Real estate coach and auctioneer Tom Panos (pictured left) has been named a brand ambassador for fintech lender Bridgit. The lender is targeting homeowners who want to secure their next property before selling their current one.
The appointment comes as slower selling conditions make an upgrade harder to time. Citing Cotality data, Bridgit said the median time to sell a capital city home had risen from 23 to 39 days over the past year. It added that mortgage broker data pointed to growing upgrader activity.
For homeowners who buy first, that combination increases the risk of a drawn-out sale, a lower-than-expected price and mounting bridging finance costs.
Panos said more stock coming to market had not translated into stronger buyer demand, because buyers remain willing to walk away.
“Watch the gap between what sellers want and what buyers are prepared to pay,” he said. “More auctions don’t automatically mean more transactions.”
Cotality’s latest data supports that view. Total listings were 18.6% higher than a year earlier in the four weeks to 8 November, while the combined capitals’ clearance rate fell to 40.7% in the week ending 1 November, its lowest since mid-April 2020.
Panos opened his first real estate office at 22 and has spent 30 years in the industry. He founded the Real Estate Gym and has run more than 900 workshops for agents across Australia and New Zealand.
Bridgit founder and CEO Aaron Bassin (pictured right) said Panos’s time in auction rooms and training agents meant he understood the timing problem facing upgraders first-hand.
“He’s seen what happens when a buyer can’t move until they’ve sold,” Bassin said.
Bridgit plans to take its “Buy Now, Sell Later” offer directly to homeowners and to the agents who guide them through buying and selling. The company says every application runs through a lending platform it built in-house.
Panos described Bridgit as “the panadol for the headache that buyers are facing”, and said he needed to be passionate about a business before agreeing to partner with it.
This year Bridgit was named Fintech Lender of the Year at the 2026 Australian Mortgage Awards. It also won the Lending category at the 2026 Finder Innovation Awards.
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