How to Sell a House Without an Agent in Brisbane

The saving in a private sale is the sales commission, in Brisbane, typically somewhere between 2% and 3.5% of the sale price plus GST, depending on the agency and the property. On an $900,000 sale that is roughly $20,000 to $35,000.

What does not go away: the advertising cost, the photography and floor plan, the conveyancing or solicitor fees, and any marketing you choose to add. Advertising is a real cost whether an agent lists the property or you do. The difference is that in a commission model it is often bundled into a larger fee.

• · Saved: sales commission on settlement.
• · Still payable: portal advertising, photography, floor plan, signboard, copywriting.
• · Still payable: solicitor or conveyancer fees for the contract and settlement.
• · Still payable: any building and pest issues you agree to resolve during negotiation.

The single practical obstacle to a private sale in Australia is portal access. realestate.com.au and Domain do not sell listings directly to owners. A listing has to be uploaded through a licensed agency account. Roughly nine in ten Brisbane buyers begin on one of those two sites, so a campaign that skips them is competing with one hand tied.

There are two routes from here. One is a flat-fee package from a licensed agency, which uploads your listing to the portals for a fixed price while you conduct the sale, typically $450 to $1,500. The other is to advertise to buyers directly through paid search and social, which reaches people who have not started a portal search yet. Neither involves commission, and plenty of owners use both.

Pricing is where most private sales are won or lost. Buyers compare your property against everything else currently listed and everything recently sold. They do not adjust for the fact that you are saving commission.

Work from settled comparable sales in the last 90 days, in your suburb, for your property type, then adjust for land size, condition, aspect and parking. Look at what is currently listed as well. Those are the properties your buyer is also inspecting. If nothing comparable has sold recently, widen to an adjoining suburb before you widen the time window.

Set your genuine walk-away figure before you advertise. Deciding it mid-negotiation, with a buyer on the phone, is how owners talk themselves down.

Presentation carries more weight in a private sale, not less, because you have no agent database to fall back on. Professional photography is not optional. It is the single highest-return spend in the campaign. A floor plan meaningfully increases enquiry, particularly for houses and townhouses.

Write the listing copy for a specific buyer. A four-bedroom house near a good primary school is being sold to a different person than a renovator on the same street. Naming that buyer changes the headline, the first paragraph and the order of the photographs.

Open homes are the part owners consistently underestimate. You are managing entry and exit, collecting names and contact details, answering questions accurately, and reading which buyers are serious, all at once, in your own home.

Practical measures that help: run inspections by appointment as well as open times, so serious buyers get an unhurried look; record every attendee, because your follow-up list is your entire buyer pool; put valuables away; and have a second person present. Never conduct an inspection alone with a stranger you have not verified.

Answer questions factually and never guess. Saying "I will confirm that and come back to you today" is safer than an off-the-cuff answer about a boundary, an easement or a body corporate levy that later turns out to be wrong.

Negotiating on your own home is harder than it looks, for the obvious reason: you are personally attached to the outcome and the buyer knows it. The two disciplines that matter most are keeping every communication in writing where possible, and never revealing your minimum.

Take offers in writing with the buyer's finance position, deposit and preferred settlement date. Compare them on those terms, not on price alone, an unconditional offer $10,000 lower is often the better one.

Selling privately does not reduce your legal obligations. In Queensland, sellers must give a buyer a seller disclosure statement, with the prescribed certificates and information attached, before the buyer signs the contract. A contract signed without it can give the buyer a right to terminate.

Engage a solicitor or conveyancer before you advertise. They prepare the contract, confirm what has to be disclosed for your property, and manage settlement. If your property is in a community titles scheme, they will also tell you which body corporate records you need to obtain and provide.

Private sale suits owners with time, a clear head about price, and a property with obvious comparable evidence. It suits people who are comfortable answering the phone to strangers and saying no to a low offer.

It is a poor fit if the property is unusual and hard to price, if you are selling under time pressure or as part of a separation or deceased estate, if you live interstate, or if you know you would rather not conduct inspections yourself. In those cases a full-service campaign usually earns its commission back.