Is a buyers agent worth it in a slow market?

A buyers agent is worth it in any market.

Our primary goal is to give busy professionals and business owners their time back. Regardless of the market, the average property search takes over 150 hours.

But let’s look at this through the lens of results. Can a buyers agent get a better result than an ordinary buyer when there’s very little, or no, competition?

In a hot market the risk largely stems from competition, rapid price growth, overpaying, and missing out. In a slow market, the risk shifts to asset selection, valuation and negotiation. Vendors are anxious and far more negotiable. More properties have been sitting on the market. When markets turn, the first thing to drop is the availability of stock, due to seller psychology and their reluctance to sell for less than the peak of the market. But distress can force a sale for a discount, and knowing why a property is being sold — or hasn’t yet sold — grants you far more leverage in a soft market.

There’s a benefit in spotting distress in properties that opens up extraordinary deals, and being discerning about which properties and opportunities to investigate. Many buyers don’t shift their behaviour between markets, and will pay ‘boom’ prices when they could have bought a property for tens, or even hundreds of thousands, less.