If you have the time, know the area and can keep your nerve, you can buy a home under $1m without a buyer's agent. If you're short on time, buying somewhere you don't know well, or heading to auction, handing off the work starts to make real sense. The rest of this is the reasoning, stage by stage.
The table below shows where the time goes. The timings are elapsed time from surveys and inspection providers, not hours of effort. Treat it as a map, then count your own hours against it.
| Stage | What the work is | Sourced timing | Can it be handed off? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring the market | Tracking listings, sold results, price movements | Buyers in REA Group's 2024 Property Seeker Survey reported 15 weeks, up from 10 | Yes |
| Searching | Shortlisting, filtering out the duds, booking inspections | Same survey: 12 weeks, up from 7 | Yes, though you still choose |
| Inspections | Walking through homes, then a building and pest inspection on the one you like | Building and pest takes 1.5 to 4 hours on site (2 to 3 for a three-bedroom suburban house, 3 to 4 for a family home), plus 1 to 3 days to book and 24 to 48 hours for the report | The inspector does it either way. Someone has to book it and read the report |
| Due diligence | Contract, reports, comparable sales, what the street is really like | Part of the overall timeline below | Partly. Contract review stays with your conveyancer or solicitor |
| Negotiation or auction | Setting a ceiling, making offers, bidding | The same survey found offers stayed relatively stable | Yes |
| Settlement | Finance, conveyancing, final checks | The same survey found settlement stayed relatively stable | No. This sits with you, your lender and your conveyancer |
The REA figures are from the 2024 survey, so they're a couple of years old. The pattern still tells you something: the stretch that grew was the open-ended part, watching the market and searching. Inspections, offers and settlement stayed relatively stable. The long, loose phases are where a working buyer's evenings and Saturdays disappear.
On the whole journey, Aussie says buyers with a deposit and finance ready may finish in as little as two to three months, while others take a year or longer. Once the deposit and finances are in place, it says buying can take another two to nine months depending on conditions and circumstances.
I'd rather you tally your own hours than trust a number from me. Count the evenings scrolling listings, the Saturdays at open homes, the days off for inspections, the time spent reading contracts and chasing people for replies. That total is what you'd be handing off.
The "you must move fast" argument is weaker now
A year ago, one of the better arguments for an agent was speed. Good homes went quickly and you needed someone to get you in the door first. That argument has lost force.
Cotality's October 2026 Housing Chart Pack (September data) puts the median time to sell at 41 days nationally, up from 26 a year earlier. Across the combined capitals it was 39 days, up from 23, the longest selling period in five years. Melbourne's median home took 42 days to sell, up from 28. Brisbane's went from 17 days to 38, and total advertised listings there were up 60.4% over the year. Capital city vendor discounting reached 4.4%, its highest in five years.
In Melbourne, sales volumes fell 5.0% year on year. The build-up of unsold stock gives buyers more choice and more room to negotiate.
That helps DIY buyers. You have more time to look, think and walk away. Competing against a crowd is a weaker reason to hire an agent than it was.
The cases for an agent that remain are time saved, local knowledge, due diligence and negotiation. A slower market also doesn't make every street the same. In September, Cotality's index put Melbourne's median value at $780,550, down 0.7% in the month and 6.2% over the year. Brisbane's was $1,048,880, down 1.5% in the month (the sharpest fall of any capital) but still up 5.9% over the year. Cotality notes the median is an estimated middle value, not a sale price. Two capitals in the same month told different stories, and a headline about a slowing market won't tell you what's happening on one street.
Finance has also tightened. On 29 September 2026 the RBA raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60%. The decision was unanimous, and the Board said it would increase the rate further if needed. If you haven't checked what you can borrow lately, start with your borrowing power dropped this year and the borrowing power calculator. General information only, not financial advice.
Your budget shapes your search range
Duty thresholds decide whether a $590,000 home and a $760,000 home are different propositions, so they matter before you open a single listing.
Queensland
- An eligible first home buyer of an established home pays no transfer duty at $700,000 or less. The concession phases out between $700,000 and $800,000.
- For contracts from 1 May 2025, an eligible first home buyer of a new home or vacant land to build on pays no transfer duty, with no value cap.
- The $30,000 First Home Owner Grant applies to new homes valued up to $750,000.
- Any owner-occupier who will live in the home can use the lower home concession duty rates.
- From 1 August 2026, the home and first home concessions require the buyer to be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident or a specified foreign retiree.
Victoria
- First home buyers pay no land transfer duty up to $600,000. A sliding concession applies from $600,001 to $750,000, and general rates apply above $750,000. This covers new and established homes if you meet the criteria and live in the home.
- The $10,000 First Home Owner Grant is limited to new or never-occupied homes valued up to $750,000.
- The 2026-27 State Budget (5 May 2026) left the first home buyer concession threshold and the grant amount unchanged.
- The off-the-plan duty concession, due to expire on 20 October 2026, was extended to 20 April 2027. It has no property value threshold and covers strata-subdivided apartments, units and townhouses, not standalone house-and-land packages.
The criteria turn on who you are, what you buy and whether you live in it. Check them against the official state revenue offices, and run your own numbers through the stamp duty calculator and the first home buyer grant checker. For the wider picture, see stamp duty in 2026.
One practical point for Brisbane buyers. With the median value at $1,048,880, a buyer under $1m is shopping below the middle of the market, so the search leans on suburb knowledge.
Who can sensibly do it themselves
If most of these are true, DIY is a reasonable choice:
- You know the suburbs you're targeting and can read a street, not just a listing.
- You can get to inspections without burning leave.
- You're comfortable reading a building and pest report, or happy to ask your conveyancer and inspector plenty of questions.
- You can set a ceiling price and stick to it when someone else is bidding.
With stock building and vendors discounting, patience is now an asset. A confident, local buyer with flexible hours has a fair shot at a good result alone. Negotiating against a selling agent is the hardest part, and I've written about why in you're negotiating against someone who does this every day.
Who gets real value from handing it off
Time-poor buyers. If monitoring and searching run to weeks, as the REA survey suggests, and you work full time, someone else doing the first filter has real value.
Buyers in an unfamiliar corridor. Melbourne's west, north or south-east, or Logan, Ipswich or Moreton Bay, can vary a lot from one pocket to the next. Local knowledge is hard to get from a listing page.
Interstate buyers. If you can't get to inspections, someone has to be your eyes. Buying interstate has its own traps.
Auction buyers. Auctions punish nerves and unprepared limits. An agent can bid for you, as covered in how to buy without bidding yourself.
Fee structures vary. Some agents charge a fixed fee, some a percentage of the purchase price, and some an engagement fee up front. Ask for the structure in writing before you sign anything. How much a buyer's agent costs covers the detail without sugar-coating it.
What stays with you either way
Handing off the search doesn't hand off everything. Finance stays with you and your lender or broker. Contract review stays with your conveyancer or solicitor. The building and pest inspection is done by an independent inspector, whoever books it. You also make the final decision. A good agent narrows the field and pressure-tests the numbers, but it's your name on the contract. For the week-by-week detail, see what a buyer's agent does from brief to settlement.
If you land on the hand-off side, Converta can match you with a licensed buyer's agent who works your area, and you can speak to more than one before deciding. If you land on DIY, that's a fair answer too, and the market is giving you more room to do it than it did a year ago.
This article is general information only, not financial advice. Check duty and grant eligibility with your state revenue office and talk to a licensed broker or adviser about your own situation.