Yes, a buyer's agent with strong local relationships can hear about a home before it hits realestate.com.au, and some homes sell without ever being advertised. But that access is a timing and relationships advantage. It is not a discount. And under $1m in South East Queensland and Melbourne's growth corridors, it is worth less right now than the sales pitch suggests.
How an agent hears about a home early
Selling agents ring buyer's agents they know and trust. A vendor might want privacy, or want to skip the cost of a campaign. A selling agent might want to test a price with a serious buyer before launching. The buyer's agent who regularly does deals in that suburb gets the call.
That's the whole mechanism. There's no secret database. Access depends on the individual agent and the individual suburb, so an agent who is well connected in Logan may have nothing in Moreton Bay.
Three terms get blurred, so here's how I'd separate them:
- Off-market: sold without a public campaign.
- Pre-market: shown to a few buyers before the public campaign starts.
- Coming soon: publicly advertised, but not yet open for inspection.
Only the first is truly invisible to you. The other two you can often find yourself.
How common is it?
Nobody officially counts off-market sales. The figure you'll see most often is that up to about 20% of Australian sales happen off-market. That is an estimate from REBAA, the buyer's agent industry body, as reported by media and agency blogs, and REBAA is not a neutral source. It is also a national guess, not a number for a $750,000 unit in Ipswich or a house in Melbourne's west.
If an agent tells you a bigger share than that, ask where it comes from. Self-reported numbers on agent websites are marketing.
Is off-market cheaper?
The best-known study is PropTrack's 2023 Off-Market Sales Performance report, covering 2022 sales. It found houses sold off-market went for 4.3% less on average nationally than houses listed on realestate.com.au. It put Melbourne at 2.6% less and Brisbane at 3.6% less, and said Queensland off-market house sellers averaged losses of 3% or more.
Before you read that as a buyer's saving, three caveats:
- It measures what sellers received. It is not a promise that buyers pay less.
- PropTrack is owned by REA Group, which runs realestate.com.au. "Off-market" in the study means any sale it couldn't match to a realestate.com.au listing.
- It's from 2023 and covers 2022 sales, a different market from this one.
What it does suggest is that sellers who skip the open market tend to give something up, usually the competitive tension. Whether you capture any of that depends on the deal in front of you.
What the open market looks like right now
This is the part that changes the maths for a buyer under $1m. Cotality's latest figures show a market that has swung toward buyers:
| Measure (Cotality) | Now | A year earlier |
|---|---|---|
| Capital city median days to sell, September 2026 quarter | 39 | 23 |
| Brisbane median days on market, four weeks to 11 October 2026 | 38 | 17 |
| Brisbane median vendor discounting | 4.7% | 2.7% |
Cotality describes the capital city selling time as the longest in five years, and capital city vendor discounting of 4.4% as a five-year high. Brisbane's advertised listings are up 60.4% on a year ago. Nationally, total advertised listings are up 19.1% at 145,573, slightly above the five-year average.
Cotality's Tim Lawless has said buyers are generally facing less competition and vendors have to be more realistic on price as stock rises and homes take longer to sell. In his September release he said longer selling times, bigger discounts and persistently low auction clearance rates all point to a buyer's market, with buyers lacking confidence.
Prices reflect it. At 30 September 2026, Cotality's Greater Brisbane median dwelling value was $1,048,880, down 4.7% over the quarter but up 5.9% over the year. The Brisbane median house value was $1,146,078 and the median unit value $834,627, so under $1m you're mostly looking at units and outer-ring suburbs. Melbourne's median dwelling value was $780,550, down 6.2% over the year and 7.5% below the March 2022 peak. Its median house value was $915,119.
Those are capital-city averages. Some pockets are still tight. But in a lot of sub-$1m stock, the buyer who can wait, inspect and negotiate has more room than they did a year ago. I covered the shift in what falling prices mean if you're buying.
A hypothetical, so you can see the test
Say an agent rings about an unlisted Brisbane unit priced around that $834,627 median, and says the vendor wants a decision by Friday. This is an example, not a real client.
In a market where the median Brisbane listing takes 38 days to sell and vendors are discounting by a median of 4.7%, the question is not "is this a rare opportunity?" It's "what would this sell for if it were listed, and what are similar places nearby actually selling for after the discounting?" If you can't answer that, a deadline is the thing to be wary of.
When off-market access is worth paying for
It's worth real money when:
- You're targeting a suburb that is still tight and fast, where good stock goes quickly.
- You have no time to search, inspect and chase selling agents yourself.
- The agent can show you actual deals they've done in your suburb and price range, not just claim access.
It's worth much less when:
- Your suburb is well stocked and homes are sitting for weeks.
- You can get to inspections, read the documents and negotiate yourself. I went through where the hours go in buyer's agent vs doing it yourself.
- The pitch is mostly about access, rather than valuation and negotiation, which is where most of the value sits. See what a buyer's agent does, week by week.
If you do hire one, fees are usually structured as a fixed fee, a percentage of the purchase price, or an engagement fee up front, sometimes a mix. I explain how they work in how much a buyer's agent costs.
What to ask the agent
Nobody publishes a suburb-level count of off-market sales, so ask the agent for theirs. Something like:
- "Of the purchases you made for clients in [my suburb] under $1m over the last 12 months, how many were off-market, how many pre-market and how many through a public campaign?"
- "Talk me through one, without names: how did you hear about it, and how did you decide what it was worth?"
- "Do you receive payment from anyone other than me, such as a developer, a selling agent or a referral partner?"
- "If you don't find anything off-market, do I still pay the same fee?"
An honest answer might be "mostly public campaigns in that suburb". That's a fine answer. It means they'll earn their fee by negotiating, not by access. There are more questions in 7 questions to ask a buyer's agent.
The payment question matters. In Queensland, a property developer or real estate agent with a beneficial interest in a sale must give a potential buyer a disclosure form (Form 8). It covers referral relationships, commissions paid or received, and the agent's interests in the property, and penalties apply for failing to disclose.
Treat any off-market offer as a normal purchase
Off-market doesn't mean fewer protections. In Queensland, the REIQ says an off-market sale does not exempt the seller. You must still receive the Form 2 Seller Disclosure Statement and the prescribed certificates before signing the contract, and the seller must still disclose material facts. Rules differ by state, so for a Victorian purchase check what applies with your conveyancer or Consumer Affairs Victoria.
Then value it on its own numbers:
- Recent comparable sales nearby, not the agent's say-so.
- What similar places are listed at, and how long they've been sitting.
- Current vendor discounting in that market.
- Your own inspection, building and pest checks, and finance approval, and whether you can still ask for the usual conditions.
If the offer only works when you skip those steps, it doesn't work. A lack of competing bidders can feel like a bargain, but it also means nobody else has tested the price. For more on that dynamic, read negotiating against a selling agent.
Your budget matters more than the access
Borrowing capacity is a main reason buyer demand has weakened. The RBA cash rate target is 4.60% after a 25 basis point rise on 29 September 2026, the fourth rise this year, and the next decision is on 3 November. The big banks are split on whether there'll be a fifth. This is general information, not financial advice. Run your own numbers through the borrowing power calculator and read why your borrowing power dropped this year first. Knowing your real ceiling protects you from an off-market price that stretches it.
My view: under $1m, in this market, off-market access alone is rarely a good reason to hire an agent. Time, valuation and negotiation can be. If you decide you want help, Converta can match you with a licensed buyer's agent who works your area, and you can speak to more than one before choosing. You can start at our buyer's agent matching page.