What Real Estate Agents Don’t Want You to Know About Property Advertising!
15 Oct 2025| Posted by: Dave Tidbold
The real estate industry’s greatest fear is that home sellers will work out how easy it is to find a buyer in this current market for a property. In fact, most money spent by home sellers on advertising is not necessary.
The real estate industry’s second greatest fear is home sellers will discover the excessive advertising costs they’re paying is in fact used intentionally by the agent to attract more home sellers and to promote themselves.
Agents spend excessive amounts of home sellers’ money advertising (called Vendor Paid Advertising) to the same buyers that came through last week’s open house. These same lazy agents are finding buyers by using flawed selling strategies, such as auction and bait pricing tactics that undersell properties.
Buyers, (who are also often sellers) spend on average of 85 days researching a market before listing or buying. The excessive amount of home sellers’ money being spent by agents looking for buyers is often a big waste.
Many agents have become obsessed with their profile. One of the reasons this happens is agents are hired by an agency on commission only as subcontractors or as mini-franchises. The actual agencies do not provide any advertising monies or support to sell a home.
Generally, agents do not sell many homes, so they need your money to actually afford the advertising.
But all this is covered up with corny lines like, ‘you can’t keep it a secret’, and ‘more exposure means more buyers’ and on it goes. Agents also know the more you spend on advertising the more motivated you will become to sell and not lose money.
So, if the home seller is paying for the advertising costs, what should the home seller really be paying for? Answer: the agent’s negotiation and communication skills or lack of it in many cases.
Real estate agents have two primary roles when employed by a home seller.
The first is to find interested buyers. The second objective is the critical role of the agent, and that is to negotiate the highest possible price with the best terms for the home seller. Some agents can achieve this objective; however, many agents fail miserably and under sell the property costing the home seller thousands.
Home sellers should consider the critical role of an agent, and always follow The Golden Rule of selling property, ‘never pay upfront for advertising costs, or commit to paying if the property does not sell’.
The cost of advertising and the agent’s commission should only be payable if the home seller is satisfied with the end result. You need to ask yourself, can the agent sell my home for the highest price, or are they just trying to sell me an advertising campaign?
If you are thinking of selling, you can now choose an alternative to the typical agent methods and avoid all the risks. It’s called the Smartre Sale.
Here’s why Australians prefer the Smartre Sale.
The Smartre Sale has been respected nationally since 1990 and proves time and again that it is the best method of sale when a property attracts multiple buyers, yet stands alone as the only effective method of sale when there is just one buyer.
The Smarte Sale has become the most ethical, effective and risk-free way to sell a property that will provide a seller with the best outcome.
The best outcome is defined as:
- The highest price guaranteed - the Smartre Sale protects home sellers from under-selling.
- A sale within sellers' preferred timeframes.
- No upfront costs for a completely effective marketing campaign.
- No sale, no charge
These outcomes stand in stark contrast to the vast majority of the real estate strategies, which focus on increasing the volume and ease of obtaining ‘Vendor Paid Advertising’, and on creating sales at any cost.
Tidbold Real Estate is a Smartre Agency and is proud to offer the Smartre Sale. The agency employs ‘salary-paid’ salespeople who are incentivised for their performance only on the outcome of a successful sale.
