Real estate trainer weighs in on off-market listings

“I think everyone comes up with their own definition,” Mr Panos said, commenting on what makes an off-market listing.

“To me, I think there is pre-portal opportunities. Pre-portal means it’s not hitting realestate[.com.au] and Domain, so it’s not on those portals. And what an agent has done is actually gone off, signed an agency agreement and said, ‘Hey, this is off-market’.

“But is it really off-market? Because they’re normally sending out a database to their email of about 10,000 people. They’re normally putting it up on Facebook and Instagram. So, is that really off-market? Not really, because a segment of the market is going to find out about it. It’s normally thousands.

“Then you’ve got what I call the ‘off-market off-market’, which is, ‘Hey, we’re not even going to tell any of our database. We’re not even going to put it on Facebook or Instagram. What are we going to do? Hey, I’ve got a buyer in my head and I’m going to ring that buyer and I’m going to tell that buyer I’ve got this home in Windsor Street and that we’re going to take you through it’. Maybe that’s closer to a definition of an off-market transaction because only one person finds out about it.”

Mr Panos said it isn’t a huge surprise that there’s been a surge in off-market listings since the pandemic was declared.

“I think there’s probably been a bit of a surge because there is a few vendors out there who are thinking, ‘You know what? I’m concerned about coming onto the market at the moment because maybe there’s not a lot of buyers out there’, which is [incorrect] because there’s a lot of buyers out there. But maybe [they’re thinking], ‘There’s not a lot of buyers, and I don’t want to pay the fee to realestate.com and Domain. So, what I’ll do is I’ll look at a cheaper option’. I think that’s the case.”

That all being said, Mr Panos said putting himself in the eyes of the seller, he personally wouldn’t be inclined to list off-market.

“I’ve got a personal view that if I was selling my house, I don’t want 10 per cent of the market looking at it. I want 100 per cent of the market looking at it because I want to go to sleep at night thinking to myself, ‘Everyone saw it’,” he explained.

“But I realise, there’s a group of people out there that want to keep things on the quiet.”