell a consistent story into a tight geographic area” and soon become “the dominant communicator of relevancy” for homeowners there. Neighbours see your signboards, social posts and flyers everywhere – you’re effectively part of the conversation in the community. Over time, that familiarity builds trust and an almost automatic preference among local sellers.
By contrast, agents who spread themselves thin across too many areas struggle to gain traction. Their messaging gets diluted across different communities, and they never achieve top-of-mind status in any one locale. McLeod’s analysis found sub-50 sale agents often had listings “very sporadic around geography” – they were constantly hustling but invisible on any given street, leading to a grinding, unsustainable chase for deals. The lesson is clear: dominating a smaller patch beats being a stranger in many.
Data Shows Local Dominance Delivers Results
Focusing on a core patch doesn’t just feel right – the numbers back it up. Internal data from Ray White revealed that agents who crack 50 deals annually tend to keep climbing to 60, 70 and beyond, whereas those languishing below 50 per year often see their results plateau or decline. The major difference wasn’t just better teams or more hustle – it was geographic concentration. High-volume agents almost universally worked a tightly defined area, whereas lower performers chased sporadic listings across various suburbs. In other words, volume follows focus.
Real-world examples illustrate this “geography edge.” Consider Alexander Phillips of PPD Real Estate, who has been ranked Australia’s #1 agent for nine years running. In 2024, Phillips and his team sold 205 properties solely in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, transacting nearly $1 billion in value. His entire business is built on owning that slice of the city – he lives and breathes the local market, and it shows. It’s hard to imagine achieving those numbers by spreading attention across dozens of disconnected areas. Phillips himself attributes much of his success to relentless consistency and presence: being at every open home, knowing every sale, and essentially dominating his backyard.
He’s not alone. Industry rankings (REB Top 100, etc.) are filled with agents who are “suburb specialists.” If one agent lists 30-50% of the homes in a particular postcode, they have an outsized market share that keeps feeding itself. Sellers gravitate to whoever they see leading the local results. Meanwhile, an agent who sold 5 homes each in six different suburbs will struggle to crack those communities’ consciousness, they’re not the agent of any one place. The data makes the case: deep roots in one area yield a bigger harvest than shallow roots in many.
Brand Recognition and Community Trust
Focusing on a patch isn’t just about pumping up sales numbers – it’s also a formula for longevity and referral business. When you “own” your area, you’re building a local brand that carries from year to year. Homeowners come to recognise your face on signboards and your name in local Facebook groups or newspapers. Over time, that brand equity means people call you first; you’re not constantly re-proving yourself from scratch.
According to Elite Agent, a hallmark of dominant patch agents is that neighbours even chat about them in off-market moments, “home owners at night start to talk about ‘the listing that Billy Smith has in the street…then two weeks later they mention Billy again for a sale around the corner’’. That kind of word-of-mouth mindshare is gold – it means your marketing is being done by the community itself. You’ve effectively become the default real estate advisor for that postcode. Crucially, this makes prospecting easier and cheaper over time: instead of chasing leads, a lot of your business starts coming inbound as a trusted local expert.
From a retention perspective, owning a patch can also safeguard your career. Agents who dominate their farm area tend to stick around and keep growing, whereas those without a strong base often burn out. McLeod observed that many non-geographically focused agents eventually face declining results and even feel pressure to cut their commission just to win listings outside their core area. On the flip side, if you’re the top dog in a suburb, you can command full fees (because clients see your value) and you’re more insulated from market dips. Your pipeline in that area – past clients, referrals, local network – becomes an asset that keeps you in the game for the long haul. In short, local brand recognition not only helps you win listings today but also builds a moat around your future business.
Major real estate portals have caught onto this dynamic as well. Realestate.com.au now offers features like Agent Suburb Sponsorship, allowing an agent to exclusively plaster their branding across searches in a chosen suburb. The very existence of such products underscores how vital it is to be visibly dominant in your patch. The goal is to have your face be the first one local sellers see online, reinforcing that you’re “the agent who sells everything around here.” It’s another way to amplify community mindshare and stay a step ahead of outside competitors encroaching on your turf.
Habits of Highly Effective Geographic Farmers
How exactly do leading agents cultivate and maintain dominance in a tight territory? It’s not luck – it’s a set of consistent habits and systems executed day in, day out:
- Consistent, Relevant Messaging: Top agents ensure their marketing speaks directly to local homeowners’ interests. That means regular market updates specific to the suburb, just-sold flyers highlighting street-by-street results, and targeted social media posts about neighbourhood trends. The content is hyper-local (e.g. “5 families moved into <Suburb> this month”), not generic. McLeod credits one agent’s success to messaging that “was consistent, highly relevant and told the story of what was occurring in and around their community”. The takeaway: become the real estate storyteller for your area.
- High Visibility and Omnipresence: Dominant patch agents give the impression that “you can’t go a week without seeing them.” They blanket their farm with signage and collateral – not in a spammy way, but through genuine activity. Their listings carry their signboards, their sold stickers go up promptly, and they might sponsor the local school fete or sports team to get their name out. They also show up in person: attending community events, door-knocking around new listings, and being available at every inspection. The idea is to be top-of-mind whenever someone in the area thinks of real estate. As one industry saying goes, “Don’t be a secret agent!” – in your patch, everyone should know your name.
