Location:

Inner West

Buyer type:

Owner-occupier

Budget:

Around $2 million

Property brief:

Amber and Chris were renting in Glebe and were keen to buy their own home in the Inner West. They wanted at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms and either a car space or readily available on-street parking, plus space for their dog.

Market conditions:

It was the middle of the 2021 property boom, with property prices rapidly escalating. Amber describes the market as “hot, hot, hot, especially in the Inner West!”

“Most of the properties we heard about were going to auction and we attended quite a few and we were a bit scared by the prices and just how quickly they went up,” Amber says. “Most properties were going for well over the advertised guide.”

Why did you engage in our reliable buyers’ agent services? As busy lawyers, Amber and Chris describe themselves as time-poor, and while they had independently bought property before, they recognised the value of engaging a specialist.

“I've always had an appreciation for engaging people who are experts in their own field, who will be able to guide you and point you in the right direction and to open you up to opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise necessarily have, particularly off-market and pre-market opportunities and potentially not needing to go to a public auction and compete with 20 or 30 other buyers,” Amber says.

Outcome:

Within little more than a month of engaging us, Amber and Chris had secured a property in Leichhardt, their favourite Inner West suburb, with all the requisite features and for less than the advertised price.

While sourcing the property was important, Amber says the bigger value in engaging Dan was being able to outsource the “tricky communications” that go hand-in-hand with a property purchase.

“I think that communication/negotiation piece was where I was most thankful to have Dan’s help because it's one thing as a potential purchaser to try and have an open, up-front discussion with the selling agent and it's another thing entirely for a buyer's agent to be able to have that objective, strictly professional, remove-the-emotion, try and test them a little bit without giving anything away, so that was a huge relief to me knowing all of those communications were taken care of. He was obviously going in with our interests at heart, making it a more level playing field.”

Are you likely to use a buyer’s agent in the future?

“Definitely, yes! I would think that it would be a bit of a no-brainer really to use someone on your side to go into bat for you who has the same negotiating skill-sets and the same industry knowledge as a sales agent. There is a cost attached to using a buyer’s agent but I think it's very likely Dan will end up saving you more money in the long run.”

Amber says using a buyer’s agent proved to be a far better experience than tackling the property hunt alone.

“This time around it was a lot less stressful, it was a lot less time-consuming and we have a greater feeling of having purchased well.”