Five Things You Should Never Say at an Open Home (One Cost a Client $80,000)

I was out for a walk on a Saturday morning a few months back and happened to pass an auction in progress. A follower recognised me, dragged me over, asked me to help assess the situation.

I looked at the house. A three-bedroom weatherboard in Melbourne's inner east, decent block, nothing extraordinary. My quick assessment: worth about $1.5 million. Maybe $1.52 million if someone really wanted it. Not a dollar more.

The bidding had already reached $1.5 million with my follower as the leading bidder. Then something odd happened. A man who hadn't been visible for the previous twenty minutes suddenly appeared and started counter-bidding. Slow, deliberate increments. Five thousand at a time.

My follower panicked and kept going. She eventually secured the property at $1.58 million.

The other bidder? He clapped once, turned around, walked straight to his car, and drove off. No congratulations. No lingering. No disappointment on his face.

I had a sinking feeling. I asked my follower: did you tell the agent your budget before the auction?

"Of course," she said. "I told him $1.6 million."

That was an $80,000 lesson.

How the incentive structure actually works

Let me be direct about something most buyers don't fully grasp: the selling agent does not work for you.

In Victoria, the selling agent's commission comes from the vendor. The current Melbourne average sits around 2.2% of the sale price, though it ranges from 1.6% to 2.5% depending on the agency and the property 1. On a $1 million house, that's $22,000. If the agent pushes the sale price to $1.1 million, the commission increases by $2,200.

The agent's financial incentive is to maximise the vendor's sale price. Every piece of information you volunteer becomes a tool for achieving that goal. Your budget ceiling, your urgency, your emotional attachment to the property — all of it gets filed away and used against you, sometimes directly, sometimes subtly.

This isn't a conspiracy. It's just how the structure works. You wouldn't ask the opposing team's lawyer to represent your interests in a contract dispute. The same logic applies here.

"The selling agent's job is to get the highest price for the vendor. That's not a criticism — it's a legal obligation under their agency agreement. Buyers who forget this pay a premium every time." — Yan Zhu

Statement 1: "My budget is X, but I could stretch to Y"

This is the single most expensive sentence in Australian property. My follower said it, and it cost her $80,000.

When you tell an agent your maximum figure, you've handed them the finish line. In a private sale negotiation, they'll anchor every counter-offer just below your stated ceiling. At auction, the information can be even more damaging — there are documented cases where agents use vendor bids or strategic dummy bidders to push genuine buyers toward their disclosed limits 2.

The rule is straightforward: never reveal your maximum budget. Not even your approximate budget. If the agent asks how much you're looking to spend (and they always ask — it's the first question in every open inspection training manual), you have two good responses.

First option: deflect. "We're still working with our broker on final numbers." This is truthful enough — your broker's pre-approval represents a ceiling, not a target.

Second option: understate by 15-20%. If your real budget is $1.5 million, say you're working with something around $1.25 to $1.3 million. If the agent thinks you can't afford the property, they'll spend less energy manipulating you and more energy finding the right buyer — which sometimes means they come back with a price reduction to keep you in the game.

Your income, your savings balance, your borrowing capacity — these numbers belong exclusively to your mortgage broker. Nobody else needs them.

Statement 2: "Our lease ends next month, so we need to move quickly"

Urgency destroys negotiating power. Every experienced agent knows this.

The moment you reveal a deadline — a lease expiry, a visa condition, a school enrollment date, a baby due date — you've told the agent that walking away from a bad deal isn't an option for you. That changes the entire dynamic.

An agent facing an urgent buyer will push for faster settlement timelines (which benefit the vendor's cash flow), discourage you from conducting thorough building inspections ("the vendor won't accept a long due diligence period"), and resist price negotiations because they know you'll cave under time pressure.

I've seen agents use this tactic explicitly. One client told me the agent said: "Look, if you want to get your kids into school for Term 1, you need to sign tonight. The vendor has other interested parties." The other interested parties turned out to be fictional.

Keep your timeline to yourself. If an agent asks when you're looking to settle, say "we're flexible" regardless of whether you are. Flexibility, real or perceived, is the single most powerful negotiating asset you can hold.

In our team's experience, a buyer who appears willing to walk away from any individual property will pay, on average, $10,000-$30,000 less than a buyer who appears emotionally committed 3.

Statement 3: "I absolutely love this house"

I get it. You walk into a place and the morning light hits the kitchen just right, the backyard has a mature lemon tree, and suddenly you can picture your life there. You turn to your partner and say, loudly enough for the agent circling the room: "This is the one."

You've just added $20,000 to the price.

Modern open homes are not casual affairs. Many agents record visitor feedback — some use sign-in apps that track return visits, and an increasing number of properties have security cameras running during inspections 4. If you express strong emotional attachment within earshot of the agent, or worse, within range of a camera, that information goes straight to the vendor.