- Fast, Personal Follow-Up: In a tight community, word travels fast – both praise and criticism. Top agents protect their reputation by delivering excellent, personal service to every client and even every inquiry. They promptly follow up with buyers and sellers, knowing that today’s buyer at an open home could be tomorrow’s vendor in the same suburb. By treating each interaction as if it’s with a neighbour (because it often is), patch-dominant agents create raving fans who refer them around the community. This neighbourly approach reinforces their local expert status. Realestate.com.au notes that great agents don’t just sell houses – they sell “the life that comes with it,” which requires deep local knowledge and the ability to convey the area’s value to people. That level of insight and care builds trust that spreads organically.
- Structured Prospecting & CRM: Leading agents in each patch tend to have a systematic approach to staying in touch. They maintain detailed databases of local homeowners and past clients, often tagged by street or micro-pocket. They schedule regular touch points – from quarterly suburb market reports mailed out, to anniversary calls (“It’s been 1 year since you bought on Maple St, how’s it going?”). Many employ a 10-10-20 rule for new listings (contact 10 houses to the left, 10 to the right, and 20 across the street to announce each listing or sale). By proactively canvassing their patch with valuable info (not just sales pitches), they ensure when a homeowner’s time to sell arrives, their name is the one that surfaces first.
- Community Involvement: Beyond real estate dealings, top patch agents often weave themselves into the fabric of the community. They might write a local market column for the community newsletter, support local charities, or run free seminars for area homeowners (e.g. “How to prepare your <Suburb> home for sale”). This genuine involvement demonstrates commitment to the neighbourhood’s well-being, not just to making sales. Over time, the agent is seen as a community leader and advocate. It’s a soft marketing strategy that pays dividends in loyalty and referrals. When people feel you truly care about the community, they’re more inclined to trust you with their property decisions.
By implementing these kinds of habits, an agent becomes what some call an “attraction agent” – clients come to them because of their reputation, rather than the agent constantly chasing cold leads. It takes time to reach that status, but once achieved, it creates a virtuous cycle: each listing begets another as your sold results dominate the local news.
From Chasing Deals to Creating Them
The ultimate shift that occurs when you dominate your patch is moving from a hunter to a farmer – or as Mark McLeod puts it, stop chasing, start creating. Instead of scrambling after any lead anywhere, you’re strategically creating opportunities within your community by virtue of being everywhere and knowing everyone. You’re not just waiting for listings to fall in your lap; you’re actively cultivating them through your constant presence and communication.
This might mean knocking on doors to connect with longtime owners, matchmaking specific buyers to off-market opportunities, or inspiring hesitant vendors by sharing success stories of neighbours who sold. Because you understand the motivations of locals (maybe you know many are downsizers, or that a new school rezoning is prompting moves), you can create deals that others would miss. In essence, you become the market maker in your area.
Critically, this hyper-local focus also allows you to maintain a high service level. You’re never stuck in traffic for an hour between far-flung appointments – your radius is smaller, so you can give more attention to each client and property. That further boosts your results (and your word-of-mouth around town). It’s a strategic win-win: clients get better service, and you get higher productivity. No wonder agents with concentrated geographic strategies often report greater efficiency and less stress compared to those commuting all over the city for listings.
Final Thoughts: Own Your Patch, Own Your Future
In a world where agents are often looking for the next big lead source or flashy marketing tactic, the most consistently successful agents have realised that dominating a patch is the ultimate competitive advantage. It’s old-fashioned in some ways – mastering a neighbourhood street by street – but as the industry becomes more tech-driven and impersonal, the agent who builds real relationships in a local community stands out more than ever.
If you’re an agent aiming to break through that 50+ sales ceiling, take a hard look at your current spread of listings. Are you scattered across five or six markets? If so, you may unintentionally be capping your own growth. By narrowing your focus to a core patch (or a few adjoining ones), you can concentrate your prospecting, marketing and relationship-building to achieve critical mass. It might feel like you’re turning away potential business outside your area, but in truth you’re freeing up bandwidth to absolutely dominate the area that matters most.
As the saying goes, you want to be a big fish in a small pond – not a minnow in the ocean. Become the indispensable agent of your community. That local fame will fuel sustained results, year after year. In the words of Mark McLeod, “Your story and your community story is up to you”, so start writing that story in your patch, and watch your business hit levels you never thought possible.
Sources
- Elite Agent – “Why agents with 50+ sales dominate their markets, and how geography makes the difference” (Mark McLeod, Sep 2025)
- Realestate.com.au Advice – “8 Expert Qualities That Make a Good Real Estate Agent” (updated 2023) – see especially point 5 on knowing the local area
- Realestate.com.au Customer Marketing Centre – “Suburb Sponsorship” overview for agent branding in local markets
- Forbes Australia – “‘I sell a billion a year’: The ruthless routine of Australia’s No.1 real estate agent”