Most buyers lose the negotiation before it starts. Not on price, and not on nerve. They lose it because they turn up without finance sorted, without knowing what’s in the contract, and without any idea what the place next door actually sold for. The agent works out all three inside about ninety seconds.

So here is how to negotiate with a real estate agent from both sides of the desk. I asked Mae Chan, who has spent more than a decade selling on Sydney’s Upper North Shore, what she notices about the buyers who get the property and the ones who don’t.

Before you go anywhere near an offer, know your real number. Email startnow@sorenfinancial.com and we’ll tell you what you can actually borrow, what the repayments look like, and what the purchase costs on top. Takes one conversation.

Get your finance approved before you negotiate with a real estate agent

This is the whole game. An agent has to give the vendor a recommendation, and “this buyer is approved and can exchange tomorrow” beats “this buyer is $20,000 higher but hasn’t spoken to a lender” more often than you’d think. Certainty is worth money to a seller.

Pre-approval also stops you doing the thing we see every week, which is falling in love with a place $150,000 above what a lender will actually give you. And it’s not just the loan. Work out the stamp duty, the legals, the building and pest, the removalist, and the insurance before you’re emotionally committed, not after. Our stamp duty calculator gives you the duty figure for your state in about ten seconds.

Brokers don’t cost you anything to use, and you’re not going bank to bank comparing policies that change monthly. That’s our job.

Do your research on what actually sold, not what’s listed

Asking prices tell you what a vendor hopes for. Sold prices tell you what the market paid. Domain and realestate.com.au both publish recent sales, and most decent agents will talk you through comparable sales in their patch if you ask properly.

Mae’s point: be direct about your situation. You don’t have to hand over your exact maximum, but give a range. Agents call the buyers they can place. If they don’t know what you’re after, you’re not on the list when something comes up or when a price drops.

Read the contract of sale before you make an offer

In NSW the vendor has to have a contract prepared before the property can be marketed. Get your solicitor or conveyancer across it early, not the night before you exchange. They’ll find the things that change the deal: a six month settlement, tenants with a year left on their lease, exclusions that walk the light fittings out the door.

Two things worth knowing about the cooling-off period, because they come up in every negotiation:

• A residential sale in NSW carries a 5 business day cooling-off period after exchange, and 10 business days for off-the-plan. Pull out during it and you forfeit 0.25% of the purchase price — $250 for every $100,000, so $2,500 on a $1 million place.
• There’s no cooling-off period at auction, or if you exchange on the same day a property is passed in.

That’s where the 66W certificate comes in. It’s a certificate from your solicitor that waives your cooling-off rights, and it’s what turns your offer into an unconditional one. Agents love it, because it removes the risk of the deal falling over. Only hand one over once your finance is approved and your inspections are done — you’re giving up your way out.

Cooling-off rules and the 0.25% figure confirmed at nsw.gov.au, September 2026.

Get your own pest, building or strata report

In NSW a vendor isn’t legally required to give you a pest and building report, though many now provide one. You’re entitled to get your own, and on anything other than a brand new build, you should.

It’s a few hundred dollars against the biggest purchase of your life. And it cuts both ways in a negotiation: a report showing a real problem is leverage. Termite damage, rotting windows, rising damp, a roof that needs doing — if you still want the place, that’s a number you can take off your offer with something in writing behind it.

Tell the agent you’re interested

Buyers love playing hard to get. It almost never works. The agent isn’t trying to read your poker face, they’re trying to build a shortlist of people who will actually turn up and exchange. Silence gets you left off it.

Be someone the agent wants to deal with

Everyone has an agent story. Some of them are deserved. But the agent isn’t the one you’re negotiating against — the vendor is. The agent is the message carrier, and how you treat them decides whether your offer gets presented as “solid buyer, ready to go” or “this one’s been difficult all week”.

The buyer who wins isn’t usually the one with the most money. It’s the one the agent can put in front of the vendor and say “this will settle”. You buy that position with preparation, not charm.

Mansour Soltani, Director, Soren Financial

The short version

• Finance approved, and the purchase costs worked out, before you offer.
• A solicitor or conveyancer on the contract early, and a pest and building or strata report you paid for.
• Tell the agent you’re interested and what your range is.
• Be ready to move fast. Good deals close in days, not weeks.

If you’re looking now and you don’t know your real borrowing number yet, that’s the first thing to fix. Email startnow@sorenfinancial.com and we’ll run it for you, or have a look at what our clients have said about us over at OurTop10.

Last updated: September 2026. Reviewed by Mansour Soltani, Director and Credit Representative 527161, Soren Financial. With thanks to Mae Chan for the agent’s perspective.