The short answer
Appraisal to listing conversion rate measures the share of market appraisals that become signed agency agreements. The only published Australian figure is Ray White's 6.5 per cent, from 36,000 phone sourced appraisals in 2025 that produced 2,337 listings. Referral and past client appraisals convert far higher, and nobody publishes an Australian rate for those.
What to take away
- Ray White's published 6.5 per cent is a phone sourced number, which is the hardest population there is. Treat it as a floor for cold pipeline, never as a universal benchmark.
- Three different numbers get called conversion in Australian agencies: appraisal to authority, appraisal to listing live, and appraisal to sold. Agree which one you mean before comparing anybody.
- A falling conversion rate can be the sign of a growing business. An agent who books more and worse appraisals lists more houses on a worse percentage, and the arithmetic is in this article.
- What moves the rate is the written appraisal delivered the same day, the next contact booked before you leave the house, and a price conversation held early rather than at the fifth touch.
What is a good appraisal to listing conversion rate?
It depends entirely on where the appraisal came from, and only one Australian number has ever been published with its working attached.
The only appraisal to listing conversion rate published with its working in Australia belongs to Ray White. Its managing director reported that the 36,000 appraisals booked across the network's 2025 phone days produced 2,337 listings, which is 6.5 per cent. That figure describes phone sourced appraisals, the hardest kind there is, booked by an agent ringing a list rather than by a vendor asking. It is a floor, not a target. Appraisals that arrive by referral or from a past client convert far higher, and no Australian source publishes a rate for those, so any benchmark quoted for them was invented by whoever quoted it.
6.5%
Appraisal to listing conversion across 36,000 phone sourced appraisals booked by the Ray White network in 2025, of which 2,337 became listings.
Dan White, Ray White managing director, reported by Elite Agent, February 2026
| Measure | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Appraisals booked from network phone days | 36,000 | Calendar 2025 |
| Listings won from those appraisals | 2,337 | Calendar 2025 |
| Appraisal to listing conversion | 6.5 per cent | Calendar 2025 |
| Appraisals booked in one 12 hour phone day | 12,304 | 26 February 2026 |
| Appraisals booked in the following phone day | 10,021 | June 2026 |
Read the last two rows together with the first. A network that books ten to twelve thousand appraisals in a single day is not being selective about which conversations become an appraisal, and that is the whole reason the percentage is low.
The dials that produce those appraisals are the other half of this chain, and they are counted in how many calls it takes to win one listing. This article starts where that one stops: at the kitchen bench, with the appraisal already booked.
Which conversion rate are you actually measuring?
One of three, and Australian agencies use all three interchangeably. Appraisal to authority counts signatures. Appraisal to listing live counts campaigns that launched. Appraisal to sold counts the only thing that pays. They can differ by ten percentage points inside the same office.
| Measure | What it counts | What it hides |
|---|---|---|
| Appraisal to authority | Signed agency agreements as a share of appraisals run | Authorities signed at a price that was never going to sell |
| Appraisal to listing live | Campaigns that actually launched on realestate.com.au or Domain | Vendors who signed and then withdrew before the first OFI |
| Appraisal to sold | Appraisals that ended in a sale and a commission | Very little, which is why it is the slowest and the truest |
The gap matters more in a slow market. Cotality counted 131,407 properties advertised for sale in the four weeks to 5 July 2026, up 7.7 per cent on a year earlier, with capital city auction clearance rates under 50 per cent since mid 2026. In that market an authority is a long way from a commission.
Pick one, write it down, and apply it to every source of appraisal you have. An agency that reports authorities to the principal and sales to the owner is running two businesses on paper and one in the street.
Why is a low conversion rate sometimes the right answer?
