Have You Ever Been Pressured to Rush a Property Offer? | FUNdamental Fridays

In this Friday Fundamentals episode, Shane Pope and Luke Oxenham share what they wish more clients knew before buying property.

Shane starts with the negotiation side, unpacking how agents can create pressure and urgency during a deal — and why buyers often have more space than they realise to make a calm, quality decision.

Luke then explains the finance side, including why settlement length is often less important than the finance clause, cooling-off period, and the time needed to secure unconditional approval.

Together, they cover the parts of buying property that can feel stressful, confusing or rushed — and how better preparation can help buyers avoid poor decisions.

If you’re planning to make an offer, this is a useful episode to listen to first.

Got a question or a “hill” you want us to unpack? Send it through here 👉 https://thepropertycouch.com.au/topics/

⏱️ Timestamps

00:27 – Welcome back to Friday Fundamentals
01:09 – What Shane wishes more buyers knew
01:11 – Why agent pressure can feel so intense
01:34 – Can buyers push back on offer deadlines?
01:59 – Why buyers can be firmer with agents
02:24 – Creating space to make better decisions
03:01 – Why first home buyers can feel like they’re bidding against themselves
03:20 – Going radio silent and using time as a tell
03:49 – Why timing matters in negotiations
04:06 – Case study: negotiating a lifestyle property
04:26 – Four other buyers at the table
04:54 – Why a good buyer’s agent can help
05:13 – What Luke wishes more buyers knew
05:33 – Why unconditional approval matters
05:54 – Finance clauses and lender timeframes
06:12 – Why brokers plan for the worst-case scenario
06:45 – Why the first week matters most
07:04 – Buyer pressure before and after settlement
07:41 – Final thoughts and send in your questions

#ThePropertyCouch #PropertyBuying #BuyersAgent #MortgageBroker #propertytips

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You can be more firm in making a deal with an agent. In the deal making space, there is so much time and the pressure that gets insinuated from agents to purchases in particular is immense and it's not real.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Taking a step back and going ready at a silent can give you a lot of negotiable leverage or you get engaged at like if you're the only offer that's there, if it takes them like 15 minutes to call, like start chasing you for what's going on like an instant tell, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Welcome back, captors, to another episode of Friday Fundamentals. Now, it turns out that after three or four episodes, we are now neck and neck for we're gonna punch on because we don't agree. And oh my god, you're so right and clever, I should have listened to you more. So we'll see what happens. Today could turn the ledger. Now, the episode that we've got for you is something that I wish more of my clients knew. Is that a sentence? Did I say that right? I mean, that sounds kind of right. Something I wish more of my clients knew. Yeah, I wish that. But something something I wish more clients knew. Something I wish more of my clients knew. I wish more of my clients knew. This episode It's a working title. It's largely just saying that. Okay. So something I wish more than my clients knew in the deal making space, there is so much time, and the pressure that gets insinuated or inferred from agents to purchases in particular, particularly, is immense. And it's not real. For so much of the time that I'm doing a deal with an agent as a buyer's agent, I get to dictate when I will respond. Um hi agent, we're gonna submit offer by X time. Oh, it needs to be in by 12. Well, if you have to have it by then, you can't have it. The amount of times that an agent will turn around and go, Yeah, no problems. They're just trying it on. And it's their job. And so they should. They should make no apologies for trying to make a profit out of you and representing their client. But dealing with them in their world exclusively is is horrendous. Putting some walls up and saying, no, no, it's okay because my wife's not home from work. We can't talk about it till seven o'clock. This is a million-dollar decision. Whatever the justification, you don't even need to give it to them. But you can be more firm in making a deal with an agent, even when there's deadlines, because there's really no agents that take people with offers out of deals because they didn't get to them by five o'clock. That doesn't happen. So there's what I just wish that my clients knew there is a lot more space for you to make quality, sound decisions. So largely I exist because I can give you that space in a deal. We front end and shoulder all of that pressure for you and deliver you the little bits of information that you need to make your quality decision on. One thing I've always been big on with clients in my whole career every single person I've ever met who owned a home can make a good decision because they already own a home. Like so, and when they've saved up enough money to buy a home and use a buyer's agent, they make good decisions. We just give them space to do it. What's something that you wish more of your clients knew?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Well, that's true. I just wanted to quickly touch on your point. Sure, I think it's something that I see a lot with first home buyers or like my clients as well. It's very common for them to feel like that they're bidding against themselves. Um, and one of the things that I learned, because I got some advice from a buyer's agent when I bought my first property, is that sometimes taking a step back and going radio silent can give you a lot of leverage, or you can get a gauge as to how interested or like if you're the only offer that's there, if it takes them like 15 minutes to call, like start chasing you for what's going on, like that's that's an instant tell, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:37

