Jenman's objections to the worst of conventional industry practices are principally that agents act in their own interests, against the interests of their clients, either through ignorance or greed. A brief selection of problems he highlights,

Overquote the seller to get the listing (called "buying the listing").

Buyers underquoted to get interest, though it attracts people who cannot afford the ask.

Sellers negotiating position weakened by having their motivations revealled.

Sellers pressured into accepting less to make the sale, by a process known in the trade as conditioning.

Auctions create the greatest pressure for conditioning, and are not liked by buyers either.

Auctions, by their nature, can only find the second-highest buyer's price.

Vendor bids or dummy bidding at auctions is dishonest.

City-wide advertising is a waste and serves the agent more than the client, especially through publishers cash rebates to the agent.

Jenman gives numerous examples of people hurt by these practices. Some like advertising and conditioning have even been taught explicitly to agents in Real Estate Institute courses.

The law has slowly caught up with some of these matters. New laws in Victoria and New South Wales requiring bidder registration have made dummy bidding harder. And an agent in Melbourne who grossly underquoted to buyers was taken to court by the ACCC.

The system of selling Jenman instead advocates is based on marketing only locally (since all buyers visit their area of interest), starting the sellers price high but guided by an independent professional valuation, identifying genuinely interested buyers, and having those buyers submit one price in a tender fashion. The idea being to put people into homes they both like and can afford, without stress for either buyer or seller.

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