The games too many agents play
The Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics was awarded for insights including what happens when you’re bidding on a home — in auctions, private sales and Expressions of Interest.
Stop agents’ games
Too many agents use prices to manipulate both buyers and sellers.
When buyers ask, they’ll swear a home will go for $X when they know it will go for $X+++
On the other side of the action, to persuade sellers to list with them, they’ll insist that only they can get $X+++++ when they know that home will never go that high (they’ll lower the seller’s expectations later — they call it conditioning).
So go ahead and ask…
“What will it sell for?”
If you enjoy watching agents bob and weave, that’s your question.
Then you might follow up with:
What’s the reserve?
Just don’t expect straight answers.
Play The Nobel Card
The Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics spells out when auction prices go highest.
It’s when there are no secrets. When everyone knows all there is to know.
If you know the real expectations, you’re much better equipped to bid with confidence.
Tell the agent the the Nobel Prize was awarded for showing (among other things) that it’s good for prices when agents are up-front.
Still no answer?
Ask whether the seller knows how much the agent’s games are costing.
Winner’s Curse, The Smartest Bid, Fear Of Bid and more advice you shouldn’t be without. Are you ready?
3… 2… 1… 
Morrell and Koren were Australia’s first home buyers’ advocates.
At the top end, there’s hardly a home that we don’t know.
Top End Trends is an insider’s view of the highs, the lows, the clever and the not so clever in all kinds of real estate and its buyers, sellers and (often) estate agents.