Chelsea and Stuart Morley are selling their ‘dream’ Melbourne family home and going down a fairly new-age route to do it. (Source: Supplied/realestate.com.au)
Australians are ditching real estate agents to sell their homes themselves – and pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in the process. While millions have relied on agents to advertise their properties, handle all the enquiries, and deal with negotiations, Aussies are increasingly striking out on their own.
Chelsea and Stuart Morley are in the process of selling their Melbourne property and they decided to do it themselves after one too many issues with agents in the past. Chelsea told Yahoo Finance the process has been fairly easy so far.
“You can’t get ahead if you’re paying $40,000 to an agent… it’s a no-brainer to me,” the co-founder of advertising agency Tiny Disco said.
“That’s a huge amount of cash to go towards the next home. You want to be jumping forward in life, not having to go backwards.”
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They’ve lived in their “dream” Edwardian four-bedroom Windsor property for the last three years after buying it for $1.8 million at auction and they’re not in a rush to sell.
The home is currently listed with a price guide of $1.95 million to $2.1 million.
According to realestate.com.au, the average real estate agent commission rate is 2-2.5 per cent.
If the Morley’s went down the traditional route and sold their home at the top of that bracket, they would be giving up as much as $52,500 to their agent.
“I’m really interested in this idea of challenging what everyone just thinks is the way you should sell a house,” she said.
“There’s so many strong opinions like, ‘How dare you, real estate agents are much more experienced than you’. But are they more experienced than me who’s lived in this house? They’re not.”
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The couple paid an online platform to publish their listing on Domain and realestate.com.au.
Homeowners can’t just chuck their home on two of the biggest property sites by themselves, but there are several platforms like buymyplace.com.au and forsalebyowner.com.au that will do it for you for a nominal fee.
The Morleys went with buymyplace.com.au, and the essentials package cost them $745.
They’ve also enlisted an auctioneer, which set them back $1,500, and they paid $219 for a big ‘For Sale’ sign outside their home, and $89 for small leaflets that can be placed in peoples’ letterboxes.
All up, they’ve paid $2,553 to sell their home, which is, provided they sell, nearly $50,000 cheaper than if they went with an agent.
They also saved money by taking all the images for the listing themselves, as Stuart is a photographer by trade, but that can cost sellers hundreds or even thousands of dollars on top of an agent’s commission fee.
This is the second time the Melbourne couple have sold their home without an agent and did the same process when offloading their Melbourne apartment back in 2018.
They got an “incredible” price for the home and that gave them the confidence to do it again with their family home.
Colin Sacks is the founder of forsalebyowner.com.au and he told Yahoo Finance that listings and sales on his platform have doubled since 2020, in a clear sign that this trend is becoming more popular.
“We have a lot of people who’ve been let down by the real estate process. So they obviously had an agent, and it didn’t work,” he explained.
“A lot of people just don’t want to be paying those kinds of fees to agents.”
His platform, which has been around for more than a decade, has helped people sell homes in the low hundreds of thousands right up to a $15 million property.
That latter seller would have pocketed up to $375,000 because they didn’t have to pay an agent’s commission.
Colin Sacks said he’s seen a massive uptick in the number of people wanting to sell their properties themselves. (Source: forsalebyowner.com.au)
Sacks gave an example of a homeowner who was told by an agent they could get around $510,000 for their property. But they decided to sell it themselves and managed to find a buyer willing to pay $150,000 more than that.
“If you save $20,000 in commission and get an extra $20,000 more in the sale, that’s $40,000… you can take your family overseas, come back and buy a car for your effort,” he said.
People selling it themselves have full transparency over the listings, how the description is worded, what photos are used, and in what order, and they receive all the enquiries about the home through text messages.
Steven Campbell and his husband sold their Melbourne apartment earlier this year by themselves and the whole process only took three weeks.
They were able to save $10,000 in what would have gone towards the agent’s commission.
The 30-year-old told Yahoo Finance being in charge of when the inspections were scheduled allowed for far more flexibility than what an agent might have managed.
He was able to organise inspections at the drop of a hat, mainly after work hours, and also for much longer durations than your standard 30 minutes.
Campbell said he also felt like he could really sell it to anyone walking through his door.
Steven and his husband sold their property themselves at the start of this year and found the process surprisingly easy. (Source: Supplied)
“I went to another open inspection nearby just to see what that apartment looked like, and people were asking questions to real estate agent, and they were just like, ‘Oh, I’m not sure’. I thought that was such a s**t experience for them,” he said.
“The carpet in the hallway to the apartment looked a bit dodgy because it had water damage, and I was able to give the backstory to buyers like, ‘Yes, these pipes are being replaced, but there’s $1 million in the maintenance fund, so it’s fine’.
“Just extra stuff like that that a real estate agent would never care enough to learn.”
Morely echoed this sentiment and told Yahoo Finance that living in a home for several years gives you a unique leg up on an agent. She has been able to tell buyers about their favourite local cafe, what the schools are like in the area, and the best part of the nearby park to have a picnic.
“The transaction of a house can be extremely cold, and you’ve just forked out your life savings,” she said. “Why not have a little bit of a sentimental exchange there too?”
If an agent takes care of selling your home, they know how to handle those prickly negotiations.
For everyday Aussies, that skill might not come naturally.
“You need to be absolutely confident and be able to stand your ground,” Morley said.
“You and your partner need to be completely aligned as well. You have to know your worth and trust that process, because there’s a lot of wheelers and dealers out there.”
She added that sellers also need to make sure they have all the required documents and information ready before the first inspection.
“You’ve got to make sure you’re stitched up legally,” she said.
“If you are running the inspections yourself, be aware of what you actually need to have out. You need to be able able to answer certain questions and have your Section 32 ready to be able to give to people as they’re coming through.
“If you don’t have it ready, then that can look bad.”
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