Warren Burger is trying to sell his home without a real estate agent and without the major platforms realestate.com.au and Domain. (Source: Warren Burger)
Sunshine Coast man Warren Burger is trying to sell his home without a real estate agent and hopes it will save him thousands of dollars. He is one of a growing number of property sellers who are opting to bypass agents and are doing it themselves instead.
Burger and his wife are currently in the process of selling their Sunshine Coast house, which they purchased back in 2022 for $1.2 million. The couple initially met with a bunch of real estate agents, but ultimately felt “none of them could justify” the hefty commission fee they wanted to charge.
“For a property in our price range, it would be between $30,000 and $40,000. That’s without the marketing fees,” the tech entrepreneur told Yahoo Finance.
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That’s when Burger decided he would try to sell the property himself and document the entire process for other Aussies to show how it could be done. He is sharing the process online under the cheeky handle ‘Agents Want Me Cancelled’.
Burger has opted to list his house on Facebook Marketplace groups, rather than going through the two major online platforms realestate.com.au and Domain that dominate the property listings sector.
Homeowners can’t actually list their own homes on the two sites themselves, but there are several platforms like buymyplace.com.au and forsalebyowner.com.au which will allow self-sellers to list on there for a fee.
Platform forsalebyowner.com.au has seen its listings and sales double since 2020, as the trend becomes more popular.
Burger said he enquired with one of the independent platforms, but ultimately decided he wanted to see if he could avoid real estate listing fees altogether.
“It shouldn’t be any different to selling a car. The whole industry is gatekept and controlled by the monopoly completely, and that’s where my issue lies,” he complained.
One key thing real estate agents do is provide sellers with an appraisal. This is usually a free and non-binding estimate of your property’s market value.
To come up with his asking price, Burger signed up for residential property data from Cotality to get recent sale prices, median values and market trends for his suburb. This is the same tool that agents use, and the price ranges from $169 to $229 a month.
Burger is hoping to get $1.65 million for the Sunshine Coast house. (Source: Warren Burger)
“I was able to pull reports from other properties within a 5-kilometre radius that have sold within the last three months and really have all my ducks in a row with exactly where my property lies in terms of its valuation,” he said.
“The other thing that I did was I spoke to my mortgage broker when I started the process and ordered a professional valuation from the bank.”
Burger said the bank valuation was between $400 and $500, and the valuation given was slightly more conservative.
This led him to come to an asking price of $1.65 million for the Sunshine Coast property, which has four-bedrooms, two-bathrooms, a double garage and a swimming pool and is on a 714 square metre corner block.
Burger has engaged a conveyancer who will draw up the legal documents, including the sales agreement, Form 2 seller disclosure statement and title searches. The fee was $3,000.
He had professional photographs taken of the property, which cost $600.
A handyman has also been out to patch up and paint parts of the house, along with a gardener to make sure everything looks neat and tidy.
Burger has decided against doing open homes and will run inspections himself by appointment only. This will also allow him to personally connect with every interested buyer.
There will be private inspections of the property for interested buyers in the coming weeks. (Source: Warren Burger)
“If I can help a family secure our home because they really want it or they’ve had maybe a bit of a tough situation, I would appreciate the opportunity over, let’s say, a landlord, or someone who’s just going to rent the house out,” he said.
The Queensland Office of Fair Trading has urged sellers to be careful about selling their home privately without a real estate agent. It recommends always getting a solicitor to check a house sale contract before signing.
Burger listed his property on Facebook Marketplace at the end of February, posting it in three different Facebook Groups targeted to home buyers and sellers.
He is hoping to sell his property within six weeks and had been contacted by multiple interested parties.
He has been filtering them by asking the same set of questions to understand their position, including how long they have been looking for a property, whether they are pre-approved for finance or cash buyers, and their timeframe to settle.
Burger is hoping to sell the property within six weeks. (Source: Warren Burger)
He plans to set up in-person inspections and is hoping to have at least 10 to 20 people through.
“That’s when I’ll be asking them to put their best offer forward, and I’ve been very open and transparent with where I’m at with pricing, which is $1,650,000,” he said.
Burger admitted there was a bit of “sweat equity” involved with selling the house himself, but luckily, he and his wife aren’t in a rush to sell.
Since sharing his experience online, Burger has received messages from agents claiming he could get sued, or will “leave money on the table” and not get the best price possible. But he has also had a few real estate agents reach out and offer to help him on his journey for free.
“I don’t think real estate agents are useless or that they are not needed in the industry. That’s definitely not my views or what I believe,” he said.
Burger expects the industry may well change in the future and agents could charge for specific services they complete in the transaction, such as handling the negotiation or hosting an open home, rather than a commission for the entire process.
He is confident he will be able to sell the property within the six-week timeframe and get the result he wants.
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