Stock remains tight, competition continues to rise, and many buyers are finding themselves outpaced by campaigns that move faster and more aggressively than they can respond to.
For years, sellers have benefited from professional representation, while buyers have often been left navigating the process alone without fully understanding how campaigns are structured or how decisions are made behind the scenes.
From my perspective, that imbalance cannot continue.
Having worked in real estate across Sydney’s eastern suburbs for more than twenty-five years, I believe buyer advocacy is entering a new phase one that will increasingly favour professionals with genuine sales experience and deep market knowledge.
When I first started in real estate, the industry was built on relationships, trust and referrals. Over time, I saw the market shift. It became less about relationships and more about self-promotion, fees, and agents inflating price expectations to win listings.
That change ultimately led me to step away from the sales side of the industry.
What I truly enjoyed was working with people who valued my experience and knowledge. Helping clients buy their first home or dream home, building long-term relationships, and becoming a trusted property adviser is what genuinely excites me.
Once I transitioned into buyer advocacy, I quickly realised most consumers are entering an incredibly sophisticated process without the experience needed to properly interpret what is happening around them.
Many buyers don’t understand when price guides are intentionally low, when an agent is simply telling them a story, or when a property sitting on the market actually has no urgency at all. After twenty-five years of reading these situations, I can generally tell what’s genuine and what isn’t.
That understanding often becomes the difference between securing a property and missing out.
A lot of buyers think purchasing property is simply about sending through an email with an offer. From a selling agent’s perspective, that’s rarely enough. If I were the selling agent, I would want to see a signed contract and a 66W certificate because that tells me the buyer is serious and ready to proceed.
Without that knowledge, buyers can unintentionally appear uncommitted, even when they genuinely want the property.
For me, a big part of the role is reading the play. What are the agents saying? How are they saying it? Is there urgency? Is there desperation? Understanding those dynamics is critical before deciding on the right strategy.
The first year of running Pacific Property Buyers showed me just how much of the market now exists outside traditional public campaigns.
In our first twelve months as a buyer’s agency, we secured more than $100 million worth of residential property for our clients. Around forty per cent of those purchases were off-market, while approximately thirty per cent were secured pre-auction.
Those opportunities only happen when selling agents trust that you are bringing genuine buyers to the table.
Interestingly, moving to the buyer side has actually strengthened my relationships with selling agents people I once competed directly against.
When I worked as a selling agent, other agents naturally saw me as competition. Now, while I am representing the buyer’s best interests, we are ultimately working together to get a transaction completed.
I believe this collaborative approach is becoming increasingly important as more buyers reach the limits of what they can achieve on their own.
I regularly see young families spend six to eight weeks searching, bidding, getting priced out and becoming frustrated. Eventually, they start questioning everything whether it’s their budget, the suburb they’re targeting, or whether there’s simply nothing suitable available.
A large part of my role early on is helping buyers reset expectations and understand the realities of the market.
For example, if someone wants to buy in Bondi, they may realistically need a budget of $3.5 million to $4 million. If they look at suburbs like Maroubra or Coogee instead, they may only need $2.5 million to $3 million. At that point, buyers either need to adjust their budget or reconsider the suburb they’re targeting.
That realignment is important because buyers today are dealing with competition that is both emotional and structural.
Many people assume a buyer’s agent is there simply to secure a bargain. In reality, it’s not about buying cheap. It’s about identifying and securing opportunities before they become exposed to the broader market and before emotional competition drives prices higher.
Across every price point whether it’s a young family purchasing a semi or a buyer acquiring a $15 million property the same challenges continue to exist.
Most buyers have the financial capacity, but they often don’t have the time, patience, or understanding of how the process truly works.
Looking ahead, I believe the role of buyer’s agents will continue to grow significantly over the next three to five years.
In my opinion, the majority of buyers will eventually use a buyer’s agent because most people simply do not have the skill set needed to navigate low stock levels and intense competition on their own.
What’s emerging now is not just a branding shift within the industry, but a structural one.
Buyer’s agents are increasingly becoming strategic advisers rather than simply property finders helping buyers interpret campaign dynamics, negotiate effectively, and avoid costly mistakes before they happen.
