Australia’s collapsing real estate market has sparked a warning for home sellers to be on the lookout for dodgy real estate agent ploys that could cost them huge sums of money.
These can range from negotiation tactics aimed at influencing homeowners to accept a lower sales price, to “aggressive bait-and-switch” methods and manoeuvring to get a higher commission.
Co-founder and chief executive of Unreserved Real Estate, a national platform where homeowners can list a residence with a flat fee rather than a commission, Ben Williams, said the topic was pertinent at the moment due to the softening property market in many parts of the nation when every dollar counted.
Some real estate agents are engaging in dodgy methods to get a home sold, industry experts say.
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Mr Williams has 15 years experience as an agent and auctioneer and said with the market turning sour in many parts of the country, agents would be working over sellers just as much as buyers.
“Absolutely, it will become more common, certainly whilst vendors’ price expectations adjust to a falling market,” he said.
“One of the big challenges agent have is buyers have access to so much information now, comparable sales AI models that help them price properties ... they are becoming harder to negotiate with.
“Agents are really having to put a great deal of work into the vendors to get their price expectations down and that’s where these tactics come in.”
He said when it comes to private sales, “drip feeding” vendors information about buyers’ offers was one tactic employed by some agents.
This involves failing to immediately tell a homeowner the exact amount on a buyer’s offer as soon as it came through.
Unreserved Real Estate co-founder and chief executive Ben Williams. Picture: Instagram@unreserved_real_estate.ai
Instead, an agent will ask the sellers if they would accept lower amounts across one to three days before the offer expires.
Mr Williams said this was done in the hopes of conditioning the homeowners to accept the lower price.
“So there’s this lack of transparency that is a systemic issue, and they say that it’s a way to get the vendor in line with the market,” he added.
“But at the end of the day if vendors knew that this was happening behind the scenes, I think that they would be very frustrated around how that happens.”
Mr Williams says that one part of an agent’s job is to help homeowners align their price expectations with the market.
Another technique used by agents is passing verbal offers to buy onto clients, rather than putting them into a contract.
In Victoria, this would require a quoted range’s bottom end to be lifted to that new figure, which could deter some interested buyers.
Mr Williams said that while some agents were straight with homeowners, many seasoned veterans of the industry employed these techniques.
And while the tactics themselves aren’t illegal, they “aren’t ethical”, he said.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s government is introducing a requirement for residential reserve prices to be disclosed seven days ahead of an auction, from October 1. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie.
Mr Williams said some agents were also trying to come up with workarounds for upcoming Victorian government legislation, which will require reserve prices be disclosed seven days ahead of a residential auction or sale, due to come into effect on October 1.
He said “gaping holes” in the legislation would give agents an opportunity “to kind of get around it”.
“One of the things that we’re going to start to see a lot of is, if the vendor’s expectations are significantly higher than the market at the point of coming up to that seven days out, we’re going to see a lot of postponed or delayed auctions coming,” Mr Williams noted.
“I guess that just gives the agent enough time to work on the vendor to get their price expectations in the right level or it gives them enough time to bring the market up, which I think will be more of a secondary approach.”
In addition, Mr Williams said he anticipated more home marketing campaigns with lower asking ranges in the first week to generate interest, before the price rose in the second week and even again in the third week.
“So I don’t think it (the legislation) quite solves the issue of transparency to buyers, because there’s nothing stopping the agent doing that,” he added.
bRight Agent co-founders Angelina and Aaron Scott. Picture: Supplied.
Agent comparison platform bRight Agent co-founder Aaron Scott said calling out the real estate industry’s core myths and practices which “keep commissions artificially high and transparency dangerously low” was important in the current market.
Firstly, Mr Scott highlighted that agent’s commissions were not fixed and could be negotiated, as shown by a bRight Agent report which found some regional Australian sellers pay up to $12,000 more in fees than metropolitan sellers due to a lack of local competition.
As well, he warned homeowners to be wary of agents who claimed they could deliver the “highest price” for a property.
“An agent can’t guarantee a result they don’t control, so unless they’re offering to buy it themselves then they’re probably lying to you,” Mr Scott said.
“Promising a record price before hitting the market is a psychological trap to get a signature on a listing contract.”
The Governance Institute of Australia’s 2025 Ethics Index revealed that real estate agents are one of the nation’s least trusted professions.
Another thing to watch out for is an agent who promises they have buyers ready to purchase.
This often means they agent has a database of buyers, but this is no guarantee those people want an abode with a certain price or specific style.
Mr Scott described agents who stated that a home was worth much more than other agents were using “an aggressive bait-and-switch”.
“They tell you what you want to hear to secure the exclusive right to sell your property, only to condition you down on price once your listing grows stale,” he explained.
“Instead the agent flattering you with a high price guide, look at independent data yourself and come to a realistic understanding yourself as to what it’s worth.”
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