Off market sales - Sydney Inner West

We are quite happy with doing research, dealing with real estate agents and bidding at auctions.

However wondering if buyers agents are all they are cracked up to be in regards to finding off market sales in Sydney's inner west free standing house market (Burwood and surrounds)? Are there really a lot of off-market transactions of 'grade A' properties?

It seems if we engage one and find a property on market ourselves, we need to have them to appraise/negotiate the house.

So the question is, is $40-70k of a purchase price worth it for a buyers agent to help find off-market free standing houses in Sydney's inner west?

 

If it costs you $20K to save $70K then you'd take it every time! Not sure it is that clear cut though....

Ultimately it is all about having relationships with the local agents to get ahead of off market listings.

There is nothing to stop you building relationships with all the local agents, but it does take time to do this. A decent BA who specialises in the area should have these relationships already, and that is where I see the value.

 

Scan the death/funeral notices, probate, rumour mill at the school P&F etc, who's needing a bigger or smaller house due to divorce or births, doctors surgery waiting rooms for oldies going to nursing homes - all good sources.

 

We don't buy in the inner west anymore, but in areas we do buy it's around the 50%-60% of all our purchases made off market. However, this is only a part of the value proposition for a BA, the main one being knowing the market and how to properly appraise, do full and proper DD, and being able to negotiate properly (which is more complicated than people think).

Finding off market properties is done through longer term relationship building where sales agents bring them to the BAs first as they know they have serious buyers and the BA makes the transaction easy for them. Anyone who is planning to engage a BA solely to find off market properties shouldn't.

- Andrew

 

You could go to the valuer general website (Property sales enquiry) and download a copy of all the sales in Burwood area over the last X months, and then compare how many of those you were either aware of yourself / can find on RE.com.au / Domain. That might give you an idea of how prevalent it is in your area.

The market has obviously been hot, so I found in my area most stock was still at least having an advertisement on the big portals, with the "off-market" stuff, more so a "pre-sale", where BA and people in-the-loop with the agents could come in, and usually be asked to pay an "auction" price anyway.