Sydney home buyers are fed up with misleading price guides. Is there any relief in sight?
The practice is illegal, and wastes the time and money of house hunters.Property listingsHome buyer John Slater was the only bidder on a northern beaches property last year, and he still missed out.
Sydney home buyers have become accustomed to adding sizeable sums onto advertised price guides for homes going to auction.Slater, a long-term northern beaches resident who temporarily relocated to Adelaide, spent thousands of dollars on flights, car hire, solicitors’ fees and pest and building reports, for a property for which he was never in the running.
Dozens of Sydney buyers told this masthead they had no faith in price guides and were accustomed to adding sizable sums on top, some at the advice of agents who admitted a property should sell above their guide. Agents caught underquoting could be given educational advice, a warning, penalty notice or face prosecution.Fair Trading and Better Regulation Minister Anoulack Chanthivong was unavailable for an interview, but provided a statement saying it was a priority for Fair Trading, which had cracked down on misleading conduct and would continue to look at ways to improve.
“There has not been a single investigation into anything that was complained about. It was such a futile exercise,” Stier said. An agent had formally knocked back a client’s offer, but continued to advise buyers of a lower price guide.“[Fair Trading] said they just gave the agent a warning. There was no fine, there was nothing.”
Mulligan believes underquoting is rampant, and the practice disadvantaged those agents who did quote honestly. Good Deeds Property Buyers founder Veronica Morgan called Fair Trading about a blatant case of underquoting, but got the strong impression it wouldn’t go anywhere.“[I called Fair Trading and] they talked me through the process and I decided not to complain. I got the strong impression it was going to go nowhere,” she said.
NSW Property Services Commissioner John Minns, tasked with raising industry standards and improving Fair Trading’s regulatory powers, was not convinced underquoting was widespread.
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