If you could purchase a property without any other prospective purchasers competing with you, chances are you’ll have purchased it off-market, and for a great price.

So why would a seller consider selling their property off-market?

Firstly, let’s explain what an off-market sale is. When a seller sells their property off-market, this means that it’s sold without being advertised publicly on realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. No marketing fees, no photography, no signs, no fanfare, just a quiet, simple sale.

There are various reasons why a seller might choose to sell their property off-market. At the end of the day, it comes down to what motivates them to sell. If they wanted the highest price, sometimes selling off-market will not achieve that. But what about a quick sale, or unique circumstances?

Here are 6 reasons why in our experience, a seller would sell their property off market:

Privacy: The sellers don’t want the neighbours to know or don’t want their personal space shared with the world.
Debt: The sellers may be faced with a horrible decision. Go back to baked beans on toast or sell their home. If a seller finds themselves in this situation, selling quickly to relieve themselves of the debt pressures may be more important to them than selling for the highest price.
Divorce: It sucks to say, but sometimes when divorce proceedings take priority, simply selling the property is more important than selling it for the highest price.
Death: Another unfortunate circumstance, the sale may be part of dissolving an estate and the beneficiaries may prefer to sell the property quietly.
Convenience: The sellers can continue to live in the property, don’t need to present it immaculately for sale and don’t have to leave the property for open homes.
Cost: Selling off-market doesn’t involve any investment on the seller’s part for marketing fees and sometimes the real estate agent is willing to reduce their fee seeing as the sale is quicker and more simple than an on-market sale.
Unique Needs: We once purchased a property off-market where the seller was incredibly worried about her to transition to retirement living. We offered her a 6 month settlement after viewing the property off-market and she accepted our offer - $28,500 less than another buyer who needed a 6 week settlement period themselves.

Now that we know what reasons a seller would sell off-market, the next challenge is finding these properties in the first place.

That’s where an experienced buyers agent knowledgeable in the local area comes in. They’ll be able to leverage their relationships with real estate agents and people in the community to find sellers who are willing to sell off-market.