A vendor who knows a buyer is emotionally invested will hold firmer on price. Why discount when someone has already signalled they'll pay whatever it takes?

The professional approach: maintain a neutral expression during inspections. Take notes on your phone. Ask practical questions about rates, easements, building age — things that signal analytical interest rather than emotional attachment. Save the excitement for the car.

I train our clients to adopt what I call the "surveyor mindset" at open homes. You're there to collect data, not to shop. Your emotional response to the property is irrelevant to its investment value — and even for owner-occupiers, letting emotion drive price decisions is the fastest path to overpaying.

Statement 4: "Domain says it's only worth $950K — why are you asking $1.1M?"

Domain and REA Group both publish automated property estimates. These estimates are algorithm-generated using recent comparable sales, and their error margin sits between 10% and 20% depending on the suburb and property type 5. For unusual properties — irregular blocks, dual-occupancy setups, heritage-listed homes — the margin can blow out to 30% or more.

When you quote a Domain or REA estimate to a selling agent, you're not demonstrating market knowledge. You're demonstrating the opposite. Every agent in Melbourne knows these estimates are unreliable, and citing them instantly marks you as an inexperienced buyer who can be managed.

If you want to challenge a listing price, you need actual comparable sales data. That means recent settled transactions (not listing prices) for properties with similar land size, building quality, and location attributes within a 500-metre radius. You can access some of this through PropTrack or the REIV quarterly reports, but the most accurate data comes from direct conversation with local agents who handle multiple listings in the same pocket 6.

Our approach for clients: we never argue price with a selling agent. Instead, we make offers supported by a one-page comparable sales analysis showing three to five recent transactions that anchor our number. When an agent can see the logic behind an offer, they're more likely to present it favourably to the vendor — because they know they'll have to defend the sale price to the vendor's solicitor at settlement anyway.

"Arguing with an agent about listed price is pointless. They didn't set the price — the vendor did. Your job is to make an offer that the data supports and let the vendor decide whether to accept reality." — Yan Zhu

Statement 5: "I'm working with five different agents across three suburbs"

Buyers think this signals efficiency and market savvy. Agents hear something very different: this person is not committed, and any effort I invest in finding them a property will probably go unrewarded.

The result? You become the lowest-priority contact on every agent's list. When a genuinely good off-market listing comes through — the kind that sells before it ever hits REA or Domain — the agent will call their three most serious, most responsive buyers first. If you've positioned yourself as a casual browser who's spreading your attention across multiple agents, you won't even hear about the opportunity.

Off-market properties represent approximately 15-20% of all residential transactions in Melbourne, and that share has been growing 7. These are often the best deals because they involve vendors who want a quiet sale, who are motivated by circumstances (divorce, estate, relocation), and who will accept reasonable offers to avoid the cost and stress of a public campaign.

The professional strategy: work with a maximum of two agents in your target area. Be responsive to their calls. Show up to inspections on time. When they send you a property, give substantive feedback within 24 hours — even if the feedback is negative. Agents allocate their best opportunities to buyers who are engaged, decisive, and easy to work with.

Alternatively, appoint a buyer's agent who does this relationship management for you. A good BA has established networks across 20-30 selling agents and gets offered off-market listings regularly because they're known for closing deals quickly with well-qualified buyers 8.

The overarching principle

Every piece of information you disclose at an open home shifts the negotiating balance toward the vendor. Budget, timeline, emotional state, competing activity — all of it.

The defence is simple but difficult to execute under social pressure: say less.

Agents are trained conversationalists. They'll ask casual questions that feel friendly but serve a strategic purpose. "How long have you been looking?" (gauging urgency). "Do you have kids?" (gauging school deadline pressure). "What do you do for work?" (estimating borrowing capacity). Every answer you give tightens their understanding of your position.

Practise this before your next inspection: answer questions with questions. "How long have we been looking? A while — what's the vendor's situation? How long has this been on the market?" Redirecting the conversation toward the vendor's circumstances is far more useful than revealing your own.

And if you find yourself in a situation like my follower — at auction, facing a phantom bidder engineered to push you toward your disclosed maximum — the correct response is to stop bidding. Let the property pass in. Negotiate privately afterward, when the vendor's fear of a failed campaign gives you the advantage.

At current interest rates, overpaying by $50,000 on a property purchase translates to roughly $3,000 per year in additional mortgage interest, sustained over 25-30 years. At a floating rate of 6%, the lifetime cost of a $50,000 overpayment is approximately $108,000 9. That's the real price of loose lips at an open home.

Next time you walk into an inspection, keep it professional. Or better yet — get someone whose job it is to speak on your behalf.