Middlemen damage housing affordability
The Federal Government should consider the impact agent commissions have on purchasing property as one of the means to improve housing affordability, according to private sales platform, PropertyNow.
The firm said that the government continued to turn a blind eye to such an obvious solution and the Minister’s office twice ignored the company’s request to consider the impact of such commissions on property prices.
PropertyNow’s chief executive and founder, Andrew Blachut, noted that if the government was genuinely serious about housing affordability, it should educate the public on how to avoid agent commissions, which were ultimately passed on to buyers.
According to PropertyNow, commissions could be as high as three per cent and in some cases up to five per cent of the purchase price.
“The thing is buyers today are finding their own properties. Over 80 per cent use the internet as their first point of call to research property, so there’s no longer a necessity for the middlemen,” Blachut said.
“There is no evidence to suggest agent commissions bring any value to the sale of a property.
“The government has a responsibility to at least include the topic in their discussions. Even better, they should be creating greater awareness about alternative sales methods and the damaging affect commissions have on property prices.”
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