The purchase.
The buyer.
And what it took.

A young couple starting out, with plenty of people telling them what to do and nobody independent to check it against. They wanted someone on the same trajectory rather than someone talking about it. The plan began as two smaller assets across Queensland, until the cashflow work showed they could comfortably carry one larger purchase instead. This one was tenanted well under market until next year, which ruled out every owner occupier chasing it and left the field to an investor. Elevated, north facing, 607sqm, and bought $50,000 to $70,000 under what it was worth. Thank the tenant for that one.

A young Brisbane dentist about to launch his own practice, who wanted an asset behind him first. We found this one early, but the vendor was overpriced and would not entertain an offer until they had bought something themselves. So we waited. The campaign ran, it was withdrawn, then the vendor bought elsewhere and the motivation changed overnight. Blocks in that pocket were selling for $600,000 to $650,000, and this is 810sqm across two titles, so the land alone was worth $1.2 to $1.3 million. He paid $50,000 less than the dirt and got a four bedroom home with a pool on top of it.

A repeat client buying inside their super fund, where the rules push you toward brick and tile with nothing that needs work. We spent three weeks across Moreton Bay assuming Brisbane City Council was out of reach on the budget. Weeks earlier we had maxed out at $1,110,000 on an inferior four bedder. The owner knocked us back, took it to market and got $1,175,000. That sale had not gone unconditional and was not in the public data, so the vendor and agent here had no idea it existed. We did. We gave them their number and their settlement terms, kept a finance condition on a property headed to auction, and set it to go unconditional before the auction date so they kept their fallback either way.

Two mates in very different positions. One already held a portfolio and had equity behind him, but his borrowing capacity was tapped out. The other had strong borrowing capacity and nothing behind him at all. Separately, neither could move. Together they were one complete buyer. They gravitated to the Hills district in the north west, so we worked the off market stock along the line where Moreton Bay meets Brisbane City Council. This one is four bed, one bath, two car, north facing to the rear with the views that pocket is known for. The vendor had already committed to a land and build on acreage, so they wanted a clean transaction rather than months of open homes and a house kept presentable around the clock. That is what let us buy it under market.

A young professional couple in Sydney with up to a million to spend and almost nothing worth buying at that price in their own city. The agent who bought their family home referred them across rather than pretend he could add value in Queensland. Both are flat out, so the brief was a market with a real track record and genuine fundamentals, and a property that runs itself. We knew about this one before it hit the market. The circumstances of the sale meant it had to be listed, but we were told exactly what the offer needed to look like, which is how we landed on a number as odd as $936,000.

A Brisbane couple with around $900,000 who did not believe a house was still possible here. They already owned their family home on the northside and wanted to diversify away from it, but would not go to Logan or Ipswich, which left the inner north or the east. We went east. He runs a painting business and has trades on hand, so we hunted for the thing most buyers avoid: an original, untouched, tired low set brick that would have struggled on the open market. That is exactly why we could buy it $50,000 under comparables. Twenty seven thousand dollars of work later it valued at $1,150,000.

A buyer’s agent is not for everyone, and this couple ticked almost every box for doing it themselves. They knew the market, they knew the northern corridor, they had six properties behind them. They just had no hours. We picked the pocket we wanted and let a hungry agent hunt it for us off market. Then the building and pest turned messy: a neighbour’s tree wrecking the back pavers and the fence. Rather than walk or wear it, we negotiated an agreement with the neighbour to remove the tree and restore the fence before settlement. Our clients never had to make a phone call.

A young Brisbane professional who already owned a unit on the southside and wanted to back his own read that Brisbane keeps running. His problem was not the city, it was which part of it. We walked him through the data on every suburb his budget actually reached, then narrowed to low set brick and tile, which rules out a lot of them. The agent could not sell this one off market without doing a disservice to the owner and to two other buyer’s agents who also knew about it. A week later I checked in. Circumstances had changed, nobody else had called, and we inspected and bought it the same day.

A Brisbane couple with no investment properties at all. Between the family home and the way they wanted to live, servicing another loan outside super was not realistic, but the fund could buy. Super purchases are unforgiving, because you are limited in what you can do to the property afterwards, so the brief is always the same: minimal work, still standing and still performing in twenty years. We bought it off market through an agent we deal with constantly. Already tenanted, so it paid from day one, and the building and pest came back clean. They have since come back and bought two more.

A bloke with two boys, growing out of his home and resetting his life around becoming a rentvestor. Three bed, two bath, two car in Brisbane’s north. Halfway through the contract the vendor went unconditional on their own purchase, so their motivation went through the roof. Then the building and pest found old termite damage in the roof rafters. We had a builder quote the repair and asked for $20,000 off. They agreed. He works in construction, so his trades handled flooring, paint and lighting for around $15,000. It valued at $930,000 within three weeks of settlement.

Sales agents are among the people who need a buyer’s agent most, and almost nobody says it. They get the off market access, sure. What they do not get is a clean negotiation, because two agents across the table in a patch they both work brings ego into it and neither wants to be seen to lose. We sit in the middle and the whole thing becomes numbers. No ego, no history, just where the value is. He also had no time. We sent him one property. He said it was what he had been hunting for months and we bought it in a week, off market.

A Sydney couple referred by someone we had bought for before. They knew they wanted to invest and were terrified of getting an expensive decision wrong. One other buyer’s advocate was on the same off market property. The agent would not say where the other offer sat, but we had bought from him before and knew how he runs a two horse race: both parties get one chance to improve. So we opened deliberately below where we thought the other offer was. They asked the same question we would have, heard they were in front, and had no reason to move. We did. We went a thousand over them.

We nearly skipped this one. It was on market with an out of area agent whose price guide sat about $100,000 under where the property actually was, and we assumed it would run far past us. What the low guide actually did was anchor fifteen buyers to offer low. So we contested it and won by five hundred dollars, on the back of a relationship with the agent rather than the biggest number. A 1992 build that needs a cuddle, which is exactly what this buyer wanted: cul de sac, high side of the street, elevated, and room for a second dwelling at the rear.

An investment purchase in Toowoomba for a buyer who had run out of time to do it themselves. Comparable sales at the time were $870,000 to $890,000.

Months of searching on her own had gone nowhere. We sourced this off market within two weeks of being engaged, ran the cost analysis across multiple scenarios, and had it under contract in four.