Because the rate is a ratio, and an agent can improve it by doing less work. Refuse every appraisal that is not a live seller and the percentage climbs immediately. It climbs because the denominator fell, not because anybody signed.
| Agent | Appraisals a year | Conversion | Listings won |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selective, referral heavy | 25 | 40 per cent | 10 |
| Books everything, mixed sources | 120 | 15 per cent | 18 |
| Phone sourced only | 200 | 6.5 per cent | 13 |
25 appraisals
40 per cent conversion
120 appraisals
15 per cent conversion
200 appraisals
6.5 per cent conversion
Hatched means modelled, not measured
The agent with the worst percentage on this chart lists more houses than the agent with the best one. Source: our arithmetic, from the table above. All three bars are calculated rather than measured, so all three draw hatched.
The middle agent has a rate 25 percentage points worse than the first and wins 80 per cent more listings. On the median dwelling value of A$928,421 and the 2.65 per cent national median commission reported by bRight Agent in February 2026, those eight extra listings are roughly A$197,000 of gross commission to the agency.
So the rate is a diagnostic, not a scoreboard. Track it alongside the count of appraisals run and the count of listings won, and never let anybody report it on its own. A conversion rate with no denominator beside it is a number designed to be admired rather than used.
What actually moves the rate?
Speed, sequence and the price conversation, in that order. Almost nothing else an agent can control at the appraisal itself shows up in the number, and the things agencies spend money on instead, such as heavier presentation folders, do not.
- The written appraisal goes out the same day, with the comparable sales the vendor watched you look up on your phone. A week later it is a document about a market that has moved.
- The next contact is booked before you leave the house, with a date and a reason, not a promise to be in touch.
- The price conversation happens at the appraisal, not at touch five. Every day you defer it, the vendor's number hardens and somebody else agrees with it.
- The method and the VPA are named early, because a vendor who is surprised by the marketing spend at signing time is a vendor who goes quiet for a fortnight.
- Every appraisal is tagged by source on the day it is run. You cannot separate the referral book from the phone book afterwards, and without that split the whole rate is meaningless.
On speed, the closest thing to a measured finding is cross industry rather than Australian. The Lead Response Management study by Professor James Oldroyd, across more than 15,000 leads and 100,000 call attempts, found that responding to a fresh web lead within five minutes rather than 30 made it 21 times more likely to be qualified. It measures inbound enquiry in the United States in 2007, not Australian appraisals, so treat it as a direction rather than a rate.
On sequence, RAIN Group's research puts the average at eight touches to secure a first meeting with a new prospect, and five for top performers. That is a business to business touch count and not an appraisal follow up figure, which is worth saying plainly, because the seven step cadence below is our own practice and not a published benchmark.
When should you follow up after an appraisal?
Seven times over 90 days, starting the same afternoon. The dates below are specific on purpose: a cadence expressed as regularly is a cadence nobody runs. Cotality put the national median time on market at 32 days in the three months to February 2026, so a vendor thinking about spring in August is on a clock whether they feel it or not.
The seven touch appraisal follow up cadence
Before you leave the kitchen bench
Book the next contact in front of them, name the day, and write it in your diary while they watch. A vendor who has agreed to a Tuesday call is not a vendor you are chasing.
Within two hours, same day
The written appraisal lands, with the three comparable sales you discussed and the range you said out loud. Not a template, not tomorrow.
Day 2, before 10am
One call to confirm it arrived and to ask the question you did not ask at the house, which is usually where they are going and when they need to be there.
Day 7
The street update. What listed, what sold, what withdrew within a kilometre of them in the past week. This is the touch that separates an agent from a folder.
Day 21
The method and VPA conversation, in full, with a number. Auction or private treaty, what the campaign costs, and what it buys. Do this before they ask another agency.
Day 45
The decision call. Ask directly whether they are going to market this season, and accept a no. A clean no returns the hour you would have spent on touches eight through twenty.
Day 90, then every 90 days
The appraisal refresh, with a revised range and the reason it moved. This is the touch that wins the listing 14 months later, and it is the one everybody stops doing.
