Sellers 'secretly' dropping prices to lure bidders

Sellers 'secretly' dropping prices to lure bidders

Desperate real estate agents are bolstering nervous buyers by secretly offering lower prices in a bid to boost auction attendances, sales, and prices that have been falling for months.

Real estate agents are secretly dropping quoted property prices by between 10 per cent and 16 per cent to select buyers in the final days before an auction in a bid to generate greater interest, correspondence between real estate and buyers' agents reveals.

Prestige properties in Melbourne's inner south-east advertised online for between $2.5 million and $2.75 million are being offered in targeted correspondence to possible buyers for between $2.3 million and $2.5 million, a difference of about 16 per cent.

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More bidders to push the price up makes perfect sense. Nothing new really, during the boom I got a phone call from an agent about an auction the next day. I said my budget is xxx the sale price will be 200k more than that, he attempted to talk me into coming saying at my budget I was a very good chance. The sale price was exactly as I predicted And had I gone it would have been a waste of my time. Though it would have sounded good for the agent having extra registered bidders even if they were no chance.

 

Agreed, it's a weird article all round. The headline implies one thing, then the content mostly waffles on about alternative auction methods from a few anecdotes. AFR should, and usually does do better than this.