Is a Buyer's Agent Really Worth It in Today's Market?

What Does a Buyers Agent Actually Do?

Damien explains the core distinction: a selling agent acts for the seller, while a buyers agent acts for the buyer, filtering properties, negotiating, and handling due diligence on the buyer's behalf. He notes buyers agents have become far more prevalent over the past decade or so, now heavily promoted across social media, and that licensing requirements vary by state (typically a certificate of registration working under a fully licensed supervisor, sometimes with mutual recognition across states), meaning it's genuinely possible for someone with limited property experience to enter the industry and give advice with real financial consequences for clients.

The Danger of a Locally-Focused Buyers Agent

Both agree one of the biggest limitations of many buyers agents is operating only within their own local area. Jeremy acknowledges a genuine benefit to hyper-local knowledge (knowing not to overpay on a specific street), but stresses that knowing a local market well doesn't mean that market is actually the best place to invest right now. His recommendation: take a genuinely borderless approach to choosing where to invest first, then engage a local buyers agent once a strong target market has been identified through the data.

The Real Advantages of a Buyers Agent

Damien and Jeremy outline several genuine benefits:

Time savings — avoiding the need to personally attend inspections, filter listings, and assess suitability. Negotiation and relationships — an experienced local agent may have built relationships that occasionally surface a genuine off-market opportunity (for example, a seller needing to move quickly), though both stress genuine off-market deals are a small fraction of the market overall. Guidance through the process — while the investor still makes the final call, having someone lay out a property's pros and cons removes some of the burden of navigating an unfamiliar process alone. Risk identification — flagging practical concerns (busy roads, block irregularities) that, while typically already priced into a property, may still affect resale appeal or lifestyle comfort. Trade and renovation networks — useful for investors wanting to add value to an older property without personally sourcing reliable tradespeople. An emotional buffer — helping investors move past minor, non-financial sticking points (paint colour, garden style) that can otherwise stall a purchase indefinitely, since Jeremy and Damien both stress the suburb, not small cosmetic details, does most of the work in driving capital growth.

A Real Example: Melbourne vs. Perth

Using historical chart data, Jeremy and Damien compare a hypothetical $600,000 purchase in Melbourne versus Perth three years prior to recording (July 2022 to July 2025): Melbourne was essentially flat over the period, while Perth delivered around 75% growth, a gap worth well over a quarter of a million dollars. Their frustration centres on buyers agents who default to "always buy in Melbourne" regardless of what the data shows at the time, since this locks clients into the long-term average growth rate rather than capturing genuine boom periods, while still charging a full fee for the recommendation.

Disadvantages and Limitations of a Buyers Agent

Cost — typically either a fixed fee or a percentage of purchase price (Damien cites 2.2%, or around $22,000 on a $1 million property, as an example). He notes the fee can usually be added to a property's cost base for capital gains tax purposes when eventually sold, partially offsetting the expense over time, worth confirming with a tax accountant. Highly variable quality — Jeremy considers this the single biggest issue in the industry, comparing it to the difference between a premium and budget car purchase, except a poor buyers agent can cost an investor hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost growth, while a strong one can add a similar amount, a much larger swing than the fee itself. Potential bias — some businesses masquerading as independent buyers agents are effectively developer-aligned sales channels, steering clients toward a specific project rather than genuinely researching the best available market. Commitment required — an investor still needs to be genuinely ready to act, since analysis paralysis can undermine even a strong buyers agent relationship. Sales targets — buyers agent businesses, like any business, often have internal targets, and clients should be alert to any sense of being pressured toward a decision rather than genuinely guided through one.

A Real Case Study: A Decade of Lost Growth

Damien shares a genuine past client example: a unit purchased in Harris Park, New South Wales, through a large buyers agent firm in January 2016 for $447,000, later sold in mid-2024 for $440,000, a loss of $7,000 over roughly nine years, in an area affected by significant local oversupply. Damien had conducted a "should I sell" analysis for the client back in September 2021, recommending sale at that point given weak DSR and clear oversupply signals, but the client held on for a further two and a half years before eventually selling, still at a loss.

Both stress the scale of the resulting opportunity cost: against a national average growth rate over that period of roughly 6–7% annually, the property didn't even keep pace with the broader market, let alone outperform it, representing an estimated opportunity cost in the order of half a million dollars relative to what could have been achieved in a genuinely strong market over the same decade. Jeremy notes the buyers agent firm involved would have collected a substantial fee for the original purchase with no accountability for the outcome that followed, a recurring theme in their broader concerns about the industry's lack of consequences for underperformance.

When Is a Buyers Agent Worth It?

Damien suggests a buyers agent is most valuable for busy professionals, those investing in unfamiliar or interstate markets, or anyone without the time or inclination to personally compete against a locally-based buyers agent already active in a hot, fast-moving market. Jeremy frames his own view around comparative advantage: since his own expertise already covers market selection, he wouldn't need a buyers agent for that specific task, but would still use one to handle negotiation and on-the-ground logistics, freeing his own time for higher-value work. Both agree an experienced, highly capable investor may not need one at all, but caution against assuming that applies to everyone.

How Do You Actually Find a Good One?

Both are candid that this remains a genuinely hard, largely unsolved problem. Asking for a buyers agent's track record typically yields a cherry-picked highlight reel rather than a complete, honest history. Jeremy shares that even industry figures who publicly brand themselves as "data-driven" have, in his direct experience reviewing their published analysis, produced work he considered deeply unrigorous, underscoring that claiming to use data isn't the same as using it well, and that this claim alone can no longer meaningfully distinguish a good buyers agent from a weak one. Their practical suggestion: do independent due diligence regardless of which agent is engaged, checking the DSR (or another data source) for any recommended suburb directly, rather than relying purely on trust.

Closing Thoughts

Damien and Jeremy's overall conclusion: a buyers agent only delivers genuine value when the investor is clear on their own goals, remains engaged and willing to act, and independently sense-checks recommendations against real data rather than accepting them purely on trust or polished presentation. They note their own team offers general guidance and portfolio reviews (including "should I sell" analysis) for anyone feeling stuck, and close by reiterating a consistent message: holding onto an underperforming property out of reluctance to admit a mistake tends to cost far more than the discomfort of actually selling and reallocating.