The truth about silent sales

 In Newsletter

You may or may not have heard of the term “silent sales”- in a nutshell, these are those sales that we refer to as being off-market, quietly listed (in other words, not on the internet) or generally unknown to the wider public. A word, however, about such sales- please don’t make the mistake of thinking that we come across these frequently or that they make up a significant amount of our enquiries. Though there are some buyers’ agents who claim such properties make up the majority of their listings, we believe this is far from accurate.  The reality is that such silent sales are usually in the premium price end of the market ($2m+) as vendors tend to be more private in this sector.  Clients who engage us in these price brackets generally gain access to anywhere between 10-20% of our total enquiries as silent sales, with the majority coming from the open market. After all, most vendors aim to sell property with maximum exposure so their price outcome is hopefully the highest it can possibly be.

We tend to see far less of homes that aren’t on the open market for buyers in the most popular or median price brackets, however this isn’t to say that we aren’t in the best position to learn about these.  Given our frequent and ongoing contact with selling agents, we often get inside information on upcoming new listings and are able to leverage this to research properties before even stepping foot inside. Two such recent examples in the last few months have resulted in fantastic outcomes for our buyers- one a first home buyer couple on the North Shore with a charming character home that never made it to the advertising stage, and another off-market property for a Hills buyer who plans to develop the site. Without our continual presence on the ground and maintaining contact with selling agents, these properties wouldn’t have been unearthed until many weeks or months later.

Though we regularly receive emails and correspondence from private sellers and agents who are selling something “on the quiet”, sales that we do come across may not always be suited to a buyer’s particular needs or criteria. Actually, in our experience, most private sellers or quiet listers can be unrealistically high in their price expectations and are hoping for a naive buyer to waltz in and pay an inflated price.  It is vital that you have a clear understanding of the market and pricing before you submit any offers on any silent listings.

 

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