Northern Beaches
Buyers Agents

Two parts, both fixed, both in writing. An engagement fee of $5,500 including GST when you appoint us, which funds a minimum of 100 hours of Director-level time: the brief, the search, the due diligence, the inspections. Then a success fee, agreed before the search begins and payable on unconditional exchange. It is never a percentage of the purchase price, because a percentage pays your agent more the more you spend, which is the opposite of the job. The full structure is on our services page.

Honestly: not for everyone. If you have the time to search properly, know the suburbs deeply and negotiate without emotion, you may not need us. For everyone else, the value sits in three places: access to homes that never reach the portals, prevention of expensive mistakes, and a negotiation run by someone who is not in love with the house. We coordinate finance, legals and due diligence in parallel, so you can move quickly without gambling your capital. The maths is set out in why use a buyers agent.

A real estate agent is engaged and paid by the seller, and their legal duty is to get the highest possible price. A buyers agent is engaged and paid by you, and owes that same duty to your side of the table. We never sell property, never take commissions or referral fees from vendors or developers, and never act for both sides. In any Northern Beaches negotiation there is a professional working for the seller. The only question is whether anyone is working for you.

Anyone who answers that question with their own name is telling you something useful about themselves. The honest answer: the best buyers agent for you is independent, works only for buyers, knows your exact suburbs street by street, and does the work personally rather than passing it to a junior. Judge on things you can verify: who actually runs your search, how the fee is structured, reviews from settled clients, and accreditation with REBAA and REINSW. We are happy to be measured on every one of those.

Often — around 75% of the homes we secure are bought off-market or pre-market. But "off-market" covers three different things: genuine private sales driven by a seller's need for discretion, quiet pre-market testing before a public launch, and listings that simply are not advertised widely. Only the first is truly private, and part of our job is telling you whether a "private opportunity" is genuine or a seller testing an ambitious price. The full picture is in our off-market analysis.

Yes, but treat it as a part-time job rather than a weekend hobby. Selling agents prioritise buyers who offer speed and certainty, so you need pre-approved finance, a solicitor on standby, and a personal rapport with every local agent in your target suburbs. The Northern Beaches market runs on word of mouth, so you will need to network hard to surface the silent listings. And never mistake speed for recklessness: strict due diligence is the only way to be sure a private opportunity is not an overpriced lemon.

It depends whether you mean houses or apartments. For houses, the most accessible entry points are typically in the central belt, in suburbs like Narraweena, Cromer and Beacon Hill, while apartments in Dee Why and Brookvale generally offer the lowest overall entry to the Beaches. But medians move monthly and averages hide the street-by-street reality, which is where value is actually found. Use the suburb matcher above to shortlist by budget, or ask us what your number genuinely buys right now.

We are structured to remove that conflict: no sales quotas, no alliances with selling agents, and a fixed fee that does not reward rushing. Our reputation is built on the "Power of No" — we frequently advise clients to walk away, because protecting you from a mistake is worth more than a fast settlement. We would rather spend months finding the right home than let you settle for a compromise next week.

On average our clients secure their home within 6 to 8 weeks, though some searches conclude in a fortnight and complex briefs can take months. Be cautious of anyone who guarantees a result in days. There is no countdown clock here: we refine the strategy on your feedback and the market's flow, and we stay in your corner until you are opening the door of a home you love, whether that takes one month or six.

For a home you will live in, no. For an investment property, the fee generally forms part of the property's cost base for capital gains tax purposes rather than an immediate deduction. Individual circumstances differ, and we are buyers agents, not tax advisers, so confirm your position with your accountant before relying on it. What we can promise is a fee that is fixed and in writing from day one, so there is at least no uncertainty about the number itself.