The cadence costs about 40 minutes per appraisal spread over a quarter. At 120 appraisals a year that is 80 hours, which is why it collapses first when the phones are also the agent's job.
ListingLine is an AI voice agent that calls an Australian real estate agent's farm area in the agent's name, at A$2.00 per connected call. We built it for the top of this chain, not the bottom: the appraisal, the price conversation and the signature are the agent's work, and no honest product claims otherwise. What it changes is the denominator, and this article is about what that does to the percentage.
If the appraisals are not there to convert yet, the words that book them are in the appraisal call script, the channel comparison is in door knocking versus cold calling, and the rules the calling has to stay inside are set out on our compliance page.
Common questions
- How do referral appraisals compare with phone sourced ones?
- They convert far better, and no Australian publisher puts a figure on how much better. Ray White's 6.5 per cent covers appraisals booked by ringing a list, where the vendor had no intention of selling that morning. A referral arrives with the decision already made and a third party vouching for you. Split the two in your reporting or the blended number tells you nothing.
- Should conversion be credited to the agent who booked the appraisal or the one who ran it?
- Both, on two separate lines. Credit the booking to whoever made the contact and the conversion to whoever ran the appraisal, then read them together. Blending them into one number rewards an agent who books nothing and inherits warm vendors, and punishes the one filling the diary. Agencies that use a single line usually end up with nobody prospecting at all.
- How long should an appraisal sit in the pipeline before it is written off?
- Never write it off, but stop treating it as pipeline after the day 45 decision call. Move it to a 90 day refresh cycle and forecast against it at zero. The listings that arrive 14 months after the appraisal are real and they are common, but an agent who counts them as this quarter's pipeline will not prospect this quarter.
- Does a higher conversion rate always mean more commission?
- No, and this is the trap in the metric. Conversion is listings divided by appraisals, so cutting the appraisals lifts it. An agent running 25 appraisals at 40 per cent wins ten listings, while one running 120 at 15 per cent wins eighteen. Read the rate with the appraisal count beside it or it will reward the wrong behaviour every time.
- What is the fastest way to lift the rate in one quarter?
- Deliver the written appraisal the same day and book the next contact before leaving the house. Both are free, both are inside the agent's control, and both attack the gap where most appraisals go cold. The slower structural fix is tagging every appraisal by source, so that by next quarter you can see which channel is actually failing.
- Can an AI caller change the conversion rate itself?
- Not directly, and any vendor claiming otherwise is describing something it cannot do. A calling system changes how many appraisals reach the diary. Everything from the kitchen bench onward is the agent's work: the price conversation, the method, the fee, the follow up cadence. Expect a bigger denominator and, on phone sourced appraisals, a rate closer to Ray White's published 6.5 per cent than to a referral book's.
Sources
- 1Ray White network books 12,000 appraisals in 12 hour phone blitz. Elite Agent, reporting Ray White Real Estate of Origin, Conversion figures calendar 2025, event 26 February 2026.
- 2Ray White members hit the phones for fast paced appraisal drive. Elite Agent, reporting Ray White Real Estate of Origin, Event June 2026, published 25 June 2026.
- 3Lead Response Management study. Professor James Oldroyd with InsideSales.com, over 15,000 leads and 100,000 call attempts, Three years of call data, published 2007.
- 4How many touchpoints does it take to make a sale. RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, Article updated 11 June 2026, underlying study year not stated.
- 5Monthly Housing Chart Pack, July 2026. Cotality, Four weeks to 5 July 2026, published 16 July 2026.
- 6Monthly Housing Chart Pack, March 2026, slides 20 and 21. Cotality, Three months to February 2026.
- 7Agent fees: who charges the most. Real Estate Business, reporting bRight Agent commission data, Published 16 February 2026.
Written by
Jason
Founder, ListingLine
Builds the AI voice agent that ListingLine customers point at their farm area. Spends most of his week reading call transcripts, which is an unusual and fairly grim way to learn what Australian homeowners will and will not talk about on the phone.