And that's where the space is important. If you give it to yourself and they invade it, they're coming for you. They want you to do the deal. If you take a moment and you lose your nerve because 24 hours later you haven't heard from them, it's like, okay, cool, there might be other people at the table on this, but time is a tell. So you can use it to your advantage. It's hard though when it's a house that you love and it's the one that you want. Like get a buyer's agent, they will help you. Um, we anecdotally, I recently just did one. It's a soft market, it's a buyer's market. This is a lifestyle property. It was an acre and a half, it was out in Donvale in the hills. It's a beautiful home. But I said to the clients from the outset, this is typically not a home that suffers from a depressed market in terms of how buyers will react to it. Yes, the pricing will be a bit softer, but we're talking about a home that it typically in that area is held for over 20 years. These are generational homes. So we put in an offer in the first week to show some interest in the property, knowing that it wouldn't be accepted. And at the end of a five or six day negotiation, there were four parties other than us involved, three of them unconditionally higher. Yeah, wow. But because of the way that we were able to play our position in that deal and the timing to the table with the agent through experience, we were the last ones getting a bite of the cherry. So we put in our offer at the very end and it took to overnight to be approved. I mean, it's a huge process that took that time we're talking about. But, you know, if you if you don't have the capacity, skill, or interest in doing a deal over five or six days, just get a buyer's agent. A good one will be able to help you. Now, what is something that you wish more of your clients knew?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

So, probably the big one that I think is that as a mortgage broker, I'm not overly stressed about settlement time, whether it's 30 days, 45 days, 60 days. I'm more concerned about how long we've got cooling off for or how long is our finance clause.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

So that is what buyers call you about the most. They're just like, hey, settlement, what should I do? Correct.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

And then like like sometimes a longer settlement makes sense, but really, if we think about it, the bank to give us the final approval is doing all that work that they need to do, asking all the questions, pushing back, doing everything. We want that unconditional approval from the bank before we hit our cooling off, or we want it before our finance is due, so that we know the bank's turning up on the day with money.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

So in this climate, are we really shooting for finance clauses at a minimum seven days, ideally 14? Or I mean it depends on the lender, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So, like you always like part of my job as a mortgage broker is I always think about what's the absolute worst thing that can possibly happen. Good. And then try and avoid that.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

So um, so I will always say if there's a finance clause on the table, take it. Yeah. If we've got cooling off, how long is it? Who are we with? You know, what what lender can move within that timeframe that we want to do what we want to do?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Um because we really want to make sure that we don't put ourselves in a position where for whatever reason the lender turns around and says, Hey, look, we can't do that anymore. Which we've seen a little bit with some of these changes with negative gearing, where they've, you know, some lenders have pivoted midstream and started saying, Oh, we can't do this, so we're changing our calculator and doing that. Yeah. It just creates a lot of stress. Yeah. Um, so if you've got that finance clause and you've got that time, that's the bit that I'm concerned about. And that's the mad rush that the lender's doing. Once we've met that, we're just waiting around signing loan documents. So like the next 30 days of your 45-day settlement is realistically just waiting for the PEXA invite. So you're chill after that. Your pressure is at the pressure's the first week. That's right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Our pressure is before your pressure. Yeah. And then the buyer's pressure is for after settlement, make the payments. Correct. Only buying what you can afford, people. I gotta say, this is probably one of the most fun episodes that I've done with you because we get to talk about our subject matter from our client's perspective. And even though initially you were resistant to giving your surname, agreeing with me on points, even though I'm always right, or even acknowledging Chris every episode. Yeah, Chris. Probably one of the most fun ones that I've done with you. So thank you. That's totally fine. Anything you want to say to the millions of people that are adoring fans of yours? Stop it. Oh, stop it. You heard it here first.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

That's right. Everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. Again, as always, as if you've got questions, feel free to shoot them through. I'm getting really used to actually agreeing with you about stuff. It's it's been a good thing. I think the move towards reference. I mean, yeah, but like, I mean, that's pretty quite a I missed the day page. That was quite nice. I enjoyed that. Um anyway, but yes, if you've got questions, send them through. Shane and I will talk about them. Hopefully, not argue about them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

I think we missed it. I mean, yeah, we're growing as a couple right. See you and Chris on the next one. See you later. That was a significantly more interesting episode than I thought it was gonna be because what you had to say to me that sounded really rude when I said that. I'm doing the intro. I like the app. Yeah, okay. I'll do the intro.